Would I need to change CPU to get better FPS?

[DevTech]

19 hours ago, Mockingbird said:

 

Some of the suggestions here are ridiculous.

 

If you go to hardware sites like Tom's Hardware and ask if you should get TWO Geforce GTX 1080, 32 GB memory, and 1 TB Samsung 960 Pro, they would laugh.

 

The things that matter the most in a gaming PC (by order of importance)

 

1. Video card (a single video card NOT two in an SLI/crossfire)

 

2. Processor

 

3. Memory (fast memory, 16 GB is more than enough)

 

4. Everything else.

 

Any of 1, 2, and 3 can be a bottleneck.

 

Having too slow a video card could be a bottleneck.

 

Having too slow a processor could be a bottleneck.

 

Having slow or not enough memory could be a bottleneck.

 

Everything else don't make much difference (for games).

 

1. The ultra obvious bottleneck in the OP current system is SSD. So that should get top priority, since when he is gaming on his XBox, the SSD obviously helps his general PC usage and can be used in his eventual upgrade.

 

2. He plans to use mostly Xbox for gaming so it is perverse to suggest ripping out his current mobo and CPU and RAM for the small difference it will make compared to a GPU.

 

3. You appear to be ignoring his 4K requirement which again emphasizes one or two 1080 as a first step.

 

4. Only after all that is figured out and he actually measures a bottleneck in his CPU or RAM, should he consider an major upgrade of Mobo, CPU, RAM at the point in time when he wants to switch back from his XBox Scorpio to PC Gaming.

 

5. This is Neowin, not Tom's Hardware. I like to think we provide more thoughtful advice than just maximizing some benchmark.

 

[DevTech]

17 hours ago, slamfire92 said:

Having 4 extra threads + the extra clock speed will absolutely help you in gaming.

 

1. It helps keep the CPU from getting saturated from non gaming background processes.

2. The clock speed is much higher on a 7700k vs. my 6500 and I'd gain OC ability.

3. My 6500 Would probably starve a 1080Ti, leaving it waiting for instructions from the CPU.

4. It would future proof me a bit with gfx card upgrades.

5. I need the extra speed for emulation.

For gaming, the GPU is always the overriding factor.

 

Just because a CPU has "potential" to starve the GPU does not mean it actually will in the game you will be playing.

 

And even then you are better off with a (partially) starved GPU in most cases compared to a slower GPU and faster CPU.

 

I suspect the strange emphasis in this thread on CPU is human rationalization of some sort based on the annoying high cost of a 1080

 

 

 

[WildWayz]

This is so confusing lol

 

Just seen my gfx card sells for £380-400 SECOND HAND (sold, completed listings) on eBay - it was £440 new a year ago! lol how come?

A 1080Ti can be had for around £650-700. 

 

Is it worth just selling my card and just getting the 1080Ti instead?

I can't do dual cards - mobo only has 1 slot I believe.

[adrynalyne]

2 hours ago, WildWayz said:

This is so confusing lol

 

Just seen my gfx card sells for £380-400 SECOND HAND (sold, completed listings) on eBay - it was £440 new a year ago! lol how come?

A 1080Ti can be had for around £650-700. 

 

Is it worth just selling my card and just getting the 1080Ti instead?

I can't do dual cards - mobo only has 1 slot I believe.

Miners. 

[Mockingbird]

3 hours ago, WildWayz said:

This is so confusing lol

 

Just seen my gfx card sells for £380-400 SECOND HAND (sold, completed listings) on eBay - it was £440 new a year ago! lol how come?

A 1080Ti can be had for around £650-700. 

 

Is it worth just selling my card and just getting the 1080Ti instead?

I can't do dual cards - mobo only has 1 slot I believe.

The crypto-miner are buying the Geforce GTX 1070.

 

Geforce GTX 1070 is apparently better than Geforce GTX 1080 at mining because the former uses GDDR5 while the latter uses GDDR5X.

 

GDDR5X has higher latency than GDDR5 which is apparently worse for mining. (I am not a crypto miner. Correct me if I am wrong.)

 

If you can sell your Geforce GTX 1070 at a decent price and get a Geforce GTX 1080, you should absolutely do that.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

You are getting confused because some of the other users are providing you with incorrect information.

 

Anyway, you already made a good build list that I've helped looked over.

Edited August 22, 2017 by Mockingbird

[JustGeorge]

4 hours ago, DevTech said:

For gaming, the GPU is always the overriding factor.

Not when you're gaming @ 1080p for which you're very CPU bound at that point. I realize the OP is specifying 4K. This was for informational purposes only. 

Quote

 

Just because a CPU has "potential" to starve the GPU does not mean it actually will in the game you will be playing.

It may not, but when it does, your expensive GPU isn't reaching its full potential which means you're not getting your money's worth. The preferred scenarios is a GPU maxed out, not your CPU maxed and the GPU @ 70%

Quote

 

And even then you are better off with a (partially) starved GPU in most cases compared to a slower GPU and faster CPU.

I know of no scenario where a faster CPU hurts performance. Unbalanced in the sense that your PC isn't reaching its full potential because the gfx card can't do any better but that's it. 

Quote

 

I suspect the strange emphasis in this thread on CPU is human rationalization of some sort based on the annoying high cost of a 1080.

The slower CPU you start with, the sooner you'll be replacing it. JMO. 

 

[DevTech]

3 hours ago, slamfire92 said:

Not when you're gaming @ 1080p for which you're very CPU bound at that point. I realize the OP is specifying 4K. This was for informational purposes only. 

It may not, but when it does, your expensive GPU isn't reaching its full potential which means you're not getting your money's worth. The preferred scenarios is a GPU maxed out, not your CPU maxed and the GPU @ 70%

I know of no scenario where a faster CPU hurts performance. Unbalanced in the sense that your PC isn't reaching its full potential because the gfx card can't do any better but that's it. 

The slower CPU you start with, the sooner you'll be replacing it. JMO. 

 

You are just rationalizing a psychological desire of some sort for either a brand new CPU or some sort of Benchmark Aesthetic

 

A CPU maxed at 100% and GPU at 70% is a fantastically useful approach when the GPU is double or three times the performance of the previous GPU which is a common result when upgrading to a 1080ti

 

You are definitely getting your money's worth by putting your money where is does the most good.

 

After you spend a fortune on your 1080ti, then you can start to consider the value of another huge outlay to replace a Motherboard, CPU, and all your RAM to get some small incremental boost.

 

These simple facts of reality are true in all cases in terms of economic allocation to get the most gaming value for the money but apply extra in the case of the OP since for some time to come he will focus on his XBOX Scrorpio and so holding off the minor benefit of Mobo/CPU/RAM for a year or so nets him a lot of upgrade value when 16 core CPUs are affordable a year or so from now.

 

[JustGeorge]

32 minutes ago, DevTech said:

You are just rationalizing a psychological desire of some sort for either a brand new CPU or some sort of Benchmark Aesthetic

 

A CPU maxed at 100% and GPU at 70% is a fantastically useful approach when the GPU is double or three times the performance of the previous GPU which is a common result when upgrading to a 1080ti

Yep, and that maxed out CPU is going to cause stuttering once something else requests attention during gaming.

Quote

 

You are definitely getting your money's worth by putting your money where is does the most good.

 

After you spend a fortune on your 1080ti, then you can start to consider the value of another huge outlay to replace a Motherboard, CPU, and all your RAM to get some small incremental boost.

 

These simple facts of reality are true in all cases in terms of economic allocation to get the most gaming value for the money but apply extra in the case of the OP since for some time to come he will focus on his XBOX Scrorpio and so holding off the minor benefit of Mobo/CPU/RAM for a year or so nets him a lot of upgrade value when 16 core CPUs are affordable a year or so from now.

 

Well If he's going to focus on Scorpio, then screw the gfx card all together and wait a year for everything. No way I'd buy a 1080 now and plan to upgrade everything else in a year. He might get a much better card for same money by then.

 

16 core CPUs are going to be affordable in a years time??? Damn I hope so. 

 

I will say that there is no way I'd buy a 7700k or the z270 platform in general at this point. I'd either go 6-8 core Ryzen or buy Intel's Coffee Lake platform or whatever is available a year from now. 

 

 

Edited August 22, 2017 by slamfire92

[DevTech]

2 minutes ago, slamfire92 said:

Yep, and that maxed out CPU is going to cause stuttering once something else requests attention during gaming.

Well If he's going to focus on Scorpio, then screw the gfx card all together and wait a year for everything. No way I'd buy a 1080 now and plan to upgrade everything else in a year. He might get a much better card for same money by then.

 

16 core CPUs are going to be affordable in a years time???

A GPU that cannot handle the complexity of rendering a "busy" area of a game map is much more likely to cause issues. Like if a person can't breathe and they have a skin rash, you still treat the breathing problem first.

 

The fact that the OP posted this question means that he has an idea to allocate a portion of his available funds on his PC and that both his Scorpio and PC will be driving his 4K monitor.

 

So a 1080ti right now makes a lot of sense just for the 4K.

 

You are correct that a year from now there might be a 1090ti++ that has 4X the 1080ti (for example) and it would still make sense even then to stuff that into his computer first and see what happens...

 

On the 16 core CPU, I said a "year or so" and of course the future price is unknown. With AMD finally providing some competition on the high end, we are seeing a renewed focus by Intel on expanding core counts so it's reasonable to assume some competitive impact on pricing that plays out over the next year or so.

 

[WildWayz]

Thanks guys for all the excellent input. I have an Xbox One X pre-ordered (can always cancel it) - just trying to figure out what the best course of action is - sounds like a 1080Ti may get bottlenecked by the 3570K (which my motherboard doesn't allow overclocking apparently) - but maybe not until it hits over 60fps.

 

As the new cards are out next year (?) - might be best to hold off upgrading until the newest cards are out and do the card and cpu/motherboard/ram at the same time?

 

I know there's always the paradigm of "always something better around the corner; buy for now and not what will be out later"...

 

 

[DevTech]

1 minute ago, WildWayz said:

Thanks guys for all the excellent input. I have an Xbox One X pre-ordered (can always cancel it) - just trying to figure out what the best course of action is - sounds like a 1080Ti may get bottlenecked by the 3570K (which my motherboard doesn't allow overclocking apparently) - but maybe not until it hits over 60fps.

 

As the new cards are out next year (?) - might be best to hold off upgrading until the newest cards are out and do the card and cpu/motherboard/ram at the same time?

 

I know there's always the paradigm of "always something better around the corner; buy for now and not what will be out later"...

 

 

Most likely you could see scenarios of your current CPU bottlenecking the 1080ti but that should not be a concern to you or anyone. 

 

The GPU card is not a living creature that will feel pain if the food bowl is only 3/4 full. Think of it like a team of dogs pulling a sled. You double the dog team with the 1080ti and then limit the new team just a little bit. You will still win the race way ahead of the old dog team.

 

You can buy a 1080ti now and then move it to an upgraded computer a year from now. Buying it now will allow you to measure and test things and judge for yourself with real data the value and timing of an upgrade of CPU. If a great new GPU comes out a year from now, you can sell your 1080ti or use it exclusively as a PhysX engine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhysX

 

[JustGeorge]

41 minutes ago, DevTech said:

A GPU that cannot handle the complexity of rendering a "busy" area of a game map is much more likely to cause issues. Like if a person can't breathe and they have a skin rash, you still treat the breathing problem first.

 

The fact that the OP posted this question means that he has an idea to allocate a portion of his available funds on his PC and that both his Scorpio and PC will be driving his 4K monitor.

 

So a 1080ti right now makes a lot of sense just for the 4K.

 

You are correct that a year from now there might be a 1090ti++ that has 4X the 1080ti (for example) and it would still make sense even then to stuff that into his computer first and see what happens...

 

On the 16 core CPU, I said a "year or so" and of course the future price is unknown. With AMD finally providing some competition on the high end, we are seeing a renewed focus by Intel on expanding core counts so it's reasonable to assume some competitive impact on pricing that plays out over the next year or so.

 

I disagree with the gfx card business but oh well. If a 1080 is gonna choke with his current CPU whatever succeeds it will even more so. 

 

I still say that if the Scorpio is his focus the majority of the time, then it makes more sense to hold off a year and do it all together. Fact is even a 1080Ti struggles with 4K occasionally. If you're all about spending money where it makes the most sense as you say you are, then you'd agree that it makes sense to wait a year when gfx cards have more umph to deal with 4K. 

Edited August 22, 2017 by slamfire92

[Mockingbird]

8 hours ago, DevTech said:

Most likely you could see scenarios of your current CPU bottlenecking the 1080ti but that should not be a concern to you or anyone. 

 

The GPU card is not a living creature that will feel pain if the food bowl is only 3/4 full. Think of it like a team of dogs pulling a sled. You double the dog team with the 1080ti and then limit the new team just a little bit. You will still win the race way ahead of the old dog team.

 

You can buy a 1080ti now and then move it to an upgraded computer a year from now. Buying it now will allow you to measure and test things and judge for yourself with real data the value and timing of an upgrade of CPU. If a great new GPU comes out a year from now, you can sell your 1080ti or use it exclusively as a PhysX engine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhysX

 

The SSD that you recommended to the OP costs more than the processor + motherboard + memory [combined].

 

This is why other people can't take you seriously.

[DevTech]

1 hour ago, Mockingbird said:

The SSD that you recommended to the OP costs more than the processor + motherboard + memory [combined].

 

This is why other people can't take you seriously.

 

Please keep the discussion polite please, even if the population of "other people" consists of just yourself. There is nothing wrong with people presenting various alternative for the OP to consider and the responsible thing for me to do was dispel the fantasy/myth of the "CPU Bottleneck" just in case that could be the basis of a purchase decision.  The OP is quite able to agree with you that CPU is paramount precedence if he wants to. There is no need to build a consensus in these types of topics. I'm just making sure the proper facts are presented.

 

If his motherboard can handle a M.2 NVMe x 4 Samsung 960, then I can assure you from experience that it is worth every penny. It will have no effect on FPS and I never said it would, but will improve the operation of his computer tremendously while he is waiting to figure out his GPU requirements and is fully transferable to a new rig which makes it a sensible upgrade for his long term scenario.

[DevTech]

10 hours ago, slamfire92 said:

I disagree with the gfx card business but oh well. If a 1080 is gonna choke with his current CPU whatever succeeds it will even more so. 

 

I still say that if the Scorpio is his focus the majority of the time, then it makes more sense to hold off a year and do it all together. Fact is even a 1080Ti struggles with 4K occasionally. If you're all about spending money where it makes the most sense as you say you are, then you'd agree that it makes sense to wait a year when gfx cards have more umph to deal with 4K. 

Your suggestion is a possible option for the OP.

 

My first response to computer configuration issues like this one is to test - test - test. Given that he is allocating funds on a monthly basis, there is a case for buying the 1080ti and testing it with his current rig to learn where the 4K limits are with exactly the type of games that he plays.

 

Then he will be able to make an informed decision on how he wants to proceed. He can still decide to upgrade his CPU 1 month later or 1 year later depending on what he finds out.

 

[Mockingbird]

39 minutes ago, DevTech said:

 

Please keep the discussion polite please, even if the population of "other people" consists of just yourself.

Other users (i.e. Mind overmaster) would agree with my comment.

 

39 minutes ago, DevTech said:

 

There is nothing wrong with people presenting various alternative for the OP to consider and the responsible thing for me to do was dispel the fantasy/myth of the "CPU Bottleneck" just in case that could be the basis of a purchase decision.  The OP is quite able to agree with you that CPU is paramount precedence if he wants to. There is no need to build a consensus in these types of topics. I'm just making sure the proper facts are presented.

Certainly not a myth.

 

39 minutes ago, DevTech said:

 

If his motherboard can handle a M.2 NVMe x 4 Samsung 960, then I can assure you from experience that it is worth every penny.

The OP can get an SSD that costs less than half of that and would experience neglectable differences.

 

The OP is not performing tasks that would benefit from having a very fast SSD (i.e. editing 4K videos).

 

This is simply a huge waste of money.

 

39 minutes ago, DevTech said:

 

It will have no effect on FPS and I never said it would, but will improve the operation of his computer tremendously while he is waiting to figure out his GPU requirements and is fully transferable to a new rig which makes it a sensible upgrade for his long term scenario.

Holy mackerel!  So you are saying that he should spend unreasonable amount of money on something that won't even do what he wanted. Facepalm.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

i didnt read the whole thread, admittedly, but i have to disagree w/ a lot of people here. in my opinion, that aging Ivy Bridge CPU is not going to bottleneck a GPU. Other people were saying that you need really fast RAM and 32GB of it. I disagree w/ this, too. 16GB of decent DDR4 (or DDR3) will be just fine.

 

The biggest factor of gaming at 4k is going to be the GPU itself and the amount vRAM. i've seen games using a full 12GB of vRAM. The GPU is going to struggle to handle that many pixels so the CPU takes a back seat. That's not even including other effects like AO, particle effects, etc. Those will really chew up GPU cycles. Again, the CPU here wouldnt matter much.

[WildWayz]

I've put my MSI GeForce 1070 GTX Gamer X up for sale... will order the 1080Ti

[Astra.Xtreme]

1 hour ago, Jason S. said:

i didnt read the whole thread, admittedly, but i have to disagree w/ a lot of people here. in my opinion, that aging Ivy Bridge CPU is not going to bottleneck a GPU. Other people were saying that you need really fast RAM and 32GB of it. I disagree w/ this, too. 16GB of decent DDR4 (or DDR3) will be just fine.

 

The biggest factor of gaming at 4k is going to be the GPU itself and the amount vRAM. i've seen games using a full 12GB of vRAM. The GPU is going to struggle to handle that many pixels so the CPU takes a back seat. That's not even including other effects like AO, particle effects, etc. Those will really chew up GPU cycles. Again, the CPU here wouldnt matter much.

This absolutely.  

 

There are countless benchmarks out there that prove that a i3 vs i5 vs i7 and various generations of, make almost zero difference in gaming FPS.  Faster RAM speeds are especially pointless. The GPU is almost always the bottleneck, especially at higher resolutions.

 

Invest in a high end GPU and a quality SSD, and you're PC will be rock solid for many many years.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

1 hour ago, Astra.Xtreme said:

This absolutely.  

 

There are countless benchmarks out there that prove that a i3 vs i5 vs i7 and various generations of, make almost zero difference in gaming FPS.  Faster RAM speeds are especially pointless. The GPU is almost always the bottleneck, especially at higher resolutions.

 

Invest in a high end GPU and a quality SSD, and you're PC will be rock solid for many many years.

it's worth reiterating here that we're both talking about high resolutions. CPU might make a difference at low resolutions or in games such as RTS's. it's been shown many times that there is no bottleneck at higher resolutions across CPUs from Sandy Bridge all the way up to...whatever today's arch is.

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

2 hours ago, Jason S. said:

i didnt read the whole thread, admittedly, but i have to disagree w/ a lot of people here. in my opinion, that aging Ivy Bridge CPU is not going to bottleneck a GPU. Other people were saying that you need really fast RAM and 32GB of it. I disagree w/ this, too. 16GB of decent DDR4 (or DDR3) will be just fine.

 

The biggest factor of gaming at 4k is going to be the GPU itself and the amount vRAM. i've seen games using a full 12GB of vRAM. The GPU is going to struggle to handle that many pixels so the CPU takes a back seat. That's not even including other effects like AO, particle effects, etc. Those will really chew up GPU cycles. Again, the CPU here wouldnt matter much.

I said this before. GPU is your top competitor, not your CPU, RAM, SSD. Thanks for bringing that up.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

7 minutes ago, Jason S. said:

it's worth reiterating here that we're both talking about high resolutions. CPU might make a difference at low resolutions or in games such as RTS's. it's been shown many times that there is no bottleneck at higher resolutions across CPUs from Sandy Bridge all the way up to...whatever today's arch is.

yes from my experience 1080p seems to be the tipping point where things start leaning on the GPU more

[Mockingbird]

1 hour ago, Astra.Xtreme said:

This absolutely.  

 

There are countless benchmarks out there that prove that a i3 vs i5 vs i7 and various generations of, make almost zero difference in gaming FPS.  Faster RAM speeds are especially pointless. The GPU is almost always the bottleneck, especially at higher resolutions.

 

Invest in a high end GPU and a quality SSD, and you're PC will be rock solid for many many years.

There simply aren't a ton of comparisons out there because the processor is pretty old.

 

This is what I was able to find.

 

Yes, I know that none of these processors are the ones we are talking about and that's not the correct resolution...

 

... but as I said before, there aren't a ton of comparisons out there for older processors

 

[LaP]

13 minutes ago, Jason S. said:

it's worth reiterating here that we're both talking about high resolutions. CPU might make a difference at low resolutions or in games such as RTS's. it's been shown many times that there is no bottleneck at higher resolutions across CPUs from Sandy Bridge all the way up to...whatever today's arch is.

It's true for now cause gpus struggle to handle 4k and bottleneck the whole system. But wont be true anymore in a couple of years.

 

But yeah if i had an Ivy Bridge cpu i would not upgrade now. Those 4/8 cpus might get outdated fast if game developers start to exploit multi-core cpus better and gpus start to handle 4k better. The Ryzen 6 is pretty much the only affordable cpu with more than 4/8 from what i know. I would definitely not upgrade before next year if i was the owner of an Ivy bridge computer.

[Mockingbird]

4 minutes ago, LaP said:

It's true for now cause gpus struggle to handle 4k and bottleneck the whole system. But wont be true anymore in a couple of years.

 

But yeah if i had a Ivy Bridge cpu i would not upgrade now. Those 4/8 cpus might get outdated fast if game developers start to exploit multi-core cpus better and gpus start to handle 4k better. The Ryzen 6 is pretty much the only affordable cpu with more than 4/8 from what i know. I would definitely not upgrade before next year if i was the owner of an Ivy bridge computer.

I wouldn't agree with that.

 

Eight-cores Ryzen 7 1700 for $269.99 is pretty affordable