Upgrade Recommendations ? From GTX 1070 to?

AjFreimuth

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ASRock Fatal1ty Z270 Gaming K4 -
Intel Core i5-7600K
32GB DDR4 3200
Sandisk X400 256GB M.2
Seagate FireCuda 2TB
MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Gaming X

LG 34" 3440x1440 Monitor.

Starting to notice in newer games the perfomance not being as great as it was.
What would be some recommendations for an upgrade in the current mid range that I'll see a performance improvement on.
 
Major improvement:

RTX 2070 Super, or 2080 Super.

Nice gear you have :)
 
Major improvement:

RTX 2070 Super, or 2080 Super.

Nice gear you have :)
I wouldn't call it a major improvement for putting $500-800 for the upgrade. Honestly I would wait til 3xxx series. Is 25-50% and rtx worth it for the price? IDK up to you. Could also get. 5700xt for around $400 for around 30% increase.
 
I wouldn't call it a major improvement for putting $500-800 for the upgrade. Honestly I would wait til 3xxx series. Is 25-50% and rtx worth it for the price? IDK up to you. Could also get. 5700xt for around $400 for around 30% increase.

Do we have any idea when those next gens will be coming? I don't mind waiting awhile, specially cause I don't see a real cost/benefit in my favor of spending $400+ for 25-50% gains.
I'm not having huge issues currently but I'm for sure seeing dips in performance specially with things maxxed in newer games.
 
You could always sell your card and buy a $400-450 1080Ti. You'd be looking at a $250 upgrade and have substantially better performance. Not the ideal solution as it's another used Pascal generation card, but it is still going to go neck and neck with a 2070 Super at $500+ (lets face it...not many cards are $500...more like $550).
 
I wouldn't call it a major improvement for putting $500-800 for the upgrade. Honestly I would wait til 3xxx series. Is 25-50% and rtx worth it for the price? IDK up to you. Could also get. 5700xt for around $400 for around 30% increase.

You wouldn't spend the $$$, and that's cool.

Others may be in a different situation tho.

I stand by the 2070 Super being a Major improvement at the latest AAA games. The 1070 is comparable to a 1660ti these days.
 
You wouldn't spend the $$$, and that's cool.

Others may be in a different situation tho.

I stand by the 2070 Super being a Major improvement at the latest AAA games. The 1070 is comparable to a 1660ti these days.
Probably around computer in June.
 
I wouldn't call it a major improvement for putting $500-800 for the upgrade. Honestly I would wait til 3xxx series. Is 25-50% and rtx worth it for the price? IDK up to you. Could also get. 5700xt for around $400 for around 30% increase.

Or a 5700 for $290 or so and flash it to XT bios for a 29% increase. Sell the 1070 for $180 or so and you have a $110 30% upgrade. Sell the game code and maybe you're in the $90 range.
 
Do we have any idea when those next gens will be coming? I don't mind waiting awhile, specially cause I don't see a real cost/benefit in my favor of spending $400+ for 25-50% gains.
I'm not having huge issues currently but I'm for sure seeing dips in performance specially with things maxxed in newer games.

Youre at a pretty high resolution and those dips are to be expected.

Nothing but rumors so far on the Nv 3000 series.

So you can just wait, and possibly wait some more or you can upgrade now and happily play games for a year or so when a bunch of new stuff will be out and well tested.

I did that with my non-super 2070 and had a great year of gaming so far. No regrets whatsoever. $500 and done.
 
I'd save up and replace both. Newer games are really taking advantage of more than 4 cores/4 threads. See here (look at Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Borderlands 3)

https://www.techspot.com/review/1940-amd-ryzen-9-3950x/

If you did a major video card upgrade on it's own, you'd could also find yourself CPU-limited shortly (if not immediately). Just understand that you MAY HAVE TO REPLACE BOTH TO SATIFY YOUR DESIRES HERE, and 7700k are hard to find here in fs/ft (and hard to justify over just upgrading your CPU and mobo)
 
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I'd save up and replace both. Newer games are really taking advantage of more than 4 cores/4 threads. See here (look at Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Borderlands 3)

https://www.techspot.com/review/1940-amd-ryzen-9-3950x/

If you did a major video card upgrade on it's own, you'd could also find yourself CPU-limited shortly (if not immediately). Just understand that you MAY HAVE TO REPLACE BOTH TO SATIFY YOUR DESIRES HERE, and 7700k are hard to find here in fs/ft (and hard to justify over just upgrading your CPU and mobo)

He's 1440p UW, so GPU is going to be his big limitation, CPU not so much.
 
There's no way I would stick a $700 video card in a PC with a 4 core/4 thread CPU at the end of 2019. Yes that resolution is fairly high and you would be GPU Limited most of the time but that CPU is still going to be pretty much maxed out when you're not GPU Limited. You will absolutely get some hitching and stuttering in some of the more CPU intensive games. Even at 1440p I was seeing all 8 threads of my overclocked i7 hitting 100% at times so I can't even imagine having just 4 cores. You should really sell that CPU Mobo and RAM while it's worth something and go ahead and upgrade to a more modern platform.
 
He's 1440p UW, so GPU is going to be his big limitation, CPU not so much.
I'd save up and replace both. Newer games are really taking advantage of more than 4 cores/4 threads. See here (look at Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Borderlands 3)

https://www.techspot.com/review/1940-amd-ryzen-9-3950x/

If you did a major video card upgrade on it's own, you'd could also find yourself CPU-limited shortly (if not immediately). Just understand that you MAY HAVE TO REPLACE BOTH TO SATIFY YOUR DESIRES HERE, and 7700k are hard to find here in fs/ft (and hard to justify over just upgrading your CPU and mobo)


I have noticed my CPU also a couple times being used a good amount on some stuff. That has been a concern also. I'd love to wait another year at least for a full system upgrade as I have some other large purchases coming soon that will take priority over a new PC build. But reading a bit seeing Ampre is Q2 at least of 2020. I'm most likely going to upgrade my GPU before the end of the year and then possibly my CPU shortly after. Hoping that will get me by for another year would be great for another 2.

I will be selling my GTX 1070 when I upgrade to off set the price so that will help.


So now to decide either 5700/XT, or find a good deal on a RTX 2070 Super I guess?
 
For the price to level of performance offered in video cards it's hard to not say ( Or a 5700 for $290 or so and flash it to XT bios for a 29% increase) as I have one and it cost $359 without the free game but XT bios made up for that as I have plans to water block it now as just like I did to my HD 4890 XT back in the day .
 
For the price to level of performance offered in video cards it's hard to not say ( Or a 5700 for $290 or so and flash it to XT bios for a 29% increase) as I have one and it cost $359 without the free game but XT bios made up for that as I have plans to water block it now as just like I did to my HD 4890 XT back in the day .

You mind pointing me in the right direction in finding ones that can be flashed to XT and flashing etc? I wouldn't mind going that route.
 
Since BlackFriday/CyberMonday are coming soon, I'd look for a RTX2070Super deal or maybe a RX5700XT
There's no way I would stick a $700 video card in a PC with a 4 core/4 thread CPU at the end of 2019. Yes that resolution is fairly high and you would be GPU Limited most of the time but that CPU is still going to be pretty much maxed out when you're not GPU Limited. You will absolutely get some hitching and stuttering in some of the more CPU intensive games. Even at 1440p I was seeing all 8 threads of my overclocked i7 hitting 100% at times so I can't even imagine having just 4 cores. You should really sell that CPU Mobo and RAM while it's worth something and go ahead and upgrade to a more modern platform.

What CPU intensive games?
 
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5700/XT or 2070S.

I went 1070 --> 5700XT. Hindsight 20/20, bang for the buck, I prolly should have went 5700 flashed to XT, or sprung the extra $75 or so and went 2070S.
 
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Since BlackFriday/CyberMonday are coming soon, I'd look for a RTX2070Super deal or maybe a RX5700XT


What CPU intensive games?
Assassin's Creed Origins, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Watch Dogs 2, Mafia 3, Rise of Tomb Raider, Shadow of Tomb Raider and there are certainly some others that will eat 4 cores for lunch. And even in many of the games that will maintain over 60fps, the CPU will be fully utilized a great deal of the time and absolutely will cause some hitching at times. The absolute very minimum CPU that anyone considering a 2070 super or faster should be having is a modern 4 core/ 8 thread and really a 6 core/ 12 thread is suggested.
 
Since BlackFriday/CyberMonday are coming soon, I'd look for a RTX2070Super deal or maybe a RX5700XT


What CPU intensive games?

SOTTR made my aging 4/8 Xeon 1620 sweat quite a bit and really brings down FPS in the major towns.
 
You mind pointing me in the right direction in finding ones that can be flashed to XT and flashing etc? I wouldn't mind going that route.

https://hardforum.com/threads/navi-rx-5700-to-5700-xt-bios-flash.1986224/

I have done it and it is pretty painless. All it really does is unlock the power limits of the card. You can do the same on your own using the MorePowerTool in the thread to make sure your card can handle the change without the permanent bios flash. Flashing was simple using the latest ATIFlash. My card now says it is a 5700XT in GPU-z just with 2304 Shaders. It will boost to 1900Mhz or so in games after I undervolted it.

The biggest pro is the performance per dollar. The cons are you still have the blower cooler and a bios flash will likely void your warranty ;). I saved a copy of the old bios in case something happens I can always flash the old one on there.
 
I'm also having trouble when it comes to upgrading my GTX 1070, I think the minimum I want to do is a 1080ti, because I need more than 8GB Vram and the only other upgrade option is a 2080ti. So I'm likely gonna be waiting till the 30xx series.

I'm kinda shocked that there are no 2070 or 2080 variants with more vram than 8gb.
 
I'm also having trouble when it comes to upgrading my GTX 1070, I think the minimum I want to do is a 1080ti, because I need more than 8GB Vram and the only other upgrade option is a 2080ti. So I'm likely gonna be waiting till the 30xx series.

I'm kinda shocked that there are no 2070 or 2080 variants with more vram than 8gb.

Not many games even use 8gb, so it's not a big deal at this point. I'm pretty sure it was just a cost-cutting thing for nvidia since you would certainly think that 1080 ti -> 2080 ti you would get more vram.
 
I'm also having trouble when it comes to upgrading my GTX 1070, I think the minimum I want to do is a 1080ti, because I need more than 8GB Vram and the only other upgrade option is a 2080ti. So I'm likely gonna be waiting till the 30xx series.

I'm kinda shocked that there are no 2070 or 2080 variants with more vram than 8gb.

It’s super niche to need more than 8GB. Practically the only people that need that install super high res texture mods into games. Not sure if you can blame nVidia for not doing that.

I guess your choices are 2080ti or Radeon VII.
 
I have multiple games where 8GB has already been the limiting factor.
Two of my most played games use more than 8GB. Monster Hunter World, with the high res texture pack, actually goes over 8GB at 4k. So I have to choose 1440p with the high res textures or 2160p without it. =(
I've also had to remove certain mods from Cities Skylines and Planet Coaster due to VRAM management.

I also, regularly, stream 4k video on another monitor while playing. Which usually pushes me near or over that 8GB limit.

I'm just glad that I have a RAMcache setup so it negates load times and stuttering when I come across these scenarios.

Maybe I'm "super niche" but everyone always seems to question me when I say that I have these "rare use case scenarios" as though high fps FPS gaming is the only kind of gaming that exists.
 
I know games can use more than 8 gigs of vram because it will allocate it but I've never seen a single game that actually requires it even at 4K. I have a 2080 super right in front of me and came from a 1080ti and I can run the exact same settings at 4K and get even better performance despite having 3 gigs less of vram. Now I'm sure I could use some custom modded textures and find a limitation but not at the settings that are offered in games. Well I guess I could max the MSAA or SSAA in games that already use a lot of vram and offer that setting but really the game would be unplayable anyway no matter how much vram I had.
 
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Right, you can't trust a VRAM allocatiiion number to tell you what your "absolute maximum allocated before performance hits a wall" number.

This is because different game allocate different levels of preemptive cache. So a game that allocates 8gb VRAM might only be using 6 of that, but those extra 2GB may provide a SMALL improvement in frame variance.

When a game uses more VRAM than you have available, it's a pretty obvious framerate falloff (or it won't run at all). This is why sites like TechPoewerUp test new games with multile different video card VRAM levels.

Some proof that the most demanding new games don't exceed 8gb VRAM on the Nvidia side, even at max settings.

Red Dead Redemption seems happy with 6GB.


VRAM USAGE RECORDED BY TOOL: 5583. Seems accuurate

performance-vulkan-3840-2160.png


Borderlands 3 is also playable with Nvidia 6GB VRAM at max settings. There's a massive 45% performance gap between the 1060 3gb and 6gb.

VRAM USAGE RECORDED BY TOOL: 7749. seems inaccurate, or just some extra cache.

2160_dx11.png


8GB VRAM has a lot of room to grow, adnd I would expect Turing's successor to have 12/16gb VRAM in the midr/high ange.
 
I do like having a lot of headroom so I really didn't like the thought of dropping from 11 to 8 gigs of VRAM but the 2080 TI is just stupidly expensive and doesn't scale worth a crap overall above the 2080 Super even though it's 50% higher in cost. Personally for me the 2080 Super is sort of a stop gap as I wanted a little bit more performance in Red Dead Redemption 2 and Control and in those particular games it's over 30% faster than my 1080ti. I plan on getting a 3080 or 3080 ti as soon as they get released if they are not insanely priced.
 
When a game uses more VRAM than you have available, it's a pretty obvious framerate falloff (or it won't run at all). This is why sites like TechPoewerUp test new games with multile different video card VRAM levels.
Yes, I'm aware what it's like.
It's exactly what Monster Hunter World did to me at 4k. After the High Res Texture Pack it either had ridiculous stuttering or would eventually crash out with an error in certain situations. This was 100% VRAM related because that's what the damn error code said it was. Was it every time? No, but the amount of variables involved in MH world is ridiculous. (When you're right up at the limit, I'm sure even just players wearing 4 different sets of armors and weapons is a noticeable increase in ram usage.)

I can't trust benchmarks in this kind of thing because they're perfect scenarios. I'm sure if I limited myself to a single monitor, a single program, and had a fresh windows install I would be fine with 8GB VRAM.
I get why benchmarks are run this way, it removes variables and is repeatable, which is necessary.

However I have multiple monitors (2x 4k60hz and 1x 1440p165hz), It's a multi-use desktop that also hosts my media server (which uses the gpu to transcode). I usually have a video playing as well as a game a vast majority of the time, as that's how I roll. I also simultaneously have a bunch of tabs and chat programs and monitoring software on its own window and a bunch of stuff. For my use case scenario. I need more than 8GB of VRAM, because its a limitation that I COME ACROSS. Same reason that I have 48GB of system ram and nearly 40TB of hard drive space, because that is necessary for my particular computer usage.
I was also coming across issues with Final Fantasy XV but I modified some setting or a patch came out or something and it runs great now.

I rarely use MSAA or SSAA because, well, I have a GTX 1070 and it's too intensive for modern games at the resolutions I game at. It's not like I'm working with maxed out settings here, I don't have the cpu or gpu to do so most of the time.

I haven't ran any benchmarks on Red Dead Redemption 2 or Borderlands 3 myself because I don't own either of them yet. I will give them a try when they make it to steam.

Cities Skylines is known to try and load every single damn building asset into the VRAM at once. My biggest city attempts to use 8.6GB ram and 14GB VRAM on load, obviously it doesn't load all of that at once, but that's what it would require. Cities Skylines is also known to be ridicuously unoptimized and insanely cpu limited. (This city runs at 20FPS with only 50% gpu usage due to cpu bottleneck)


Anyway, yeah, that's why I know I need more than 8GB for my next upgrade.
 
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You mind pointing me in the right direction in finding ones that can be flashed to XT and flashing etc? I wouldn't mind going that route.

My card came from a retail store = Best Buy right off the shelve as I drove an hour to get it back in Sep I think = https://www.newegg.com/xfx-radeon-rx-5700-rx-57xl8mfg6/p/N82E16814150822

any of the ref cards will work but I see the price is going up like EOL or something and then use the AnandTech guild is how I did it . I like all AMD builds when it fits your needs and you can say good bye Intel and Nvidia pricing

I have not yet moved up to 3600Mhz memory and water-cooling as stock coolers and X Boost was set to office , http://www.3dmark.com/fs/20978627 that's enough for me .
 
Anyway, yeah, that's why I know I need more than 8GB for my next upgrade.


Cause you know, Cities Skylines has such high VRAM requirement. Check out this VRAM test:

https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/1888-evga-supersc-4gb-960-benchmark-vs-2gb/Page-2

960-4v2gn-cities-skylines.jpg


The biggest difference at 4k is 1 fps average 0.1% low. LOOKS IENTICAL TO ME!

Cities Skylines may have received higher resolution packs since launch, but if you're only starting with 2GB, even with those you're not exceeding 8GB VRAM.

JUST BECAUSE YOUR TOOL REPORTS 14GB VRAM USAGE DOESN'T mean you ctually need that much to maintain performance. Windows is always aggressive with it's virtual VRAM caching WHEN YOU HAVE THE SPARWE SYSTENM RAM TO WASTE.

48GB system ram is overkill for gaming, so Windows feels free to waste it. 14GB allocated for video virtual memory sounds like overkill to me!.
 
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The biggest difference at 4k is 1 fps average 0.1% low. LOOKS IENTICAL TO ME!
I'm pretty sure cities skylines, base, back in 2015, without mods or expansions, and without mentioning the size of the city, is identical to my nearly 200k+ population city with thousands more assets.

Yeah, disregard my experience, which is common in the cities skylines community, for some benchmarks that are a perfect case scenario of an unmodded, unexpanded base game that's 4+ years old.

I also literally said that I know that isn't how cities skylines operates in my post. Did you read anything I said or were you too damn busy to try and "prove me wrong" that you wanted to post an irrelevant graph.

Ya know, like when i said this:
I can't trust benchmarks in this kind of thing because they're perfect scenarios. I'm sure if I limited myself to a single monitor, a single program, and had a fresh windows install I would be fine with 8GB VRAM

Yes, 48GB ram is overkill for gaming. It's not like GAMING IS THE ONLY THING I DO. Which I mentioned, and explained, in that post.
 
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I went from a gtx 1070 to a rtx 2070 super!
if you want to see nice RTX updates ingame it may be worth it if you play allot of games.
 
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Seems like the OP should upgrade to a 2080ti and TheSlySyl should quit telling himself how cool he is in the mirror for a few minutes and buy a Titan RTX. I suppose then he couldn't passive aggressively tell us how badass he is by playing a game from the last decade which simply is too badass to even be loaded onto hardware that's a decade newer than the game.

I always lol when I check GPU-Z and I see that the most demanding game of the day tops out at 6.5GB while my system is sitting there with 96.

I have spoken.
 
I went from a gtx 1070 to a rtx 2070 super!
if you want to see nice RTX updates ingame it may be worth it if you play allot of games.

The 2070 Super is $100 too expensive at this point for what it is. It's not going to be a good RTX performer at 3440x1440 like the OP is looking for. I'd wait and see what happens with the 3xxx generation before I dropped $500 on one of those right now.
 
Seems like the OP should upgrade to a 2080ti and TheSlySyl should quit telling himself how cool he is in the mirror for a few minutes and buy a Titan RTX. I suppose then he couldn't passive aggressively tell us how badass he is by playing a game from the last decade which simply is too badass to even be loaded onto hardware that's a decade newer than the game.

I always lol when I check GPU-Z and I see that the most demanding game of the day tops out at 6.5GB while my system is sitting there with 96.

I have spoken.

Who else read that in Nick Nolte? You're the first I've seen use it. I knew it was coming eventually!
 
So I've decided to go with.
https://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-Graphics-256-Bit-Gv-R57XTGAMING-OC-8GD/dp/B07W95D5V3

I've already got a buyer lined up for my GTX 1070 @ $150. So after that I'll be out $250 on the 5700XT.
This should get me through another 2 years in my opinion. At that point I'll be donating my current setup to the kids and build myself a new PC from the ground up.

Thanks again for the input everyone.
 
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