Upgrading GPU on an old computer/CPU, best choice to avoid bottleneck?

Bottleneck depends on the games you play and your resolution.

If you're on 1080p, you can probably pick up a cheap 1060 or 1070 and call it a day until it's time to rebuild.

At the same time, you can also overclock to 4.5ghz and breath a little more life into the system.

I noticed a difference moving from a 4770K at 4.2ghz to a 3700X system (both in my sig, moved 1070TI from the 4770K to the 3700X), but it's not something I'd recommend to everyone either, considering the cost for a full system (board/cpu/RAM).

 

Even back on my old 780Ti, I noticed a clear difference in stuttering and smoothness when going from my i7 2600k to my current 7700k setup. Average FPS numbers didn't seem to say much about that. I'd just upgrade the GPU to whatever is reasonable, IMO. It can easily be ported between systems and future upgrades. Even if bottlenecked, I'd still feel it's a worthwhile upgrade (again, IMO).

 

Maybe just get a 2060 super and call it a day, unless you do plan on upgrading the cpu/mobo/ram in the near future then I'd get the 2070 Super.

 

No mention of overclock on the 3770k. Do it if u haven’t. Just get any modern gpu to upgrade and dump the sli.

 

Your setup is over 7 years old and you do not want to build a new pc? Well you would be foolish to put a modern $500 gpu in there and think you will get any where near full use out of it in newer games. My oced 4770k was fully pegged quite often in most modern games and could not even hold 60 or even 50 fps at times so just think what a stock 3770k will be like.

You have to upgrade your cpu at some point so you are just putting off the inevitable and missing out on fully enjoying modern games in the meantime. You dont accomplish much by holding on to hardware until its useless and loses any resale value. I always sell my previous stuff before it gets too outdated and then of course that makes the cost of upgrading much cheaper.

 

From my experience, I have to agree. However, OP's Kepler GPU isn't really supported anymore, nevermind the SLI aspect. Now knowing the CPU OC has failed, it does put a tiny bit more pressure on that. I dunno, I guess go for whatever is cheaper? AMD Ryzen setups are seriously cheap and performant nowadays.

 

Ryzen 5 3600. Inexpensive but good motherboard and some fast ram. $350ish

The answer for upgrading an old system is to get the fastest processor it supports. Your machine probably works with xeons as well.. Ryzen 3000 series was the nail in the coffin for older systems since its inexpensive. and with recent leaps in the graphics department. The old systems are just too slow to be viable much longer.

 

Your oc'd 4770k is probably faster than my stock 4790k and I have no problems with modern games at 3440x1440 with my old 1080ti. the latest game I played was that Wolfenstein Youngblood game.

 

And some people have "no problem" playing on an i3 or using a gtx 750 ti. Just because you are not bothered or oblivious does not change what I said. And Wolfenstein Youngblood is not the least bit cpu intensive so that is poor example. His stock 3770k will be pegged quite often in many if not most modern games and again he will stand no chance of maintaining 60 fps in some games so its a bit silly to have a high end gpu go to waste like that.

Most Ubisoft games saw a MASSIVE increase especially in minimum fps when going from oced 4770k to a 9900k and here is an example in Watch Dogs 2. https://hardforum.com/threads/2080s-cpu-or-2080-ti.1984972/#post-1044287178

 

Most important is the resolution you game at and if you'll be upgrading the cpu any time soon such that a new video card like a 2070Super would be worth buying now. Since you can't get a stable OC anymore, I'd say for 1080p you're looking at a rx570/580 8gb or gtx 1060/1070 (used) or new 1660 6gb (meh on 1660ti). Maybe 1440p you could justify a 5700/5700xt or 2060Super.

Honestly, if you're just looking for the gpu upgrade to tide you over I wouldn't spend more than $250 if you're not upgrading to a new cpu/dd4 system in the next 6-12 months. With the new cards rumored to be coming out next year, Turing isn't future proof and I wouldn't put much stock in Navi (5700 etc) either.

 

Without an overclock ur screwed. U will need a new build then. If I was building on a budget, 3600x.

 

It depends on the cpu you pick as the starting point like this 3700x is running on a $74 Mobo = x470 Refurbished and $62 worth of 16Gb of 3200Mhz = $466 and it runs a RX 570 8Gb like this at stock ,




I been building 3600's on even cheaper boards with great results and like others say .. forget RTX and use the 2070 money and build a platform with at least a RX 570 8Gb .

 

My 2c would be that you can carry your vid card forward. So I would guess you get a good amount of increase with any gpu above 670gtx's in sli which probably equate to about 75% of a 1070gtx = 980ti and a 1080ti/amd 5700xt is about double that.... so like a 200% increase if you go that road. I would suggest looking in the FSFT section of this forum as I have seen 1080tis for sub $400 or you could look at a blower 5700 sub $300 new or a 1070/980ti sub $200. The problem with the 2070supers are they are $550 ish. If you were wanting to spend that extra $$ you could almost get a R5 3600 (180) cheapie b450 board (75) and 16gb ddr4 (60) with a 1070gtx.

 

Well then you have your answer and I am not sure what you expected to hear. Did you really think a stock 3770k would not be a " bottleneck" for a 2070 Super? And of course people are going to suggest you upgrade that old platform and give suggestions on what to go with as that is what makes sense here.

 

You are being a little ridiculous. A 2070 Super and 1080 Ti are essentially even so again what did you expect to hear? And even if one of those cards were a few % faster that does not mean a thing in the overall scheme of things. Yes your cpu will hold back any card around that level and as I already said you would not even be able to maintain 60 fps in some newer games. You have no intentions of upgrading your cpu now so really there is nothing else to say.

 

I started with a similar setup 3770 w/gtx970 playing black ops 4 as my benchmark (at 1440 ultrawide) was bottle-necked a bit by the GPU with that. But it heavily depends what games you play which you have yet to answer Cyber Akuma
At the start of the year I picked up a used GTX1070, that helped some and got my frames up by about 40% and power usage reduced by about 25% (also GPU didnt have to run at 100% since im at 60 hz).
Didn't have any major issues but my CPU was still getting hammered and general loading/advanced tasks took forever (on a regular SSD), so in March I bit the bullet and picked up a 9900k setup and a nvme ssd (I'm an bit of a Intel fanboy and the Ryzen 3 chips weren't out yet).
I would guess its a combo of the two, but the quality of usage improved dramatically after the core upgrade. Went from loading last to loading first most of the time in BO4 and being able to multitask games/twitch streams etc substantially easier without affecting my gameplay.

That all being said those 670s are really behind, as said you can pick up a 970 ($100) or 1070 ($200) really cheap and that would be my first recommendation as well.
Secondary would be your core to a system of your choice, if you're being cost conscious Ryzen is the way to go (you could also look at a second hand system here on the forums as well).

 

The best video card anyone would recommend for your needs would be a RX 570 8Gb as anything more would be a waste as your never going to feed it enough cpu power unless your gaming at 8K

I have played DMC 5 on my RX 5700 in the same setting with a Ryzen 3600 and the RX 570 is impressive to me to deliver IQ as good if not better in DX 12 then Navi and to be a much cheap video card tells me it's more Ryzen doing the magic . go to 15 min mark as playing in 1080p Ultra means I wasted my money on the RX 5700 and Ryzen was the better choice to spend my money on .

 

I think you rather spend on a cheaper card and upgrade cpu+mobo+ram
at least 8700k or 9700k/9900k/Ryzen 7 3700x /Ryzen 5 3600x

 

Nope regular 3770 not even a K, yes it would depend on the game hence why were were asking what you were playing .
According to this a 1070 regular would be about a 40% improvement and 60% less power usage (and you could still OC it): https://game-debate.com/gpu/index.p...mpare=geforce-gtx-1070-vs-geforce-gtx-670-sli

 

my advice is always to upgrade GPU first, then the CPU.

unless you want to get 120+ fps

 

you cant avoid a bottleneck when there is already one with a 1080Ti.. you either stand up with the bottleneck OR just get something will not be a bottleneck(CPU), not a worse GPU and the same CPU

 

I have a 3770k as also. Paired it with a 1070 and have no complaints. Now, my 3770k is overclocked to 4.4 with a very small bump in voltage, so that helps me as well. I would ditch those 670's and grab a used 1060 or 1070 and call it a day.

 

The 3770K is still quite a capable CPU for gaming. So unless you are looking for 120+ frame rates, you are set to go.

I currently run a i5 3330 with a GTX 1070 and a i7 4770 with a GTX 1070Ti.

 

Heh, I run a Xeon E5 1620 with a RTX 2070. Works for me. Also I'm cool with 60fps at 1440p, and some games I can do 4k as well. Also have a 1080p monitor if need be.

I'll probably upgrade when Nvidia launches It's next gen GPU's.

 

your cpu is only slightly slower than a ryzen 2600, so just treat it like that. get a 2060 super. you are g2g 1440p and nice high framerates and can use your ancient rig for another 20 years then you can come back here(we will all be dead) and ask the same question again which my answer will be to upgrade to an Athlon 3 5500 80-core and a nVidia PPX 1000 900gb super duper(free copy of Tom Clancy's The Sims 9)

 

I hate to say this but this is patently wrong. I had a GTX 1070 and went from an i7 2600k to an i7 7700k and about doubled my FPS. for watever reason the new CPU really does feed the newer video cards much better. So statements like this are generally wrong unfortunately. I was SHOCKED at the difference because really I thought just like this.

 

man like... none of the processors you mentioned are common with anything discussed here...

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-3770K-vs-AMD-Ryzen-5-2600/1317vs3955

 

yes you did a platform upgrade that can in many ways mean the reason of why you gained such FPS, first one IPC, which from sandy to kaby it's about of 25 to 30% at the same clock.. and there's where the second variable enter, clock speed.. was your 2600K overclocked?. also what RAM speed was running on that older system?.

aside from that there's no a typical scenario jumping from 2600K to 7700K you will double FPS.. unless the 2600K was running at stock clock with 1333mhz or less speed RAM running with HDD...

3770K can still be a viable gaming CPU if the multi-tasking are kept in control.. for a dedicated gaming machine a good clocked 3770K to 4.5ghz - 4.8ghz will still do a good job with most modern GPUs.. one of my secondary machines it's a 3770K clocked at 4.6ghz with 16GB RAM at just 1600mhz and I upgraded my daugthers GPU from one GTX 970 to GTX 1080 and that GPU it's still fully used on 99% of games, of the games tested I think only couple of assassins creed tittles and Kingdom come deliverance made the GPU to be bottlenecked at 90% usage we are still speaking of over 100FPS typically.. which it's more than enough for her at 1080P.. of course that's a dedicated gaming machine, if then we add streaming, and lot of web chrome/Firefox tabs with several type of content running background then yes, it may show a more significant bottleneck but still not as bad as to say that comparing it to a 7700K at the same 4.6ghz will mean doubling FPS, no CPU out there right now can double FPS from a good clocked 2600K/3770K.

when I upgraded my 3770K to 6700K was only exclusively for Fallout 4 which it's one of the few games that eat IPC and RAM bandwidth and still in that scenario which was actually the best possible for the 6700K at 4.8ghz versus 3770K at 4.6ghz I never doubled my FPS.. and still the jump to the 9900K wasn't huge beyond being able to do much more multitasking.. and again that was for 1080P. at 1440P the differences are less noticeable..

 

it won't be faster, it will be WAY too much faster.. you will be really surprised how big and smooth will be the performance uplift, trust me..