PC Tech Is upgrading the GPU to a 4070 or 4090 pointless if I keep the same CPU?

[XxEvil AshxX]

I have a Ryzen 7 something-something CPU, which I don't think is a slouch, but right now it's coupled with a Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060. I'd like to get my PC ready for the next few years' worth of gaming, so I am looking to upgrade my GPU in the next year or so, to a 4070 or 4090.

 

From what I understand, the 4090 already has way more power than any current games are taking advantage of, and with the way the current industry trends are looking, it's really not going to get much more demanding on the software side, as far as the GPU is concerned. 

 

I'm just wondering if I'd be bottlenecking my PC by not upgrading the CPU as well, or if my current one will be capable of handling whatever is thrown at it in the next few years.

 

It seems to be handling Dragon's Dogma II right now without going nuclear, for whatever that's worth.

 

Thoughts?

[cusideabelincoln]

A 4070 would be worthwhile. The 3060 wasn't even that good when it released.

 

4090 would only be worth it if you're using a 4k monitor. Even then, there are several generations of Ryzen and the older ones wouldn't be great for future games.

[Spork3245]

You need to tell us the CPU. Run dxdiag from the start button menu (just type it in) and it should be able to give you the full model information. Also, what resolution are you playing at?

[XxEvil AshxX]

8 hours ago, Spork3245 said:

You need to tell us the CPU. Run dxdiag from the start button menu (just type it in) and it should be able to give you the full model information. Also, what resolution are you playing at?

 

I'll check when I get home from work. I've been playing at 1080p but that's cuz my monitor is old. I'll probably be upgrading to a 1440p monitor though.

[Spork3245]

12 hours ago, XxEvil AshxX said:

 

I'll check when I get home from work. I've been playing at 1080p but that's cuz my monitor is old. I'll probably be upgrading to a 1440p monitor though.

At 1440p I’d consider a 4080S if you can find one for MSRP if you want a card that will last awhile longer, however, this also depends on your CPU.

[TwinIon]

I have a Ryzen 7 3800X and game at 4K. I went from a 2080 to a 4080 and it was very worthwhile. I can generally get at least 4k60 with all the bells and whistles. For 4K gaming it was a huge leap.

[PaladinSolo]

You'd be fine just upgrading your card, like sure it could bottleneck but you probably won't notice it unless you're staring at a graph, lol.  Plus you can always just upgrade your CPU in a year or so, i almost never do both at the same time.  Only thing i'd add is theres a huge gap between a the 4070 and 4090, so if you're really that worried about a 4090 bottlenecking with your current CPU go with a 7900xt, xtx, 4070TI super or 4080/4080super and save a ton of money.

[Spork3245]

3 hours ago, PaladinSolo said:

like sure it could bottleneck but you probably won't notice it unless you're staring at a graph, lol. 

CPU scaling with a 4090 at 1440p:

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-ryzen-7-7800x3d/20.html

Since we have no idea which Ryzen 7 CPU he has, there’s certainly a point where he’ll be so CPU limited that the difference between even a 4070 Ti and a 4090 will be 0 at 1440p and lower.

 

[Link200]

On 3/26/2024 at 9:30 AM, XxEvil AshxX said:

It seems to be handling Dragon's Dogma II right now without going nuclear, for whatever that's worth.

From what I understand Dragon's Dogma 2 is very CPU heavy. If you upgrade you may not see a huge performance boost in this specific game.

[XxEvil AshxX]

20 hours ago, Link200 said:

From what I understand Dragon's Dogma 2 is very CPU heavy. If you upgrade you may not see a huge performance boost in this specific game.

 

Yeah, it's not optimized very well, from what I understand. But I wasn't looking to increase performance, I was just kinda using it as a benchmark.

 

On 3/28/2024 at 4:55 AM, Spork3245 said:

CPU scaling with a 4090 at 1440p:

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-ryzen-7-7800x3d/20.html

Since we have no idea which Ryzen 7 CPU he has, there’s certainly a point where he’ll be so CPU limited that the difference between even a 4070 Ti and a 4090 will be 0 at 1440p and lower.

 

 

Looking at that chart, I want to say I have a Ryzen 7700, but I keep forgetting to check whenever I'm actually sitting in front of the machine.

[Spork3245]

43 minutes ago, XxEvil AshxX said:

 

Yeah, it's not optimized very well, from what I understand. But I wasn't looking to increase performance, I was just kinda using it as a benchmark.

 

 

Looking at that chart, I want to say I have a Ryzen 7700, but I keep forgetting to check whenever I'm actually sitting in front of the machine.

7700 is perfectly fine for a 4090. (If that’s what you have  )

[XxEvil AshxX]

1 hour ago, Spork3245 said:

7700 is perfectly fine for a 4090. (If that’s what you have  )

 

Aaaand it is not lol. I over-estimated my machine. I have the 5700, which ranks pretty low on all those charts. 

 

To be fair though, those charts are still showing well over 120 FPS on all the games. I can't see myself aiming for much over 60-120 so I might be alright for a bit. But yeah, I'm already factoring in a future CPU upgrade now.

 

Looking at a 4070 TI Super with whatever AMD CPU is a good bang for the buck by the time I finally upgrade... which will probably be the end of the year.

[Spork3245]

29 minutes ago, XxEvil AshxX said:

 

Aaaand it is not lol. I over-estimated my machine. I have the 5700, which ranks pretty low on all those charts. 

 

To be fair though, those charts are still showing well over 120 FPS on all the games. I can't see myself aiming for much over 60-120 so I might be alright for a bit. But yeah, I'm already factoring in a future CPU upgrade now.

 

Looking at a 4070 TI Super with whatever AMD CPU is a good bang for the buck by the time I finally upgrade... which will probably be the end of the year.

5700, assuming it’s a 5700x not the 5700g, isn’t far off from a 5900x for gaming. It’d be fine with a 4090 until you upgrade. I’d argue the “ehhhh” zone is the aforementioned 5700g and prior gen Ryzens (3000 series and lower) - my CPU question was mostly making sure your Ryzen 7 wasn’t a 3700x-3900x or lower  

Either way, I’d argue to look at the 4080 Super as the performance difference to the 4090 isn’t worth the additional $600+ (MSRP) if you’re sticking to 1440p, IMO, and I feel like the 4070 Ti Super is kind of a waste of a card at its price point.

[cusideabelincoln]

The 5700 is a good enough CPU for all but the incompetent ports (fuck you Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Stutterer), where the newest CPUs can brute force into smooth gameplay.

[cusideabelincoln]

A timely comparison for your situation

 

 

 

Depending on the game and resolution, Ryzen 5000 can hold back a 4080 GPU to perform more like a 4070 GPU. The trend seems to be these console port games, but it's likely this list of badly optimized games will grow going forward anyway.

 

4k still needs a lot of horsepower, but there were situations where the 5600 couldn't break 60 fps.

 

So if you were doing an upgrade, and trying to decide between a 4070 and a 4090 for 1440p gaming, you would be better doing something in between. Get a 4070 Super/TI or 4080, and also upgrade your CPU to the 5800X3D. It should be a drop in upgrade that gives you 25% more performance for those bad ports. That would give you more performance than just a GPU upgrade. I can personally vouch that the 5800X3D+2080 Ti is a much smoother experience in a game like Jedi: Survivor than a 5900X+3090.

[Spork3245]

On 4/2/2024 at 10:57 AM, cusideabelincoln said:

and also upgrade your CPU to the 5800X3D.

 

Given current pricing, I don't really think that's worth it; the 5800x3D still goes for over $300 and you can get an AM5 bundle with a 7800x3D for less than $200 more: 

AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, Gigabyte B650 Gaming X AX v2, G.Skill Flare X5 Series 32GB DDR5-6000 Kit, Computer Build Bundle - Micro Center

WWW.MICROCENTER.COM

---

Get it now! Find over 30,000 products at your local Micro Center, including the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, Gigabyte B650 Gaming X AX v2, G.Skill Flare X5 Series 32GB DDR5-6000 Kit, Computer Build Bundle

 *if you're near a micro center  

 

They also have a 7700x bundle for just $400:

 

AMD Ryzen 7 7700X, MSI B650-P Pro WiFi, G.Skill Flare X5 Series 32GB DDR5-6000 Kit, Computer Build Bundle - Micro Center

WWW.MICROCENTER.COM

---

Get it now! Find over 30,000 products at your local Micro Center, including the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X, MSI B650-P Pro WiFi, G.Skill Flare X5 Series 32GB DDR5-6000 Kit, Computer Build Bundle

 

[stepee]

On 3/29/2024 at 9:00 AM, Link200 said:

From what I understand Dragon's Dogma 2 is very CPU heavy. If you upgrade you may not see a huge performance boost in this specific game.

 

But if he gets a 4000 series he can use dlss3 in DD2 (puredark released this one free since it just unlocks native implementation) which will give a huge cpu boost as well!

[Link200]

On 4/7/2024 at 8:07 PM, stepee said:

 

But if he gets a 4000 series he can use dlss3 in DD2 (puredark released this one free since it just unlocks native implementation) which will give a huge cpu boost as well!

Honestly I haven't seen any benchmarks. The cities are what cause the CPU issues because they start a thread for pretty much every single NPC on screen. DLSS3 wouldn't fix that.

[Bitgod]

I'm in the same boat, using a Ryzen 3600 and 3060 atm, trying to decide what to upgrade.  If I really had the spare money to do cpu/gpu/and ssd upgrade, I'd get a 4TB ssd now before the alleged price increases show up.

 

I'm thinking atm I want a 4070 super in a few months and then should be able to upgrade the cpu at the end of the year, probably a 5800x3d.  Was kinda thinking of getting a 5070, but then figured if nvidia follows their last schedule of putting out the 5080/90 in oct-nov of this year, the 5070 won't be out until this time next year.  Unless they put out fewer skus and it comes out a few months early.  I'm just annoyed the 4070 only has 12GB of vram.

 

That microcenter 7700x bundle sounds interesting, but I may ultimately just go the cheapest route since I'm scraping up pennies.

[Spork3245]

2 hours ago, Bitgod said:

I'm in the same boat, using a Ryzen 3600 and 3060 atm, trying to decide what to upgrade.  If I really had the spare money to do cpu/gpu/and ssd upgrade, I'd get a 4TB ssd now before the alleged price increases show up.

 

I'm thinking atm I want a 4070 super in a few months and then should be able to upgrade the cpu at the end of the year, probably a 5800x3d.  Was kinda thinking of getting a 5070, but then figured if nvidia follows their last schedule of putting out the 5080/90 in oct-nov of this year, the 5070 won't be out until this time next year.  Unless they put out fewer skus and it comes out a few months early.  I'm just annoyed the 4070 only has 12GB of vram.

 

That microcenter 7700x bundle sounds interesting, but I may ultimately just go the cheapest route since I'm scraping up pennies.

Bad news: SSD prices are already up like 40-50% from where they were just 4-5 months back  

 

You should definitely spend the extra $80-200 for one of those CPU bundles over a 5800x3D if you can, as it’ll not only be a larger (7700x) to a much larger (7800x3D) upgrade vs the 5800x3D for ultimately not much more money (5800x3D is currently ~$310), but also gives you an upgrade path for at least two more AMD CPU generations.

 

Going to a 4070 from a 3060 would be a decent upgrade, BUT, just to put a little perspective, it’s roughly the same as going from your 3060 to a 3080 (but getting DLSS3). So, just keep that in mind - also, it may not be the worst idea to wait for the 5090/5080 release and grabbing a used/on-clearance 4070 Ti Super or 4080/4080 Super in a $500-700 range.