this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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PC Master Race

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4070 or 6800XT? Upgrade CPU or nay? (lemm.ee)
submitted 1 year ago by iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee to c/pcmasterrace@lemmy.world
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Hi guys! So I'm considering upgrading my...veteran PC. Currently, a Core i7 6700 with an Nvidia GTX1070, 16GB RAM running from a Gigabyte Z170 Gaming K3 (PCIe 3.0) mobo. I'm currently considering to upgrade the GPU to a 6800XT, although I saw the 4070 for a bit cheaper, maybe ~80USD less. I've posted this earlier, and got a helpful reply making me aware both of these cards are already PCIe 4.0, and while the CPU might be a bit bottlenecked, it should be a noticeable performance increase. I've got an additional comment saying otherwise, that even currently with the 1070 the CPU would be bottlenecking. I was not able to reply to these, as my post (on FOSS gaming community) was removed. I guess this is not FOSS enough... So, PCMasterrace, what do you guys think?

Additionally, this veteran mobo would support a slight CPU increase to a 7700, which on the second hand market it wouldn't be all that much money (for what I reckon, not that much performance increase, either). What do you guys think? What should I do?

Thanks!

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[–] iopq@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When using such a powerful GPU, might as well jump to the DDR 5 platform. You will get a lot of benefits like being able to use faster storage. It won't impact gaming outside of loading times, but overall snappiness of the system will be noticeable

I don't think there's a difference between PCIe 5 and 4 since current hardware can't use those speeds (neither gaming nor storage will have a noticable difference), but 3 to 4 will have an impact

Also I'm not sure if your mobo supports ReBAR, but that's another improvement for certain titles

I say go for the GPU that will benefit your use case the most.

AMD has more VRAM. There are games coming out that actually use more than 12GB at 4K. But in ray tracing it's just slower, upscaling looks worse, FSR 3 is not fully fixed yet.

That said, Nvidia is cringe in Linux so I won't be purchasing an Nvidia card next, just too many bugs in Wayland

[–] uranibaba@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you know if intel or amd is better when running linux?

[–] iopq@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Both run great, Intel runs hotter but has more cores so it can do a lot of multithreaded tasks faster.

AMD has the best watt for watt efficiency in gaming due to excessive cache in the x3d series. Something like 60W in gaming beating 150W+ is kind of amazing. If you don't have a beefy cooler or PSU you can save money going with AMD

Below the top end honestly both can be good, Intel is very cost competitive and offers a combination of good gaming perf and multi-core performance. But I do love AMD's long term support for their platform. AM4 was pretty amazing, I could upgrade my 3600 to a 5800x3d and double my FPS in RTS games.

If it's not too much work, look at what motherboards you would go with and see if that affects your decision.

[–] uranibaba@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks! Yeah, the LTS options is very attractive. If a can find a motherboard I am happy with, I would prefer not to have to replace it when I upgrade CPU the next time.

[–] comrade19@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

What resolution are you running? 1440p or below, id definitely upgrade. Even at 4k i found a 20% increase from a similar cpu upgrade, while using my 6800xt. If you can afford it id do it all at once!

[–] RunjamboJenkin@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

I noticed a pretty substantial increase in performance upgrading my 6700K to a 7800X3D at 1440p on a 5700XT. So you’re probably going to be missing out on quite a bit of performance by just upgrading the GPU

[–] Flala@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

CPU upgrade is necessary as it will bottleneck even your current 1070 in some games. This will get worse with a new GPU. I had the 6700k and got no performance improvement upgrading from a 980ti to 1080ti.

[–] sam_sam@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Why not buy a 7800 xt ? Its a bit faster and the same price as the 6800xt. I have the same system as you and plan to upgrade to it as soon as the black friday prices drop.

[–] iopq@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

It's about the same, but it's more power efficient. So, it's still worth looking into

[–] iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

I'll check prices on it... Thanks!

[–] HC4L@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you run Windows, that CPU is not oficially supported by Windows 11 and might be something to keep in mind.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Imagine wanting Windows 11.

[–] Eheran@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Just check if the CPU is the bottleneck or not? Then you know. Look at GPU and CPU utilization while playing (or whatever). If the CPU is at 100 % it is the CPU. If the GPU is maxed out when then a bigger GPU can help. When neither GPU nor CPU are maxed out, a single thread seems to be the issue, at which point upgrading does not help much.

[–] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 year ago

Without knowing what games you're playing and at what resolution we can't know for sure if you are gou or cpu constrained to really answer the question.

That aside, it isn't a huge jump for the cpu and I'd very seriously wonder if it's worth it all VS saving up to basically rebuild the rig with new mobo ram cpu and gpu. Might have to wait longer to upgrade but better than spending money now just to need to do the rest in under a year anyway, imo.