[SOLVED] Best graphic card for i5 7600K?

[asheesh1_2000]

Hi,

I am running i5 7600 K with GTX970 on a Crossair 1000W and 16 GB RAM. I want to change my GPU for 1. GTX 970 is really old 2. I feel like my PSU is not fully utilized 3. Nvidia 3080 is out.

However. I am told that buying 3080 is not worth with my processor and it will be mostly useless.
So , is it true and if yes, then what is the maximum I can go if I want to upgrade my GPU?

The plan is only to upgrade GPU, but any other suggestion is also welcome.

Thanks,
Ash

 

[Hellfire13]

You can go upto max 1080/1070ti/2060Super/ or whatever equivalent there will be for 3xxx (probably 3050ti or something like that).
Anything above will be wastage.

 

[ern88]

If I were you. I would really think about upgrading the CPU mobo combo you have. I had the i5 6600k OC'd to 4.6ghz. And newer games were starting to microfreeze. Because of the 4 thread 4 core i5 is getting really long in the tooth for gaming. Food for thought.

 

[geofelt]

Worth is something only YOU can determine.
What is your budget?

With your psu, you can support any graphics card you want.
If you play fast action games, it is your graphics card that will determine how well you do.
Buy a sufficiently big upgrade or you will run the risk of being disappointed if you do not see magical results.
I think a GTX1660 class card at least.
To verify that you are not cpu limited, run this test:
Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
This makes the graphics card loaf a bit.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

Do not worry about underusing your psu.
A psu will only use the wattage demanded of it, regardless of the max capability.
Yes, it will lose a bit of efficiency of it is running less than say 40% of capacity.

When you say that 3080 is out, do you mean that since it is available, it is a candidate for purchase, or do you mean that a 3080 is out of consideration?

 

[asheesh1_2000]

Worth is something only YOU can determine.
What is your budget?

With your psu, you can support any graphics card you want.
If you play fast action games, it is your graphics card that will determine how well you do.
Buy a sufficiently big upgrade or you will run the risk of being disappointed if you do not see magical results.
I think a GTX1660 class card at least.
To verify that you are not cpu limited, run this test:
Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
This makes the graphics card loaf a bit.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

Do not worry about underusing your psu.
A psu will only use the wattage demanded of it, regardless of the max capability.
Yes, it will lose a bit of efficiency of it is running less than say 40% of capacity.

When you say that 3080 is out, do you mean that since it is available, it is a candidate for purchase, or do you mean that a 3080 is out of consideration?

By Out I meant that soon it will be out in the market to buy. I have no budget limit, but do not want to waste money, and also do not want to change multiple things. My games are running fine at the moment at mediocre settings, and I want to run them at full max. You are right I should not expect magical results, I just want to run my games at 50 fps at max settings (my current FPS is 20 - 30 at medium settings). Games like RR2, Metro the latest one, Breakpoint, etc. are what I play.

And.. I did your FPS test as well.

Highest setting @ 7680 X 1440 resolution -- GPU went 100%, CPU went 35%, FPS - 22
Lowest setting @ 400 X 300 resolution -- GPU went 100%, CPU went 35%, (same as previous) FPS - 245

What does that tell?

 

[asheesh1_2000]

If I were you. I would really think about upgrading the CPU mobo combo you have. I had the i5 6600k OC'd to 4.6ghz. And newer games were starting to microfreeze. Because of the 4 thread 4 core i5 is getting really long in the tooth for gaming. Food for thought.

So you are suggesting getting a Rayzen and the compatible mobo with the same card as GTX 970 will give me better results than upgrading to a latest GPU?

 

[asheesh1_2000]

You can go upto max 1080/1070ti/2060Super/ or whatever equivalent there will be for 3xxx (probably 3050ti or something like that).
Anything above will be wastage.

Isn't 2060 super is at same price as 3080? Then would it not be wise just to buy 3080 then?

 

[Rodrigodrt]

The real answer is the best card you can afford, so in short, the 3080, sure the cpu, specially in core count is on the edge, but it will give you more FPS than the 2060, 1660, 2070 and so on, the only case i wouldnt recommend is the 3090, it would provide even more frames than the 3080, regardless if your cpu is obsolete by now, however this is when it would prove better to get a cheaper one, and use the rest of the money to upgrade the cpu.

thing is, also, you wanna play in 1080p? perhaps you could save some money and go with the 3070 and start working on upgrading the rest, but you want the best bang out there? it is 3080, it will not run as fast as a 3080 with a 10900k, but thats obvious isnt it?

 

[ern88]

So you are suggesting getting a Rayzen and the compatible mobo with the same card as GTX 970 will give me better results than upgrading to a latest GPU?

I am going by my experience of owning a i5 6600k. You will be handicapped by the i5 7600k. I think buying a new gpu for that dead platform is a waste. But it's your money. I bought a Ryzen 7 3700x platform and games I played performed so much smoother. I had no more micro stuttering in games such as RDR2. AC origins. And so on. And that is with the same GTX 1080 I currently have been using since launch. I'm not saying buy an AMD setup. Just any newer CPU in general. He'll the i5 10600k looks to be a great gaming CPU. Something to consider.

 

[Hellfire13]

Isn't 2060 super is at same price as 3080? Then would it not be wise just to buy 3080 then?

Of Course yes, if you get it at that price. But goodluck with that.

 

[geofelt]

By Out I meant that soon it will be out in the market to buy. I have no budget limit, but do not want to waste money, and also do not want to change multiple things. My games are running fine at the moment at mediocre settings, and I want to run them at full max. You are right I should not expect magical results, I just want to run my games at 50 fps at max settings (my current FPS is 20 - 30 at medium settings). Games like RR2, Metro the latest one, Breakpoint, etc. are what I play.

And.. I did your FPS test as well.

Highest setting @ 7680 X 1440 resolution -- GPU went 100%, CPU went 35%, FPS - 22
Lowest setting @ 400 X 300 resolution -- GPU went 100%, CPU went 35%, (same as previous) FPS - 245

What does that tell?

Your test tells me that your cpu is capable of generating 245 FPS and that it is your graphics card that is holding you back. There is more to it than that of course, and some games are truly cpu limited.
Since you have few budget issues, I think that the 3080 would be the card to get.
Be careful how you interpret task manager cpu utilizations.
Windows will spread the activity of a single thread over all available threads.
So, if you had a game that was single threaded and cpu bound, it would show up on a quad core processor as 25%
utilization across all 4 threads.
leading you to think your bottleneck was elsewhere.
It turns our that few games can USEFULLY use more than 4-6 threads.
How can you tell how well threaded your games or apps are?
One way is to disable one thread and see how you do.

You can do this in the windows msconfig boot advanced options option.
You will need to reboot for the change to take effect. Set the number of processors to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many threads.
If you see little difference, it tells you that you will not benefit from more cores.
Likely, a better clock rate will be more important.

When the time comes to upgrade your cpu, look at one of the K suffix intel 10th gen processors.
They can all oc to about the 5.0 level and turbo even higher.
Today, ryzen tops our around 4.4.

Have you overclocked your 7600K?
If not, you are leaving some 20% performance on the table if you have a good chip.
As of 6/19/17
What percent of samples can get an overclock
at a vcore around 1.4v.
I5-7600K
4.9 72%
5.0 52%
5.1 27%
5.2 16%
5.3 samples exist, unknown % of occurrence

To see how sensitive your games are to single thread core speeds, here is another test for you:

Limit your cpu, either by reducing the OC, or, in windows power management, limit the maximum cpu% to something like 70%.
Go to control panel/power options/change plan settings/change advanced power settings/processor power management/maximum processor state/
This will simulate what a lack of cpu power will do.
Conversely what a 30% improvement in core speed might do.

 

[animekenji]

I'd wait and get a 3060Ti when they come out. That's what I'm getting to use with my i7-6700. I think bottlenecking will start to make it's presence felt with cards higher than that. Also, I don't think a vanilla 3060 will come with 8gb of memory. 6gb is likely and cards below that may have less, still. The 4 core, 4 thread CPU should probably be retired at this point. i3 and Ryzen 3 have hyperthreading support now, so games that use more threads will only proliferate from here. Most motherboards that I have seen that support 6th gen, also support 7th gen so an i7 7700K might be a good way to go here but check first to see what your motherboard supports before buying anything. Not all 6th/7th gen boards support 8th and 9th gen CPU's, so you might have to consider a mb swap to go farther than 7th gen depending on the chipset on your mb.

 

[spentshells]

good deal on the 5600xt right now

 

[ankit213506]

Go for Radeon Graphics