[SOLVED] Gpu upgrade 6 year old pc

jschreibes

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Nov 10, 2013
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I bought a new monitor, 1080p 144hz. I can currently push about 100-144 FPS in most games with my current build, but I want to be able to get a fairly steady 144 FPS with max or almost max settings on Borderlands 3 when it comes out. Picking a gpu 6 years ago was easy, amd was basically garbage and after that you spent as much as you could afford on nvidia. Now it seems nvidia has 3 different series that kind of make sense ;10, 16, and 20 series. Amd has Vega, rtx 20, and rtx 500.

current specs:
I5-3570k overclocked to 4.2
GTX Titan
16 gb ddr3
Ga-z77x-ud5h

I worry that at 144fps my older cpu might bottleneck the gpu, it’s current overclocked has been stable at barely anything above stock voltage, so I’m hoping to push it to at least 4.5ghz.

My budget is about $300, though if I can do it for $200 I would be much much happier. I’m not trying to future proof, I just want 1080p at about 144 FPS for current games, just to get through the next 2 or so years. I’d like to take advantage of FreeSync, or g-sync with a 10 or 20 series.

Any help and opinions are appreciated.
 
Solution
performance jumps between titan to 1070, 1070ti, 1660ti are small. I couldn't speak for framerate stability, but if you want future proof stable 144FPS+ you might be looking at higher end rtx cards. other than that it's a waste to swap from a titan to anything else in the range of the aforementioned cards. 150$ not a bad deal though, might wanna stick with it until you got a bigger budget.

DSzymborski

Titan
Moderator
If you're trying to play high FPS 1080, I'm not sure you can get away with a $200 GPU. While you can get a better GPU for $200, yours is still equivalent to an RX 570 or so, so it won't be that much better at $200. The $300 range GPUs (the 1660 Ti and then the RX 5700). I'd probably also recommend a 3770k, but I don't think the 3570k experience will be that poor.

I'm also assuming that, despite the lack of reference to the power supply, you weren't pairing your $1000 Titan with a weird offbrand PSU?
 

jschreibes

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Nov 10, 2013
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Really any gou upgrade would cause a cpu bottleneck.

You could upgrade to an i7 3770k. Thats about the best option as 4 thread cpus striggle f
With frametime pwrformance in many instances in modern games.

I was afraid of this, although moving to a 3770k isn’t that big of a deal, the little bump in performance would be nice. And after selling my 3570k on eBay it won’t be that expensive.

If you're trying to play high FPS 1080, I'm not sure you can get away with a $200 GPU. While you can get a better GPU for $200, yours is still equivalent to an RX 570 or so, so it won't be that much better at $200. The $300 range GPUs (the 1660 Ti and then the RX 5700). I'd probably also recommend a 3770k, but I don't think the 3570k experience will be that poor.

I'm also assuming that, despite the lack of reference to the power supply, you weren't pairing your $1000 Titan with a weird offbrand PSU?

The 1660 TI is a reasonable price point, though does it have added g-sync compatibility like the 10 and 20 series? I currently have an EVGA 650Tx, so it’s at the bottom end of what could handle the Titan, but I haven’t had any power related issues. And depending on the gpu I would be willing to upgrade, call it my first purchase for the pc I build 2 years from now. Though the way it looks GPUs are way more energy efficient now than back then so I should be okay, I’ll have to look into the power consumption of a 3770k vs 3570k if I go that route.
 

jschreibes

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Nov 10, 2013
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The other thought I had is to buy another Titan for about $150 on eBay and running SLI, though I don’t know if SLI really benefits FPS or higher resolution. And I’m that case I would 100% have to upgrade my psu.
 

DSzymborski

Titan
Moderator
I was afraid of this, although moving to a 3770k isn’t that big of a deal, the little bump in performance would be nice. And after selling my 3570k on eBay it won’t be that expensive.



The 1660 Ti is a reasonable price point, though does it have added g-sync compatibility like the 10 and 20 series? I currently have an EVGA 650Tx, so it’s at the bottom end of what could handle the Titan, but I haven’t had any power related issues. And depending on the gpu I would be willing to upgrade, call it my first purchase for the pc I build 2 years from now. Though the way it looks GPUs are way more energy efficient now than back then so I should be okay, I’ll have to look into the power consumption of a 3770k vs 3570k if I go that route.

Are you sure that's not a Corsair TX? They're the well-known company that has a TX model. In which case, you don't need to worry about it. Basic due diligence meant I had to ask! You wouldn't believe some of the things we see here; $2000 builds running on a $20 AcBel is something I've seen on more than one occasion.

I believe all Nvidia GPUs since the 600 series that are GTX are higher have supported G-Sync and even the GT 1030 got an officially unsupported stealth update in drivers. The 1660 Ti is no exception.

While $200 is better than $300, I'd recommend the $300 as the sweet spot for your upgrade. Money still scales well at this price range. I'd recommend actually using it with the 3570k and seeing how the experience is for you; you don't need to preemptively get a 3770k. Not that there's anything wrong with a 3770k, of course; I had one myself and was still playing at 1440p and only upgraded to the 8700k when SATA and USB ports on the motherboard started to go last summer (in any event, if I hadn't upgraded, Ryzen 300 series would have gotten me off the fence). But the 3770k's benefits over a 3570k will reflect most highly in very specific games that see a benefit from the hyperthreading. It's worth it to take a wait-and-see approach on the CPU.
 

illusineer

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Feb 24, 2019
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Pretty hard to get anything good enough for 2019 for around 200$ even on ebay auctions. Almost all the good performers are in the 275$-400$ range right now unless you're really lucky and cop a deal. I think you're on the border of needing a processor upgrade, but you might be good without one depending on what you're playing. Most games aren't very CPU intensive in my experience. For 144hz you'd probably want your CPU to be robust enough to keep up with your GPU, but like dszym said it's a test and see sort of thing, but you'd certainly be set with both a CPU and GPU upgrade. For gaming it's always better to be GPU bound than CPU bound. Running SLI is very impractical, doesn't work in a lot of games and buggy in others, not to mention the massive power usage of two Titans. The games SLI does work with doesn't really boost FPS enough to justify the investment. For a Titan you'll probably wanna take a good jump in terms of upgrades, think either nvidias super series or one of amds rx5700. I think amd's rx5700 is cheaper and only very slightly slower compared to some of the supers. Might get one for cheaper than 350$ if you're super lucky.
 

jschreibes

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Nov 10, 2013
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Are you sure that's not a Corsair TX? They're the well-known company that has a TX model. In which case, you don't need to worry about it. Basic due diligence meant I had to ask! You wouldn't believe some of the things we see here; $2000 builds running on a $20 AcBel is something I've seen on more than one occasion.

I believe all Nvidia GPUs since the 600 series that are GTX are higher have supported G-Sync and even the GT 1030 got an officially unsupported stealth update in drivers. The 1660 Ti is no exception.

While $200 is better than $300, I'd recommend the $300 as the sweet spot for your upgrade. Money still scales well at this price range. I'd recommend actually using it with the 3570k and seeing how the experience is for you; you don't need to preemptively get a 3770k. Not that there's anything wrong with a 3770k, of course; I had one myself and was still playing at 1440p and only upgraded to the 8700k when SATA and USB ports on the motherboard started to go last summer (in any event, if I hadn't upgraded, Ryzen 300 series would have gotten me off the fence). But the 3770k's benefits over a 3570k will reflect most highly in very specific games that see a benefit from the hyperthreading. It's worth it to take a wait-and-see approach on the CPU.


Whoops, definitely Corsair, had EVGA on the brain. And with the g sync I meant the update that added g sync support to a lot of free sync monitors. I know my Titan supports g sync, but I can’t run it with my freesync monitor. Previously I had only seen that you need a 10 or 20 series to do it, but I did a bit more digging and found it’s really 10 series and up. So 1660 Ti should be fine.

Pretty hard to get anything good enough for 2019 for around 200$ even on ebay auctions. Almost all the good performers are in the 275$-400$ range right now unless you're really lucky and cop a deal. I think you're on the border of needing a processor upgrade, but you might be good without one depending on what you're playing. Most games aren't very CPU intensive in my experience. For 144hz you'd probably want your CPU to be robust enough to keep up with your GPU, but like dszym said it's a test and see sort of thing, but you'd certainly be set with both a CPU and GPU upgrade. For gaming it's always better to be GPU bound than CPU bound. Running SLI is very impractical, doesn't work in a lot of games and buggy in others, not to mention the massive power usage of two Titans. The games SLI does work with doesn't really boost FPS enough to justify the investment. For a Titan you'll probably wanna take a good jump in terms of upgrades, think either nvidias super series or one of amds rx5700. I think amd's rx5700 is cheaper and only very slightly slower compared to some of the supers. Might get one for cheaper than 350$ if you're super lucky.

Yeah SLI always seemed cool in theory but every time I looked into it results were pretty underwhelming, thanks for reinforcing that.

I think I’m going to keep my eyes open for a sub $350 5700, and if that doesn’t pan out in a month or two I’ll just go with a 1660 Ti.
 

DSzymborski

Titan
Moderator
Whoops, definitely Corsair, had EVGA on the brain. And with the g sync I meant the update that added g sync support to a lot of free sync monitors. I know my Titan supports g sync, but I can’t run it with my freesync monitor. Previously I had only seen that you need a 10 or 20 series to do it, but I did a bit more digging and found it’s really 10 series and up. So 1660 Ti should be fine.

Yup, you'd be fine. Did want to make sure it wasn't some SuperGameLightningPower TX or something.

Seeing excellently configured and balanced PCs always makes me happy.
 
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jschreibes

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Nov 10, 2013
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Yup, you'd be fine. Did want to make sure it wasn't some SuperGameLightningPower TX or something.

Seeing excellently configured and balanced PCs always makes me happy.

This was my first build, I probably put in 100 hours of research, making sure I was using my budget as efficiently as possible. The fact that I was still playing most games at a steady 60 FPS on ultra goes to show how my research paid off, and/or I got really lucky and was able to upgrade to a Titan from a 670 for $150 back in 2015.
 

DSzymborski

Titan
Moderator
This was my first build, I probably put in 100 hours of research, making sure I was using my budget as efficiently as possible. The fact that I was still playing most games at a steady 60 FPS on ultra goes to show how my research paid off, and/or I got really lucky and was able to upgrade to a Titan from a 670 for $150 back in 2015.

I'd definitely call that lucky!
 

jschreibes

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Nov 10, 2013
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There seems to be quite a few gtx 1070s on Craigslist for $200 in my area, do you think a 1070 would be worth it? If I understand correctly the 1070 has a bit more brute strength but the 1660 ti is future proof.
 

illusineer

Reputable
Feb 24, 2019
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performance jumps between titan to 1070, 1070ti, 1660ti are small. I couldn't speak for framerate stability, but if you want future proof stable 144FPS+ you might be looking at higher end rtx cards. other than that it's a waste to swap from a titan to anything else in the range of the aforementioned cards. 150$ not a bad deal though, might wanna stick with it until you got a bigger budget.
 
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