[SOLVED] How badly will a 7700k bottleneck an RYX 3080ti in 4k games?

Mar 21, 2022
4
0
10
I've had a 1080 ti for years thanks to the gpu price price gouging and I finally scored a used rtx3080ti from a friend who's moving away. Problem is, even though I got a deal ($1200), now I have an aging system. I'm contemplating a full system upgrade that I'd rather avoid... The monitor I got is a good 4k gsync hdr screen, but the rest of the system is old by today's standards:

I7 7700k (light OC)
32gb ddr4 @3600 g skill tridentz
2x1tb ssd Sam evo
Some Aorus mobo

Sorry for the generic info, it's been years since I did anything to the system (I did build it fron scratch but the parts are from various vendors, only could find the amazon stuff)

I've been reading lots of conflicting info and benchmarks but none with my current +gpu combo. Would like to hear from u guys. I play games like COD, CP2077, Horizon 0dawn so I hope for a graphics upgrade

Literally don't do anything else graphics intensive...

I know the 4000 series is coming soon but, given the times, anything could happen. Rather enjoy life now and stop the hoping and the waiting...

Thanks in advance!
 
Solution
I've had a 1080 ti for years thanks to the gpu price price gouging and I finally scored a used rtx3080ti from a friend who's moving away. Problem is, even though I got a deal ($1200), now I have an aging system. I'm contemplating a full system upgrade that I'd rather avoid... The monitor I got is a good 4k gsync hdr screen, but the rest of the system is old by today's standards:

I7 7700k (light OC)
32gb ddr4 @3600 g skill tridentz
2x1tb ssd Sam evo
Some Aorus mobo

Sorry for the generic info, it's been years since I did anything to the system (I did build it fron scratch but the parts are from various vendors, only could find the amazon stuff)

I've been reading lots of conflicting info and benchmarks but none with my current +gpu...
If you'll be playing everything at 4k you should probably be fine. Yes you'll get a pretty good bump in performance if you upgrade your CPU as well, but you wont see any stuttering with your current setup if that's what you're worried about.
An i5 11th Gen + a new mobo would do you good though. And they're relatively cheap these days.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MadzMartigan
Mar 21, 2022
4
0
10
At worst what will happen is you can crank up the graphics quality with the same performance. But depending on the game and what else you're doing, the i7-7700K will limit the maximum performance you can attain far below what the 3080 Ti can do.

Thanks! All I plan on doing with it is gaming so I won't be running other apps
 

_dawn_chorus_

Honorable
Aug 30, 2017
558
56
11,090
I've been running an 8700k with a 3080 for like 18 months now at 1440p and am almost never CPU bound in games. You'll be fine, the difference (which there won't be in most games) will be negligible at 4k. Until you really NEED an upgrade or are just swimming in disposable income I'd recommend holding off for now. Just be sure you have a quality PSU and enjoy the upgrade!
 
  • Like
Reactions: MadzMartigan
Mar 21, 2022
4
0
10
I've been running an 8700k with a 3080 for like 18 months now at 1440p and am almost never CPU bound in games. You'll be fine, the difference (which there won't be in most games) will be negligible at 4k. Until you really NEED an upgrade or are just swimming in disposable income I'd recommend holding off for now. Just be sure you have a quality PSU and enjoy the upgrade!
I'll admit, my psu is a 10 year old 1000w evga I bought
I've been running an 8700k with a 3080 for like 18 months now at 1440p and am almost never CPU bound in games. You'll be fine, the difference (which there won't be in most games) will be negligible at 4k. Until you really NEED an upgrade or are just swimming in disposable income I'd recommend holding off for now. Just be sure you have a quality PSU and enjoy the upgrade!
Thanks! As for PSU, I have a 10 year old evga 1000w, is that bad? Never had any problems with it but now it's an oldy
 
I've had a 1080 ti for years thanks to the gpu price price gouging and I finally scored a used rtx3080ti from a friend who's moving away. Problem is, even though I got a deal ($1200), now I have an aging system. I'm contemplating a full system upgrade that I'd rather avoid... The monitor I got is a good 4k gsync hdr screen, but the rest of the system is old by today's standards:

I7 7700k (light OC)
32gb ddr4 @3600 g skill tridentz
2x1tb ssd Sam evo
Some Aorus mobo

Sorry for the generic info, it's been years since I did anything to the system (I did build it fron scratch but the parts are from various vendors, only could find the amazon stuff)

I've been reading lots of conflicting info and benchmarks but none with my current +gpu combo. Would like to hear from u guys. I play games like COD, CP2077, Horizon 0dawn so I hope for a graphics upgrade

Literally don't do anything else graphics intensive...

I know the 4000 series is coming soon but, given the times, anything could happen. Rather enjoy life now and stop the hoping and the waiting...

Thanks in advance!
Your current cpu has 4 cores / 8 threads. I'd use your current RAM, get an LGA1700 bracket for your cpu cooler and look at something like this.

https://www.amazon.com/MSI-B660M-Motherboard-Intel-Socket/dp/B09NTMRRTL/
MSI PRO B660M-A DDR4 $139.99

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/PRO-B660M-A-DDR4

https://www.amazon.com/INTEL-i5-12400F-2-5GHz-6xxChipset-BX8071512400F/dp/B09NPJRDGD
Intel Core i5-12400F $179.98

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...2400f-processor-18m-cache-up-to-4-40-ghz.html

EvzZHt4zskeq2WvRUVwVHK-970-80.png
 
Solution
Apr 5, 2022
1
0
10
I've had a 1080 ti for years thanks to the gpu price price gouging and I finally scored a used rtx3080ti from a friend who's moving away. Problem is, even though I got a deal ($1200), now I have an aging system. I'm contemplating a full system upgrade that I'd rather avoid... The monitor I got is a good 4k gsync hdr screen, but the rest of the system is old by today's standards:

I7 7700k (light OC)
32gb ddr4 @3600 g skill tridentz
2x1tb ssd Sam evo
Some Aorus mobo

Sorry for the generic info, it's been years since I did anything to the system (I did build it fron scratch but the parts are from various vendors, only could find the amazon stuff)

I've been reading lots of conflicting info and benchmarks but none with my current +gpu combo. Would like to hear from u guys. I play games like COD, CP2077, Horizon 0dawn so I hope for a graphics upgrade

Literally don't do anything else graphics intensive...

I know the 4000 series is coming soon but, given the times, anything could happen. Rather enjoy life now and stop the hoping and the waiting...

Thanks in advance!


I paired my 7700k with a 3070ti cause last year I couldn't get a new pc plus graphics card. I had to break down after 2 months of watching GPU trackers and a 3070ti on ebay for 1250 dollars with the stimulus check. So keeping this 7700k running has been great. But as explained in my Guide. I was doing it wrong, (response times I never checked before in life) Going from 55fps cpu bound to almost 80, I am happy I didn't upgrade yet. I should get at least another year. The temps in this guide are with 3 year old arctic silver 5 therm. compound. I just found it can take 200 hours to let it cure. New paste comign today as mentioned in guide should drop my temps even more. I am truly stoked and beyond happy that I was able to correctly overclock and really understand the impacts using nvidia performance response time metric.

GUIDE High cpu usage, Low Gpu usage and poor performance after 1.5 update Cyberpunk, Low FPS 3070TI 7700K All games Heavy in CPU

Tech Support
Posted byu/FrostyBud7771 hour ago
GUIDE High cpu usage, Low Gpu usage and poor performance after 1.5 update, Low FPS 3070TI 7700K

This applies heavily to Cyberpunk 2077 but also to Red dead online I have been working on this for hours today, and for weeks in the past.
Asus Z270-A 3070ti I7 7700k 500gb SSD. After the update I had horrible performance so I DUG DEEP, Seek and you will find, Ask and it will be given to you.
Here is what has gotten me from 50 fps average to now as I type this over 80 fps. ( low settings, dlss ultra, cpu bound only)
GPU Settings
First Nvidia tech support online chat today helped me with gpu usage. extremely good and I HIGHLY recommend! This is exactly what the Nvidia tech told me to doNvidia control panelPower management mode - Prefer max performanceLow Latency Mode - UltraSet vsync to off (just to check gpu usage at max, I turn it back on after testing cpu bottleneck)Usage went up just doing this alone. FPS improved too.Nvidia showed me something I didnt realize and TRULY helped Diagnose this problem.Open Geforce experience, Turn on in game overlay, Press ALT+Z to open overlay and click Performance, click advanced, click performance, set position and click advanced. You now have the perf. Overlay and render latency is KEY to get the most performance.
CPU Settings
In my motherboard, There is 3 ways to overclock
  1. Old school. Set your 7700k cpu to 48 clock multiplier. Check temperatures while running game for 1-3 minutes. Don't let it get to 100. Should never hit there as it will throttle, 85-95 is fine IMHO If you are planning to upgrade pc or buy new one in next year. Trying to squeeze every frame right now. New thermal paste is coming tomorrow (Arctic MX-5) Will update post after I apply tomorrow. Using years old tube of Artic silver 5 during all of this, this morning I just applied thin spread layer as old school people do.. I cleaned my radiator on water cooling under hot soapy water, making sure the pump was not getting wet. I cleaned every fan blade with a wet cloth and cleaned and reinstalled the dust filter behind fans. Check your memory. Mine defaults to 2166mhz. Very slow. The XMP profile gives good timings but I had to many set it to the default freq. of 3000 Patriot Memory. Just doing this gave me many more frames
  2. Use TPU 1 or 2, This is an automatic overclock, Raises voltages, increases BClock (base clock) from 100 to 102 to 103. Using nvidia performance overlay I discovered this can make render latency go from 9.3 average. to over 20 ms! Just Going into bios and turning it from 103 to 100 gave me 9 ms lat. again!
  3. Ez Autotuning. Similar to TPU. Auto clocks everything, Ups dram , base clock , cpu clock.Same Issue as 2. Will reduce render latency due to errors or just bad. I have not done error checking just relying on render latency , frames, and if long term never crashes at all, I call it stable.
Right now I am at toms diner in Cyberpunk standing in the doorway and looking towards the plaza to the west, I am sitting on 79-80 fps where before was 55 or so.
Check Tempuratures. Evga Precision X1 Shows that my processor does hit 100C every now and then. I dont't want that. Current setting are 4.9 ghz 49 cpu mulitplier, so I will have to lower that to 48 and test again. Memory is at 3000 mhz with XMP1 timings. Also, Having this browser open while game is running as I type lowers frames 5-7 fps. Intel says the max temp of the cpu is 100C. Running at 90 C is fine from all the research and intel themseleves. The 7700k is designed to run hot. https://www.tomshardware.com/review...i7-7700k-i7-7700-i5-7600k-i5-7600,4870-8.html
Game settings: Set Crowd density to low. With update 5.1 it CRUSHES the 5-6 Year old I7 7700k at stock clock. With a 12700k , I would expect it to be perfect to use high or medium.
I am focusing on CPU bottleneck. Once I have 75-80 fps able to be produced by CPU then I will turn to adjusting graphics settings as they will not even matter as the 3070 can easily make 70+ frames with Ultra preset RT off DLSS balanced but will NOT utilized gpu if the cpu is only able to produce 55 fps (unless max RT settings turned on) I have Ultra preset settings and turned off all visiual things like chrom. abortation, film grain , motion blur, and only have depth of field. All other setting are default (including RT OFF) for Ultra preset except Screen space ambient occlusions I turned down from Ultra to High. Gives big fps boost if your gpu is struggling. For CPU Bottleneck testing I have DLSS set to Ultra performance and gpu usage is about 40% so I can work on the CPU bottleneck.
My temps were 97-99 just now, So I know 49 core mulitplier was too much .I will lower it and continue testing but still will be almost 80 fps with browser closed.
SIDE NOTE: Setting the base clock to 100 from 102-103 resulted render latency through nvida performance to be 9.3ms, Setting it to 102-103 resulted in 22+ render latency! That is bad! ALSO Setting bclock to 100 and turning cpu multiplyer to 50 (5.0ghz) also resulted in 22 ms render times. Setting it to 49 and bclock to 100 resulted in 9.3 ms again but temps are high so I will lower cpu clock to 48 now (4.8 ghz) then check temps and render latency again. I did test this already and it seemed fine latency and temps. Nvidia performance overlay let me see this and I didnt even know it existed till Nvida Tech online chat support today told me, You can go to Nvidia online chat support today and ask for help even! HIGHLY RECOMMEND.
Now I will edit this post after I get the perfect combo but know, anyone with 7700k does not need to "live with" 55 fps. I do have a Cyberpower pc that I chose every part for and The water cooler that came with it is pretty good but not just average. For more frames, Get an even better water cooler and good thermal past like cryonaut or Arctic Mk5 (many reviews on best thermal paste, looked many up today, my Arctic mk5 is coming tomorrow) RIGHT NOW I am using YEARS OLD ARCTIC SILVER 5 to do ALL of this testing, I applied it this morning when I was cleaning radiator fins and fan blades on case fans. Pro tip , Dont remove the dust covers on your pc. Yes you get more airflow but long term sucks cleaning pc out. My case did have a plastic shield over the dust cover to even further reduce dust but I removed it and works perfect as long as dust cover is in place.
I hope to edit this in the future. Been dealing with problems in Quest 2 vr with airlink to my 3070ti , steam vr, Phasmaphobia VR, Conquerors blade, Red Dead redemption 2, Cyberpunk 2077, and any game that needs good CPU, and GPU was low utilization even when cpu was not even close to 100% That is why it is key to set ultra latency mode and prefer max performance in Nvidia Control panel.
If your frames drop over time, Press f5 To auto save, then f9 to auto load the save. Or restart game.
EDIT 1: SO I put it to 4.8 ghz. 100 base clock , memory 3000mhz. 79 to 80FPS in tom's diner doorway looking west into plaza with settings mention. Temps roughly 90C. Spiked to 100 but didnt seem to be an issue. Waiting on thermal past tomorrow and will update. JUST SO EXCITED to have 80 fps instead of 55. Even had 40 or so at some point before all this in same spot before changing graphics settings. Will also Check the CPU cooler settings in Bios now.Red Dead was only able to give 72 fps before all this, I will go test it as well. Most likely able to have over 80 now!
 
Last edited: