[SOLVED] How bottlenecked is my new MSI RTX 2060 Ventus 6GB OC ?

[Noki0100]

First post!

I just purchased a new MSI RTX 2060 Ventus 6GB OC and it's working well. I've seen a decent performance improvement so far. But now I'm wondering if my 6 year old rig needs some extra love.

I'm running an intel i7 3770K @ 3.9GHZ (slightly overclocked) on an AsRock Z77 Extreme4 with 4 x 8GB Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz Dual Channel RAM all powered by a nice a quiet Corsair 620W PSU.

I have a Cooler Master Cosmos case, so it's large and airy with a bunch of 120MM fans and the CPU has a Zalman CNPS10X Flex CPU Cooler. Unfortunately the fan is extracting air from it rather than blowing onto it (since the RAM gets in the way) but it seems to keep it quiet and cool enough.
- The fans are all 'networked' so the whole case set spin up and spin down based on CPU temp. This seems to work well, keeping it quiet at idle and cool under load.

Monitor-wise I have a BenQ 120Hz 1080p screen usually, but currently borrowing a middle tier Asus 4K 60Hz screen to try out. torn between which I prefer. Smoothness or Pixels!

My question is how bottle-necked am I? Is it worth finding a second hand CPU to fit this board for an extra boost or do I need to lay out for new CPU, Motherboard and RAM?

I play a lot of Cities Skylines, and while it's running better, it is a CPU heavy game. Admittedly I don't play much, especially not the latest and (graphically) greatest, but if I am losing a significant chunk of performance to my Ivy Bridge CPU then I'd like to address it.

A cross section of what I play...

• Cities Skylines
• Rocket League
• Doom 2016
• Forged Alliance (yes I'm old)
• StarCraft 2
• Stelaris
• Since of a Solar Empire
• Vermintide 2

Thoughts, recommendations, comments all welcome...

Thanks for reading,
Noki0100

P.S I am tempted by Virtualization and Hardware Pass-through too (Linux User). This Motherboard supports it, but not to the full extent that would allow me to seperate out the graphics card for use only by a VM. This is a nice to have though, and would only add fuel to the 'full upgrade' option.

 

[13thmonkey]

There is no secondhand CPU to buy, you have the top end for that socket.

There is no answer to the question 'how bottlenecked am I', it will vary from game to game, at 60hz gaming the CPU is less of a problem, at 120Hz it will be more of a problem. BUT at 4k the GPU is a problem.

 

[Noki0100]

Of course, I understand that it varies. I'm less in the loop on Hardware these days, I dip in an out. Since I'm at top tier on CPU leaves me with a full upgrade.

I doubt I will see significant gains from the cost. Probably worth waiting until next year to upgrade in that case.

I went from a GTX 770 to this new card. I went with the 2060 down to the extortionate prices right now. £350 seemed ok, £450 for a 70 was too high.

Thanks for the comments 13thmonkey!

Edit: Also in my mind I had an almost top tier CPU, usually I don't usually get the most expensive one so thought I had some headroom. My Mistake.

 

[InvalidError]

But now I'm wondering if my 6 year old rig needs some extra love.

Does your system feel significantly inadequate in some specific way? No? Then no extra 'love' required, you are only looking for an excuse to upgrade for upgrade's sake. I have an i5-3470 and still perfectly fine with it. Struggles a bit in more intensive stuff like FFXV but not enough to justify an upgrade in my book, at least not at current CPU and RAM prices. Might change my mind when Ryzen 3000 launches.

Anything can bottleneck anything else, just need to put the right circumstances together. As long as that bottleneck occurs beyond the performance level you are aiming for, it doesn't matter at all.

 

[logainofhades]

You can use MSI afterburner to determine CPU usage, vs GPU usage, for the games you play. That will tell you if you have a bottleneck, or not. The 3770k is still a pretty decent CPU though, so I would expect you to be just fine. Gamers nexus did a pretty nice roundup video, with a 2600k vs more current gen CPU's, not all that long ago. You might want to check it out. Sandy and Ivy have aged quite well. If not my desire for a mini-itx rig, I would have probably just dropped a 3770k, into my old Asrock Z77 extreme4, instead of getting the 6700k I have now.

 

[InvalidError]

Sandy and Ivy have aged quite well.

Only because Sandy-Ivy was the last product cycle with significant performance gains beyond raw clock frequency bumps until Coffee Lake on Intel's side. Everything else in-between was very much yawn-inducing. SB/IB still being decent by today's standards would have been more impressive if Broadwell, Skylake, Cannon Lake and Ice Lake launched on their original schedules instead of slipping by 2-4 years.

 

[Noki0100]

Thanks for your input. I guess I was looking for someone to talk me out of spending money for no good reason. I took a look at comparisons and Ivy Bridge does hold up well as you say. I will have an experiment with afterburner, but not looking for an overclock. Just curious to tinker.

To be fair this machine is still running like a dream with some components being 6 years old, value for money I think!

I may look into an extra SSD as an option. I currently have 3 Crucial M4's with 128, 256 and 512 respectively. But there's no massive performance gains there I don't think.

Thanks guys, really helpful.