i5 4670 (non K) vs 1080ti - Time to upgrade?

[AuGZA]

Hi All,

I've had my main rig since 2013 and it's starting to see it's age.

i5-4670 3.4ghz (non K) CPU
MSI Z87-G43 LGA
MSI Gaming Z 1070
16gb DDR3 1600MHz memory

The caveat is that I've come across an opportunity to buy a new 1080ti at a significantly reduced price (I believe the current RTX series are duds). Unfortunately I can only upgrade my Mobo, Ram and CPU or the GPU.

I use my gaming rig mostly for competitive shooters (PUBG, R6 Siege and soon BLOPS IV) on a 144hz 1080p display. As I despise Temporal Anti Aliasing because of the high levels of blur, I tend to use in-game render scaling or Nvidia Dynamic Super Resolution to super sample anti alias my games. While I don't mind playing at medium settings (these tend to be better for competitive games anyway), I'm constantly struggling to maximize frames while maintaining a crisp, jaggy-free image.

So the question is, do I dump my old bottlenecking CPU (restricting higher frame rates) or do I just push ahead with a GTX 1080ti despite the increasing 1% lows and micro stutter?

PS: I have investigated purchasing second hand 4770k CPU's but the prices appear to be unreasonably high. I've seen 4790k's for cheaper but they are reportedly incompatible with my mobo even after flashing.

 

[pootissandvichheavy]

Yeah, time to upgrade. But only your CPU and motherboard.

I would personally recommend a Ryzen 5 2600 - Asus PRIME B450-PLUS combo. But if you are willing to spend the extra money, get a Ryzen 7 1700 - Asus ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING combo.

This is why you should switch to Ryzen at this point, it's currently offering very firm competition to Intel, and are also succeeding.


The 1070 is still a beast, so upgrade the board and CPU first.

 

[Phaaze88]

I'd advise against getting the 1080ti if you're still going to play at 1080p... or you will also discover it to be a negligent upgrade over your current card.
It overwhelm all but the strongest cpus of today. 1440p or higher will fix this imbalance.

If money is of little consequence, the 2700x and I7 8700(K) are the top picks at the moment. If you're running on somewhat of a budget, then a 2600(X) or I5 8400/8600k.

 

[AuGZA]

Thanks for the responses!

Assuming I forgo the GPU upgrade, I could go with a 2700X or i7 8700k. Considering that I'd probably want to keep the CPU for another 5 years, which should I go with?

I'd advise against getting the 1080ti if you're still going to play at 1080p... or you will also discover it to be a negligent upgrade over your current card.
It overwhelm all but the strongest cpus of today. 1440p or higher will fix this imbalance.

If money is of little consequence, the 2700x and I7 8700(K) are the top picks at the moment. If you're running on somewhat of a budget, then a 2600(X) or I5 8400/8600k.

So I actually play between 1440p and 2160p and then downscale it back to 1080p on my monitor. With my GTX 1070 I get 80-100 FPS on medium settings on PUBG and got 70-90 FPS on the BLOPS IV Blackout beta. Ideally I would like 144 FPS +

I find the higher resolutions have always helped me spot enemies at great distances and snipe any bits that poke out. (As opposed to TAA solutions).

I would like to know if GPU or CPU is the greatest bottleneck at higher resolutions? Is my old i5 4670 creating an FPS ceiling on modern titles regardless of resolution?

 

[Phaaze88]

1) 8700k is the faster gaming chip, but if you into streaming or something productive on the side, then 2700x. That's not to say 8700k can't do those either, it's just the latter is more efficient at it.

2) 144+ isn't happening on either of those. PUBG is poorly optimized. Even high-end rigs have trouble running that one smoothly. And a game in beta stage is also unfinished and unoptimized - hopefully the programmers do it right with that one, unlike the laziness that is PUBG... :/

3) GPU. As resolution goes up the load on the gpu increases, but cpu load decreases. It's reversed when going in the other direction.
The 1080ti is so fast at 1080p, that it makes the cpu work even harder than it already has to. If one isn't using a top-of-the-line cpu at that resolution, on top of that, playing a cpu demanding game(some AAA titles)... the cpu gets bogged down = avg fps goes down.

4) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1k6heVCRwhlR9aAHxY5TVrDlu_rPK-X5oaafIPNXuAMM/edit#gid=0 It depends on the game. On average, it should do ok at 1440p, and even smoother at 4k, but the 1070 isn't a 4k card(that's for 1080ti^)...

There have been some folks here and there considering - or having already purchased a 1080ti because 'it's the best(formerly) and futureproof'... and also running with 1080p monitors(some even with the 60hz models!). Good luck to them with said futureproof decision when they find their cpus can't keep up and it wasn't as big an upgrade as they were expecting.

 

[AuGZA]

1) 8700k is the faster gaming chip, but if you into streaming or something productive on the side, then 2700x. That's not to say 8700k can't do those either, it's just the latter is more efficient at it.

2) 144+ isn't happening on either of those. PUBG is poorly optimized. Even high-end rigs have trouble running that one smoothly. And a game in beta stage is also unfinished and unoptimized - hopefully the programmers do it right with that one, unlike the laziness that is PUBG... :/

3) GPU. As resolution goes up the load on the gpu increases, but cpu load decreases. It's reversed when going in the other direction.
The 1080ti is so fast at 1080p, that it makes the cpu work even harder than it already has to. If one isn't using a top-of-the-line cpu at that resolution, on top of that, playing a cpu demanding game(some AAA titles)... the cpu gets bogged down = avg fps goes down.

4) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1k6heVCRwhlR9aAHxY5TVrDlu_rPK-X5oaafIPNXuAMM/edit#gid=0 It depends on the game. On average, it should do ok at 1440p, and even smoother at 4k, but the 1070 isn't a 4k card(that's for 1080ti^)...

There have been some folks here and there considering - or having already purchased a 1080ti because 'it's the best(formerly) and futureproof'... and also running with 1080p monitors(some even with the 60hz models!). Good luck to them with said futureproof decision when they find their cpus can't keep up and it wasn't as big an upgrade as they were expecting.

Thank you for the comprehensive response! Guess it's time to upgrade my CPU.

 

[Karadjgne]

Cpu sets the fps limits. Gpu sets the details and resolution. So whatever the gpu is set at can change fps up or down, but only to the limits set by the cpu.

Dropping a 1080ti on that i5-4670 won't change the limits of fps. If you get 80-100fps in a game and that 1070 still has room, adding a 1080ti won't change that. Only a stronger cpu will, allowing for higher fps and making that 1070 work a little harder.

An i7 can help, but only in certain situations. That means games that are optimized for high thread usage, like gta5 or WoW. For quad or lower thread games like skyrim or fallout, the i7 is no different than an i5, it's basically the same cpu with hyperthreading capability added on. IPC is the same.

Best option I see is a move to a Ryzen 5 2600x. Has the thread capacity to handle anything thrown at it and almost the same IPC as Intel cpu's, without the premium pricing. Intel on a budget is the i5 8400. Stretch the budget for a decent Z board and i7 8700k. Nothing else in Intels lineup really makes as much impact. Even the 8600k isn't much better than the 8400, it's still an i5 and an 8700 is just kinda pointless.