Interim build to game while saving up for a real upgrade- Can I stick with Ivy Bridge for now?

[shuvool]

Ok, so my rig has served me well since I built it back in 2011. The CPU is a 3570k overclocked to around 4 GHz while the video card is a 7970 GHz ed. that has become outdated to the point where I was unable to meet the minimum requirements for some new games that came out last year. I was still ok with all this, since most of my gaming is FFXIV and older games, but recently the second fan on my GPU died (the first fan died about 4 years ago, but the card has been a trooper and kept up on one fan all this time). FWIW, it's a Sapphire card. As I understand it, the LGA 1155 socket will only accommodate 3rd generation Intel processors, so any upgrade of the CPU will require a new board, which is an expense I don't want to deal with right now. I want to be able to go back to playing FFXIV and older games like BIoshock (pre-infinite).

My question is- will this CPU bottleneck the games I want to play (plus possibly newer games if I snag them) at 1080p if I buy a newer GPU? Nothing super fancy, like a 1080ti, but something along the lines of a 1070 or if I stay with AMD, a 580? Something in the $200-400 range, figuring I'll do a new build next year sometime and replace this aging rig entirely, giving this one to my kids to play minecraft, roblox, etc on

 

[WildCard999]

A GPU such as the RX 580 8gb or GTX 1060 6gb would be fine with that CPU.

 

[chemmajorp53]

I would hold off on buying the graphics card just in case the new gen from nVidia comes out in a couple weeks like the rumors say. As far as the cpu, 3570k is fine for those games but if you feel like the performance isn't there in the future the new non-k i5 and i7 and the r5 2600 are pretty good values, but you'll have to get new ram.

 

[chemmajorp53]

Also forgot to mention that you could probably get a new set of fans for your 7970 for like $10 if you feel like repairing it

 

[jacobweaver800]

Ok, so my rig has served me well since I built it back in 2011. The CPU is a 3570k overclocked to around 4 GHz while the video card is a 7970 GHz ed. that has become outdated to the point where I was unable to meet the minimum requirements for some new games that came out last year. I was still ok with all this, since most of my gaming is FFXIV and older games, but recently the second fan on my GPU died (the first fan died about 4 years ago, but the card has been a trooper and kept up on one fan all this time). FWIW, it's a Sapphire card. As I understand it, the LGA 1155 socket will only accommodate 3rd generation Intel processors, so any upgrade of the CPU will require a new board, which is an expense I don't want to deal with right now. I want to be able to go back to playing FFXIV and older games like BIoshock (pre-infinite).

My question is- will this CPU bottleneck the games I want to play (plus possibly newer games if I snag them) at 1080p if I buy a newer GPU? Nothing super fancy, like a 1080ti, but something along the lines of a 1070 or if I stay with AMD, a 580? Something in the $200-400 range, figuring I'll do a new build next year sometime and replace this aging rig entirely, giving this one to my kids to play minecraft, roblox, etc on

For Minecraft/Roblox my Ivy Bridge i3 runs them just fine, so you won't need much more than an RX 470 or 570 until they get into heavier games. As for GPU support, I wouldn't get a GPU faster than something like a 1060 6gb, I don't know personally how much GPU horsepower that CPU can handle but I think a 1070 might be out of it's reaches. I would focus on a 1060 6gb or an RX 580 8gb or 570 as an upgrade.

 

[shuvool]

Ok, so the general consensus seems to be RX580 for the interim, which is great since the price is low. I also like the idea of holding off for a couple weeks, for the launch of the new nvidia stuff, with my fingers crossed to hope for a slight price drop on the 580 when the new stuff is released, so maybe in a couple weeks, go with an RX580. Alas, poor old rig, thou has served me well. As for the fan replacement, it's something I can probably technically do (my career to this point has been electronics maintenance and repair) but I'm not totally sure the fans are the only issue, or if the card itself after all this time has suffered some heat stress and would be best replaced.

 

[chemmajorp53]

If you're dead set on the 580 and need it now then just get it now; if they only release the 2080 or whatever they call it then you might be waiting well over a month (whenever the other cards come out) for a minor drop in price. If you can afford the down time then there's no harm in waiting.

 

[geofelt]

Your 3570K is still a competent gamer, particularly with an overclock.
No game I know of requires more than the 4 cores/threads that you now have.

To get some idea if a stronger graphics card would benefit you, run this experiment:
Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
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.


If you change out the graphics card, I suggest you make it a big jump or you may be disappointed if you do not see a nice improvement.
A GTX1060/Rx580 is not that big of a jump; I think GTX1070/ti class or better.
I do not like interim solutions, particularly when a ultimate solution is available.

 

[shuvool]

Your 3570K is still a competent gamer, particularly with an overclock.
No game I know of requires more than the 4 cores/threads that you now have.

To get some idea if a stronger graphics card would benefit you, run this experiment:
Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
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.


If you change out the graphics card, I suggest you make it a big jump or you may be disappointed if you do not see a nice improvement.
A GTX1060/Rx580 is not that big of a jump; I think GTX1070/ti class or better.
I do not like interim solutions, particularly when a ultimate solution is available.

I get that for upgrading, this is more of a stopgap measure to allow me to continue playing my current games, which ran fine until my last fan died (my computer occasionally crashes while I'm playing when the GPU overheats now). I just don't want to have to replace a MB, RAM, CPU, and GPU all at once right now (I just bought a house, and the expenses of moving, all the eating out, etc are piling up)

 

[logainofhades]

You can get fans, for that card, on Ebay. I replaced the fans for my Zotac GTX 770, with fans from a Sapphire 280x, which I believe used the same fans as your 7970.