Should I upgrade to GTX 1080 from GTX 770 4GB With i5 2500K?

[xwingpilot312]

I am currently looking into upgrading my system's GTX 770 4GB to a GTX 1080. After hours of research (off and on for the past couple of weeks) I've come to the conclusion that I have no conclusion XD. Despite this being a question that has heaps of data and benchmarks yet no clear cut answer (I understand it's a difficult/convoluted topic,) I wanted to get one final opinion: assuming that my system's i5 2500K will bottleneck the GTX 1080, how much of the power of the 1080 can I actually utilize?

I can fully utilize my GTX 770 with the 2500K, but will I be getting my money's worth out of a 1080 with this CPU (Overclocked or Otherwise?) I know that I really should match it with a GTX 1060 6GB or a GTX 1070 but with the crypto-currency craze I can currently get the 1080 for around the same price as the 1070 and for only ~100 more as the 1060.

Is it worth investing in the 1080 over the GTX 770 with this CPU?

 

[chalky16]

You'd see a increase from the 1080 but it'd most likely be bottlenecked. So if you're ok with upgrading CPU, RAM and Mobo all at once later down the road get the gpu now, it won't need to be upgraded soon.

 

[geofelt]

Your 2500K is still a very effective processor.


Tom's gpu hierarchy list recommends a upgrade be3 tiers higher.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html
The GTX1060 is one tier higher and the GTX1070 is two.

If your games are fast action types, you will benefit from GTX1080.

On another level, if you have the budget and pass on the GTX1080, you will forever wonder if you did right.

 

[jankerson]

No harm in upgrading to the GTX 1080 while the pricing is good.

You will see performance increases from it and you can always transfer it to a newer box later if you decide to get a new MB, CPU, Ram etc.

 

[Karadjgne]

Here's the kicker. It's a toss up. On the one hand, if you are upgrading to take advantage of a 1440p monitor, then yes, the 1080 with a 2500k is fine, you'll keep roughly the same settings. On the other hand, a 1080 is pretty much wasted on 1080p, so if upgrading that far to get better/maxed settings, then you'll bog the 2500k something serious.

Grass is a good example. Cpu says this is the dimensions of a blade of grass, these are the colors, these are it's ranges of motion etc. Shoves all that info at the gpu to paint the picture. On medium, might be 1 million blades easily visible,before viewing distance blurs them out. High, 2 million, ultra 4 million. Also add in all the rest, like shadows etc and the 770 isn't capable at 60fps, so you keep it at high, which is fine for the 2500k, not so good for you. Now add in the 1080, which is not only capable of 60fps at high, but beyond that to 120fps at ultra, and that 2500k tanks under the demand of 4 million blades 120x a second, vrs the 2 million blades at 60x a second.

Moving to 1440p not quite doubles the resolution, so the gpu has to work considerably harder to reproduce almost 2x the pixels as 1080p (think it's really like 1.67x or so), so even the 1080 at 4 million blades with 1.67x the pixels will be dropped down to a more manageable 60fps. The 2500k doesn't change, it's still shoving the same info at the gpu on 1440p as it did at 1080p. So it's workable.

That's assuming that all things are equal. Unfortunately, they aren't. With IPC, game optimizations, die sizes, nano processes etc, if a 2500k puts out 40fps in a game, swap that out for a i5-7600k (keeping everything else the same) and the new i5 will be close to, if not over, 100fps. Moving to a gtx1080 won't help that one bit in that respect.

Is it worth the upgrade? For a $100 more than a 1060/6, absolutely. Just be careful of your settings in cpu intensive games (no hairworks!) , and max out settings in gpu intensive games (still no hairworks, minimize AA usage etc as that's cpu bound) and you'll be ok at 1080p, and good at 1440p. But I'd definitely start thinking of the rest of the system, and one day upgrade the rest to catch up with the gpus ability. Right now the Ryzen R5 1600 is a very good balance for the 1080 at 1080p or 1440p.

 

[dontlistentome]

The original question doesn't mention WHY you want this upgrade. Without a clear goal, how do you anticipate deciding if it was 'worth it' or not?

 

[Karadjgne]

Actually, it kinda does. OP wants to upgrade, the 770 isn't cutting it any more. With the mining craziness, the 1070 and 1080 are about the same price, the 1060/6 is just a $100 cheaper. So op is asking if it's worth it to spend the extra $100 for a 1080 over the 1060/6. At least that's what I get out of it.

 

[smorizio]

if you can wait look at newer amd and nvidia gpu.

 

[Maebius]

Have you overclocked the 2500k?

Even if not, if you're aiming at playing at 60FPS and 1440p, it's a sound plan to get the 1080.

To give you my perspective, when I put a 1080 ti on my 2500k (@4.5 Ghz) playing several games in 4k with few compromises was quite doable at 60fps... Obviously when I got the 7700k I made fewer compromises in the detail settings but you get the picture.

 

[maxalge]

I am currently looking into upgrading my system's GTX 770 4GB to a GTX 1080. After hours of research (off and on for the past couple of weeks) I've come to the conclusion that I have no conclusion XD. Despite this being a question that has heaps of data and benchmarks yet no clear cut answer (I understand it's a difficult/convoluted topic,) I wanted to get one final opinion: assuming that my system's i5 2500K will bottleneck the GTX 1080, how much of the power of the 1080 can I actually utilize?

I can fully utilize my GTX 770 with the 2500K, but will I be getting my money's worth out of a 1080 with this CPU (Overclocked or Otherwise?) I know that I really should match it with a GTX 1060 6GB or a GTX 1070 but with the crypto-currency craze I can currently get the 1080 for around the same price as the 1070 and for only ~100 more as the 1060.

Is it worth investing in the 1080 over the GTX 770 with this CPU?

the 2500k is not strong enough to keep up with a 1080


your current mobo may be able to handle a i7 4770k with a bios update, that is a good pair with a 1080

post your mobo make and model to be sure

 

[xwingpilot312]

Let me explain my situation a bit better, I apologize for the confusion. I am currently in a position to sell the GTX 770 to a co-worker for a reasonable price (along with some additional components from an older secondary build.) Based on what I am able to sell the card for at the current time I wanted to jump ship on the 770 before more time passes and it's value decreases further. PLUS another reason I am willing to do this is I'm coming up on my (self-imposed lol) 3 year upgrade cycle, however I would like the next GPU I get to last me at least 5 years. My first GPU was a GTS250 in 2008 and then a GTX 570 in 2011 and the GTX 770 in 2013. I feel like given the price craziness, my current situation, and the lack of Volta until at least Q2 of next year (just look up what Nvidia's CEO had to say about consumer versions of Volta: https://www.google.com/amp/www.pcgamer.com/amp/nvidias-next-gen-volta-gaming-gpus-arent-arriving-anytime-soon/) I should jump on the Pascal 1080 train. Given those things, does it make sense?

 

[Karadjgne]

Yep. Because whenever you upgrade that cpu, you'll have a gpu already in place. Not liking your chances if you wait another 3 years to upgrade, games and OS are going to hurt, sooner rather than later, you are already running an old horse in a fast race. In three years that cpu will be an old, lame horse.
But a 1080 is good for at least 5 years, depending on expectations.

 

[xwingpilot312]

I agree and I will definitely be looking at a new platform in a couple years, however, I only have so much money to work with and would rather net the graphics card now as, based on some great answers from everyone, it seems that would be the greatest boost to overall performance. That said, now begins the struggle of choosing which brand!

 

[Karadjgne]

I prefer Asus or MSI, they generally have the coolest and quietest cards, especially the enthusiast class cards like the GamerX or ROG Strix. But the Zotac cards are good, as are the Evga and Gigabyte, it's a gtx1080, you really can't go wrong either way. I would give consideration to what color scheme you next build might be, no point getting an MSI Armor 2 (black/white) if the next build will be black/red etc.

 

[jankerson]

Personally I like EVGA.

My GTX 1080 FTW2 runs very cool and quiet.

And it has plenty of options for RGB.

 

[xwingpilot312]

Thank you all!