Question upgrade rtx 2070 super to 4080?

[spykar_911]

hello mates.
currently i am running 9700k with 2070 super and i play games @1440p 144hz monitor. i am thinking of upgrading gpu to 4080 as i want to play with ultra setting but not atleast below 80-90 fps. and i dont plan of upgrading my monitor to 4k any soon.
so my concern is my cpu. Is 9700k good enough to handle rtx 4080@1440p ? ,because i am on tight budget and cant upgrade both.also ,i dont want to upgrade anything below 4080 .
So should i go ahead and buy 4080 or will it be bottleneck???.thanks .

 

[mjbn1977]

First of all, you will see a huge performance increase. Some CPU bottle necking can happen even with newer CPUs, but isn't really an issue in 1440p. Even my 13700k still gets some CPU bottlenecking in MS flight simulator. You might see bottle necking in FarCry 5, but you will be well in the mid 100s fps wise without raytracing, even with the CPU bottleneck. Don't worry too much about the CPU bottle neck. If they are any, a better CPU would not make it much better. You will see huge fps increase from 2070 Super to 4080k. I upgraded from 2080 to 4080 and the performance increase is huge. You can upgrade CPU and RAM maybe a year or two from now....but you good right now.

Here some examples of benchmarks I did with my RTX 4080:

Red Dead Redemption 2 at 1440p DX12 everything in Ultra: 132fps Average
Far Cry 6 1440p Ultra Setting HD Texture pack and Raytracing: 118fps Average
Metro Exodus 1440p Ultra Settings with Raytracing: 88fps Average (113fps Average with DLSS Quality)
Cyberpunk 2077 1440p Ultra Setting with Raytracing (Ultra and Psycho): 61fps Average (103fps Average with DLSS Quality)
Watch Dogs Legion 1440p Ultra Settings with Raytracing: 87fps Average (107fps with DLSS Quality)
Witcher 3 Next Gen Upgrade 1440p Ultra with Raytracing: 100fps Average with DLSS Quality and DLSS frame generation



Sorry, most of those are with Raytracing, since I always play with raytracing. Red Dead Redemption 2 is probably one of the most demanding non raytracing title....I tested SOTTR and AC:Valhalla as well, but don't have the FPS written down. But well more fps than Red Dead Redemption 2.

Expect a few fps less with the 9700k in 1440p, but nothing major.

Just make sure you have a good power supply. A quality tier one 750 watt will do....more can't hurt.

 

[Nighthawk117]

i am on tight budget and cant upgrade both.also ,i dont want to upgrade anything below 4080 .

Yes a 9700K will bottleneck a 4080, by how much will vary depending on the title. Your not going to get 144hz in Cyberpunk with Ray Tracing on, that's just not happening. What games do you intend on playing?

My two cents though would be just get the 4080 and worry about the CPU another time. Any unused capacity on the GPU today will only make it last longer.

 

[mjbn1977]

Yes a 9700K will bottleneck a 4080, by how much will vary depending on the title. Your not going to get 144hz in Cyberpunk with Ray Tracing on, that's just not happening. What games do you intend on playing?

But that is not because of a CPU bottleneck, 1440p Cyberpunk with Raytracing is a GPU bottleneck. Even the 4090 can only do 80fps in 1440p with Ultra raytracing in Cyberpunk. But that has nothing to do with the CPU.

One example where the 4080 gets bottlenecked slightly by the CPU is FarCry 6 in 1440p without raytracing......but its still more than 140fps.....

Depending on the title the OP can see up to double the framerates in non-raytracing titles (how much less than that depends on the potential bottleneck). In Raytracing titles its much more.....can be up to 3 times more fps (e.g. Cyberpunk).

I wouldn't worry too much about a potential bottleneck. They 9700k is not that bad....actually, its still very good for gaming.....

 

[Nighthawk117]

But that is not because of a CPU bottleneck, 1440p Cyberpunk with Raytracing is a GPU bottleneck.

I've played Cyberpunk with a 3080 at 1440p with psycho ray tracing. On less than 8 cores/16 threads I found it was often CPU bottlenecked most of the time and couldn't always sustain 60 FPS. The CPU was pegged at 100%. Your right however 144hz is generally out of the question with ray tracing.

I wouldn't worry too much about a potential bottleneck. They 9700k is not that bad....actually, its still very good for gaming.....

I would generally agree, a 4080 will still be beneficial with a 9700K at 1440p. If the OP doesn't have the money for both then there are far worse things than extending the life of your 9700K.

 

[norcalsc]

You'd honestly be fine with a 3080 or better

 

[mjbn1977]

I've played Cyberpunk with a 3080 at 1440p with psycho ray tracing. On less than 8 cores/16 threads I found it was often CPU bottlenecked most of the time and couldn't always sustain 60 FPS. The CPU was pegged at 100%. Your right however 144hz is generally out of the question

what is your gpu load? Still don’t think you can put bottle neck cyberpunk in ultra with raytracing ultra. When we talking cpu bottleneck it’s Situation were your gpu load only sits at 70% or so. If it is mid to high 90s%, it’s not a cpu bottleneck

 

[Ar558]

hello mates.
currently i am running 9700k with 2070 super and i play games @1440p 144hz monitor. i am thinking of upgrading gpu to 4080 as i want to play with ultra setting but not atleast below 80-90 fps. and i dont plan of upgrading my monitor to 4k any soon.
so my concern is my cpu. Is 9700k good enough to handle rtx 4080@1440p ? ,because i am on tight budget and cant upgrade both.also ,i dont want to upgrade anything below 4080 .
So should i go ahead and buy 4080 or will it be bottleneck???.thanks .

A 9700k will run with a 4080 but it wouldn't be the best use of your money assuming you have $1200+ to spend on that. The 4080 is spectacularly bad value as Gamers Nexus' video today highlighted. Also while it would run it would be bottlenecked by the 9700k. It would be better to build a new rig on a 12600k and get a 3080. You would likely get similar ish performance as the 3080 could run un bottlenecked. Also this would give you an upgrade path to 13th Gen and a future 40 or 50 series card.

 

[mjbn1977]

A 9700k will run with a 4080 but it wouldn't be the best use of your money assuming you have $1200+ to spend on that. The 4080 is spectacularly bad value as Gamers Nexus' video today highlighted. Also while it would run it would be bottlenecked by the 9700k. It would be better to build a new rig on a 12600k and get a 3080. You would likely get similar ish performance as the 3080 could run un bottlenecked. Also this would give you an upgrade path to 13th Gen and a future 40 or 50 series card.

the bottleneck is a non issue.value is another question. It might be a bad value, but still a very good performing card. And the original poster didn’t ask about value. He asked about the bottleneck in 1440p with graphic settings in Ultra. And in that case cpu bottleneck is insignificant. Especially if you want to use raytracing. A 9700k with 4080 will be significantly faster than a 12600k with 3080.

 

[Nighthawk117]

what is your gpu load? Still don’t think you can put bottle neck cyberpunk in ultra with raytracing ultra. When we talking cpu bottleneck it’s Situation were your gpu load only sits at 70% or so. If it is mid to high 90s%, it’s not a cpu bottleneck

I have a 1000W Seasonic Focus GX Gold so it's not a PSU load issue. I've tested the game in different CPU configurations with my 10850K because I was curious what impact the number of cores and threads had. With 6 cores/12 threads and 8 cores/8 threads the game will at times drop below 60 FPS, at those times the GPU is not fully loaded but I can't remmber what the usage was. The CPU was at 100% most of the time. I'm not saying there is a huge bottleneck at 60hz, there isn't, most of the time it's fine and it generally plays well. I'm just saying that the frame rate was more consistent and smoother on 8 cores/16 threads and 10 cores/20 threads in those most demanding scenes.

 

[mjbn1977]

Because the 3080 was mentioned. Yes, this could be an alternative (I really wanted to buy one 2 years ago and gave up after three months searching), but only if OP is sure he will not switch to 4K (10GB vram not future proof for 4K) and raytracing is not that important to him (you can play cyberpunk in 1440p psycho raytracing without dlss and get over 60fps with 4080, you can’t do that with 3080). Also he needs to be aware that he will not be able to use DLSS 3.0 frame generation. So far I only used it in MS flight simulator and Witcher 3 new gen update. But it works great on both cases.

Yes, the 4080 is very pricy. But it is still a very good card with amazing thermals and power draw. It’s never ever hitting 70C in my case while playing Cyberpunk with raytracing….and you now what the good thing is…they are in stock, you can buy one right now, and you don’t even have to give your money to a scalper!!! 😉

That is a decision he has to make with his wallet. But if he wants to go the 4080 route, he will be good with the 9700k for now. Shouldn’t worry too much about bottle necks. He will never get in situations with Ultra settings 1440p were to cpu will have a significant impact on overall performance.

Just look at the1440p raytracing and non raytracing charts of Tom’s hardware GPU hierarchy .

 

[Nighthawk117]

I'm amazed at how expensive the 4080 is. The 4080 is readily available in the UK but it's twice the price of a 3080. No wonder the OP doesn't want to spend any more elsewhere.

 

[Ar558]

the bottleneck is a non issue.value is another question. It might be a bad value, but still a very good performing card. And the original poster didn’t ask about value. He asked about the bottleneck in 1440p with graphic settings in Ultra. And in that case cpu bottleneck is insignificant. Especially if you want to use raytracing. A 9700k with 4080 will be significantly faster than a 12600k with 3080.

It's not a non issue but without doing a full test it's hard to estimate it's impact. I'm never gonna recommend someone spend money in a massively inefficient way. I haven't seen any benchmarks of a 4080 with a 9700k so unless you can prove that I wouldn't be sure although I suspect the 4080/9700k combo would be faster but whether it would be 10% or 50% is pretty hard to tell. Nonetheless it's not a sensible way to build a system or a sensible product at it's current price so I will continue to say so.

 

[mjbn1977]

I am not playing much without raytracing, but I was curious about the non raytracing performance. So I just ran a few more benchmarks:
All benchmarks with stock clock of my 4080 (see full specs off fully air cooled system in my signature), but power limit was increased to 115% in afterburner. GPU temps stayed consistently at mid 60sC during all benchmarks...

No Raytracing, no DLSS:
Far Cry 6 1440p Ultra Setting HD Texture pack: 150fps
AC:Valhalla 1440p Ultra Setting: 200fps average
Watch Dogs: Legion 1440p Ultra Settings, HD texture pack, no raytracing, no dlss: 136fps average
Cyberpunk 2077 1440p Ultra Settings, no raytracing, no dlss: 133fps average
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1440P Ultra Settings, no ray tracing, no dlss: 234fps average
Kingdom Come Deliverance 1440p everything ultra: 170 fps average, around 90 to 100 fps in the town of Rattay (that area always tanked fps by almost 50%)

Raytracing results I posted earlier:
Far Cry 6 1440p Ultra Setting HD Texture pack and Raytracing: 118fps Average
Metro Exodus 1440p Ultra Settings with Raytracing: 88fps Average (113fps Average with DLSS Quality)
Cyberpunk 2077 1440p Ultra Setting with Raytracing (Ultra and Psycho): 61fps Average (103fps Average with DLSS Quality)
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1440p Ultra Settings with Raytracing Ultra, no DLSS: 172fps average
Watch Dogs Legion 1440p Ultra Settings, HD texture pack, with Raytracing: 87fps Average (107fps with DLSS Quality)
Witcher 3 Next Gen Update 1440p Ultra with Raytracing: 140s fps Average with DLSS Quality and DLSS frame generation

 

[spykar_911]

Sorry,i couldn't reply earlier.thankyou all for giving your response.

 

[spykar_911]

Thankyou mjbn1977 for your detailed opinion and benchmarks.i am planning to upgrade my processor and ram in few months.till then,i will use 9700k.and rtx 4080 looks promising,just little pricer.i already have ordered new psu

Cooler Master Mwe Gold 1050 V2 Atx 3.0 Power Supply With PCIE 5.0 12VHPWR Connector

Buy Cooler Master Mwe Gold 1050 V2 Atx 3.0 Power Supply With PCIE 5.0 12VHPWR Connector (CM-GOLD-1050-V2) online at a very low price in India | 80 Plus Gold Certification | Fully Modular

www.pcstudio.in

What about rtx 4090? i know for 2k gaming it is overkill today,but do you think spending extra money for 4090 will be better for upcoming more demanding titles??.also can above psu handle rtx 4090.also my main concern about 4090 is burning adapter.thats why i was ignoring it earlier.


Or should i just buy 4080 instead and use that money for upgrading processor later??
Thanks.

 

[spykar_911]

Yes a 9700K will bottleneck a 4080, by how much will vary depending on the title. Your not going to get 144hz in Cyberpunk with Ray Tracing on, that's just not happening. What games do you intend on playing?

My two cents though would be just get the 4080 and worry about the CPU another time. Any unused capacity on the GPU today will only make it last longer.

I mostly play single player games.you are right ,i should not worry about cpu right now.
Do u think to spend extra for rtx 4090 over 4080 if i play at 2k??thanks.

 

[Nighthawk117]

I mostly play single player games.you are right ,i should not worry about cpu right now.

If your spending that much on a GPU your unlikely to change it for some time so no need to do everything at once, it's not as if you have a terrible CPU or anything like that.

Do u think to spend extra for rtx 4090 over 4080 if i play at 2k??thanks.

If it were me I would get the 4080 for 2k, the 4090 seems a bit over the top.

 

[mjbn1977]

Thankyou mjbn1977 for your detailed opinion and benchmarks.i am planning to upgrade my processor and ram in few months.till then,i will use 9700k.and rtx 4080 looks promising,just little pricer.i already have ordered new psu

Cooler Master Mwe Gold 1050 V2 Atx 3.0 Power Supply With PCIE 5.0 12VHPWR Connector

Buy Cooler Master Mwe Gold 1050 V2 Atx 3.0 Power Supply With PCIE 5.0 12VHPWR Connector (CM-GOLD-1050-V2) online at a very low price in India | 80 Plus Gold Certification | Fully Modular

www.pcstudio.in

What about rtx 4090? i know for 2k gaming it is overkill today,but do you think spending extra money for 4090 will be better for upcoming more demanding titles??.also can above psu handle rtx 4090.also my main concern about 4090 is burning adapter.thats why i was ignoring it earlier.


Or should i just buy 4080 instead and use that money for upgrading processor later??
Thanks.

I was considering the 4090 as well, but went for the 4080 due to following reasons:

• I am not planning to switch to 4k anytime soon. In 2k the 4080 has more than enough power. Especially if you don't mind using DLSS 2.0 in Quality mode. You can run Cyberpunk with Utra Raytracing over 60fps without DLSS, but I prefer with DLSS Quality, what gives me around 100fps. And I even think it makes a better picture than native with TAA. I use video cards usually for 4 years and I think in 1440p I will be all set for that time frame
• 4090 wasn't available when I tried to buy one, at least not for under $2000.....so.....made the decision easy.
• 4080 uses much less power than 4090. By a lot. As a matter of fact, it is the coolest video card I ever had in a case. Barely hits 70C in gaming, sits mostly in the mid to high 60sC. Power draw in non raytracing games is in the mid 200sWatt and with Raytracing around 315Watts.

 

[spykar_911]

Thanks for helping out.finally bought msi gaming X trio 4080 and coolermaster mwe gold 1050v2 psu🙂.

 

[mjbn1977]

Thanks for helping out.finally bought msi gaming X trio 4080 and coolermaster mwe gold 1050v2 psu🙂.

Got the same card. I love it, works great. It's worth all its 130900 pennies..... ;-)

You will be happy! Is it already running in you system? So, you use it with the9700k? If yes, I would be interested how it compares to my benchmarks. Would be a nice test to see how much und upgrade from a 9700k to a 13700k would change on 1440p. Do you have any of the games that I used in my benchmarks? If not, the Cyberpunk benchmark is available in the free demo....

 

[spykar_911]

Got the same card. I love it, works great. It's worth all its 130900 pennies..... ;-)

You will be happy! Is it already running in you system? So, you use it with the9700k? If yes, I would be interested how it compares to my benchmarks. Would be a nice test to see how much und upgrade from a 9700k to a 13700k would change on 1440p. Do you have any of the games that I used in my benchmarks? If not, the Cyberpunk benchmark is available in the free demo....

thanks. yes,i am running it with 9700k oc all cores@4.9ghz, also 4080 power limit set to 115% in msi afterburner.

Here are some bechmarks i did @1440p ultra :

Red dead redemption 2 1440p ultra ,
8msaa, dlss off: 58 avg.
4msaa, dlss off: 93 avg.
dlss quality: 130 avg.


Far Cry 6 1440p Ultra Setting HD Texture pack and Raytracing ON: 86 avg. (FSR off).



Cyberpunk 2077 1440p Ultra Setting ,
dlss OFF , RT OFF: 128 avg.
dlss OFF , RT ( Psycho ): 72 avg.
dlss quality , RT ( Psycho ): 106 avg.


Witcher 3 Next Gen Upgrade 1440p Ultra+ ,
dlss OFF , RT ON : 50 to 55 avg.
dlss quality , RT ON : 55 to 60 avg.
dlss quality with dlss 3, RT ON : 110 to 125 avg.


AC:Valhalla 1440p Ultra Setting: 136 avg.



Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1440P Ultra Settings,
dlss OFF , RT OFF : 177 avg.
dlss OFF , RT ON : 131 avg.
dlss quality , RT ON : 216 avg.


Spiderman Mile Morales 1440p ultra ,(while swinging at crowded place on the road)
dlss OFF , RT ON : 65 to 70 avg.
dlss quality , RT ON : 65 to 70 avg.
dlss quality , dlss 3 (frame generation) , RT ON : 120 to 140 avg.


A Plague Tale Requiem 1440p ultra ,(where Amicia Follows Hugo down the hill after the introductory cutscene at chapter 1st)
dlss OFF: 95 to 100 avg.
dlss ON quality : 110 to 120 avg.
dlss quality ,dlss 3 (frame generation) : 175 to 190 avg.

 

[mjbn1977]

thanks. yes,i am running it with 9700k oc all cores@4.9ghz, also 4080 power limit set to 115% in msi afterburner.

Here are some bechmarks i did @1440p ultra :


Far Cry 6 1440p Ultra Setting HD Texture pack and Raytracing ON: 86 avg. (FSR off).


Cyberpunk 2077 1440p Ultra Setting ,
dlss OFF , RT OFF: 128 avg.
dlss OFF , RT ( Psycho ): 72 avg.
dlss quality , RT ( Psycho ): 106 avg.

AC:Valhalla 1440p Ultra Setting: 136 avg.


Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1440P Ultra Settings,
dlss OFF , RT OFF : 177 avg.
dlss OFF , RT ON : 131 avg.
dlss quality , RT ON : 216 avg.

Thank you. So, same RT4080 card with same power limit, but switching from a 9700k DDR4 to 13700k DDR5 is giving you:

Cyberpunk: about 12% more fps in Cyberpunk with RT (but nothing more with DLSS, or without raytracing)
FarCry: about 37% more fps with raytracing
SotTR: about 30% more fps with raytracing (no DLSS)
AC:Valhalla: 47% more frames

Overall, the processor is limiting the card a little bit, but nothing that would significantly impact gameplay. You still have amazing framerates in all those games. So, now we know what switching from a 9gen intel to 13gen intel CPU will improve frames on the 4080! Thank you for participating in this little experiment. Actually, I am very surprised about the performance of the 9700k in Cyberpunk (considering it to be a CPU demanding title). You not losing much at all. Raytracing with DLSS quality is basically the same, and in Psycho Raytracing without DLSS you only loose 12%....that is really not bad at all. Looks like the gap gets bigger when the framerates get higher, which makes sense.

My suspicion is that if we would make a more in depth analysis we probably would notice that there are differences in frame times smoothness. My guess is that the 9700k probably has less consistent frame times and lower 1% lows. But overall you should be fine for now. See what AMD and Intel brings out later this year and maybe you save up some money for a future CPU platform upgrade for next generation CPUs......maybe 14th gen Intel or new 3d cache AMD CPUs. But I don't think it is urgent in your case.

 

[spykar_911]

My suspicion is that if we would make a more in depth analysis we probably would notice that there are differences in frame times smoothness. My guess is that the 9700k probably has less consistent frame times and lower 1% lows. But overall you should be fine for now. See what AMD and Intel brings out later this year and maybe you save up some money for a future CPU platform upgrade for next generation CPUs......maybe 14th gen Intel or new 3d cache AMD CPUs. But I don't think it is urgent in your case.

you are right.9700k probably has less consistent frame times and lower 1% lows in newer titles. also most of the time my gpu doesnot reaches 100% usage ,and fps dont change much whether i play on max or low setting.i think my 9700k is holding it back.

 

[ssmokeyy]

Skip the rtx 4080 waste of money. Either pick a 7900 xtx or jump to the rtx 4090. Do not reward nvidia for bending us over and making us take it. Also that cpu could use an upgrade. 13600k would be a sweet jump on that front. Use could use the 9700k for a backup server.