[SOLVED] What is the best bang-for-buck GPU to pair with an i7-8700 ?

[xmegatron17]

I have been scouring youtube videos for the last few days trying to figure this out. Some places say the CPU will bottleneck mid-range cards like the 6700 XT, and others say they don't have any bottleneck issues. I've been looking at either the 4060, the 6700 xt, the 3060, the rx 6700 non-xt and the rx 7600. If there's better options, let me know. Trying to stay under/around $300, under if possible. I don't know if the CPU will bottleneck any of these cards or not but I'm also looking for really solid high-ultra performance along with (a little) future proofing (and 1440p if that can be part of it, which from what I've seen in this range, the 6700 xt is capable of) Which is why I'm leaning more towards the 6700 xt. I'm just really worried about the bottlenecking and hitching in games with my current CPU.

 

[Lutfij]

Please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the age of the PSU apart from it's make and model. BIOS version for your motherboard at this moment of time.

 

[xmegatron17]

Please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU: i7-8700
CPU cooler: Stock Cooler (it's just a fan)
Motherboard: HP 83E0
Ram: 16 GB Kingston DDR4-2666
SSD/HDD: 500GB PNY SSD
GPU: MSI nVidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti OC
PSU: Corsair TX650 V2 (not sure of age, it was given to me by a friend)
Chassis: An ATX case I believe. It's on the smaller side. Currently have an 8 1/2" Dual Fan, Dual-Slot GPU in it
OS: Windows 11 Pro
Monitor: 24" 165hz Acer QG241Y

BIOS version: Q01 Ver. 02.15.00

 

[pete_101]

I have been scouring youtube videos for the last few days trying to figure this out. Some places say the CPU will bottleneck mid-range cards like the 6700 XT, and others say they don't have any bottleneck issues. I've been looking at either the 4060, the 6700 xt, the 3060, the rx 6700 non-xt and the rx 7600. If there's better options, let me know. Trying to stay under/around $300, under if possible. I don't know if the CPU will bottleneck any of these cards or not but I'm also looking for really solid high-ultra performance along with (a little) future proofing (and 1440p if that can be part of it, which from what I've seen in this range, the 6700 xt is capable of) Which is why I'm leaning more towards the 6700 xt. I'm just really worried about the bottlenecking and hitching in games with my current CPU.

At 1440p, your system could handle an RX 6700xt without much of a bottleneck, so if that's what you want to get, go for it.

BTW, the term "bottleneck" is thrown around like it's something to avoid...it's not possible to avoid, one component or another is going to being the bottleneck, and it can change from game to game. I'm assuming you don't have a 1440p monitor yet, so probably playing in 1080p, in this case your CPU will limit how fast everything runs....but with a 6700xt it will be an improvement over what you're currently getting. Then when you do get a 1440p monitor, you'll be all set to handle it.

 

[xmegatron17]

At 1440p, your system could handle an RX 6700xt without much of a bottleneck, so if that's what you want to get, go for it.

BTW, the term "bottleneck" is thrown around like it's something to avoid...it's not possible to avoid, one component or another is going to being the bottleneck, and it can change from game to game. I'm assuming you don't have a 1440p monitor yet, so probably playing in 1080p, in this case your CPU will limit how fast everything runs....but with a 6700xt it will be an improvement over what you're currently getting. Then when you do get a 1440p monitor, you'll be all set to handle it.

I have a 4K monitor, I just haven't been using it because the 1050 ti can't do 4K at all. Hardly does 1080p and 720-900p on a 4K monitor just looks horrible.

I'd primarily be in 1440p with 1080p in some titles to get 60 FPS. At 1080p would I have stuttering issues or just lower frames? I'm really not sure how a bottleneck even works. From my personal experience, I had intense stuttering and freezing because of it.

 

[pete_101]

I'd primarily be in 1440p with 1080p in some titles to get 60 FPS. At 1080p would I have stuttering issues or just lower frames? I'm really not sure how a bottleneck even works. From my personal experience, I had intense stuttering and freezing because of it.

You shouldn't have either. If in the past you had a CPU so poor, or you didn't have enough RAM to run the game, then this would make sense as to why it was stuttering and freezing. Your i7-8700 and 16GB is still good enough for modern games.

Adding a faster GPU should increase performance across all resolutions, currently it's your 1050ti which is the bottleneck...simply put, the slowest component. By adding a faster GPU, you'll see the limits of your CPU, which will be way above what you are currently seeing with the 1050ti installed. Of course, by increasing resolution, you can shift the load from the CPU back to the GPU.

 

[rambo919]

The annoying thing is some new features on GPU's are outright disabled on older CPU's. Resizable BAR (which has had a lot made of it recently) for example won't work on this CPU. And then there is the slight PCIe 3 bottleneck.

Being in the same position myself though, at this point I have come to the conclusion that it's better to wait till mid or end next year to upgrade if at all. To see what happens to pricing and what late models get released..... this might be the year I get an AMD GPU given how greedy nVidia has gotten depending on power draw and VRAM size of what's available.

The 1050ti currently is still fine for now for 99% of games on 1080p you just gotta lower the settings..... for 4k though I have no clue.

 

[pete_101]

The annoying thing is some new features on GPU's are outright disabled on older CPU's. Resizable BAR (which has had a lot made of it recently) for example won't work on this CPU. And then there is the slight PCIe 3 bottleneck.

Being in the same position myself though, at this point I have come to the conclusion that it's better to wait till mid or end next year to upgrade if at all. To see what happens to pricing and what late models get released..... this might be the year I get an AMD GPU given how greedy nVidia has gotten depending on power draw and VRAM size of what's available.

The 1050ti currently is still fine for now for 99% of games on 1080p you just gotta lower the settings..... for 4k though I have no clue.

So, you're suggesting the OP should just wait and build a whole new PC to get Resizable Bar and PCIe gen 4?

I can't imagine using a 1050ti is all the nice nowadays, 4 years ago I upgraded from a 1060 6GB to a 1070 to get better performance...I bought used so was a cheap upgrade. I have since build a new system and have a better GPU again, and I'm only at 1440p.

Also, the difference between PCIe gen 3 and gen 4 is small, and on a i7-8700 it's probably nonexistent.

 

[rambo919]

So, you're suggesting the OP should just wait and build a whole new PC to get Resizable Bar and PCIe gen 4?

I am suggesting it be kept in mind regarding upgrading.... I have not made up my mind about what I am going to do. From what I can tell there are all sorts of small limitations that will hamstring any GPU upgrade but it probably does not matter.... right now. I will myself probably follow the strategy of next year getting a new GPU that will last me another 6+ years the way my current 1050ti did and then the year or so after that perhaps do a complete upgrade of the rest. Staggering the upgrades in the most efficient manner.

But again, I don't do anything above 1080p so that colours my position.

I can't imagine using a 1050ti is all the nice nowadays, 4 years ago I upgraded from a 1060 6GB to a 1070 to get better performance...I bought used so was a cheap upgrade. I have since build a new system and have a better GPU again, and I'm only at 1440p.

Well as long as the game starts up and does not make me question my vision capability I'm generally fine with it.... I have noticed that some of the new games with the settings turned down that rely on upscaling are all a strange kind of game grain blurry that makes me almost feel like throwing up sometimes.... but so far almost none of them has been a must play for me anyway. They are basically designed with the assumption that upscaling is going to be turned on and even when it is it can actually make it worse like in Resident Evil 4.

Also, the difference between PCIe gen 3 and gen 4 is small, and on a i7-8700 it's probably nonexistent.

That's true, however that will probably change in the next few years in some way. So far DDR4 vs DDR5 seems to not be an issue but this probably will change soon enough. It's the little increments of requirement that gets ya.

It currently makes more sense to upgrade the GPU above what the supporting system can do than to upgrade that instead. Even if it bottlenecks a lot it's probably not a problem, but keep in mind it will bottleneck. At the same time keep in mind intel has been heavily hinting at something "big" happening next year so something could change or they could just be full of hot air.

 

[rambo919]

As a general rule of thumb though after having overthought this, regarding upgrading a GPU now:
If you game on 1080p get a 1440p GPU with at least 12-16GB VRAM and 192-bit bus. This is the closest to futureproof you will get. And it's probably best to get one of the latest gen models unless you have no problem upgrading again within 3 years time. At the same time if electricity cost is a concern consider a nVidia model because even though it's more expensive than AMD over the next few years the lower power draw might cost you less electricity.

It's just plain stupid to get a 8GB model with and 128-bit now no matter how large the cache is, just plain the past the same way 32-bit software was a few years ago when win10 came out. I have noticed that 8GB is basically the ceiling of effective 128-bit usage with massively diminishing returns beyond that proven by the idiotic 4060 16GB model recently released where they doubled down on their clawback strategy.

 

[xmegatron17]

You shouldn't have either. If in the past you had a CPU so poor, or you didn't have enough RAM to run the game, then this would make sense as to why it was stuttering and freezing. Your i7-8700 and 16GB is still good enough for modern games.

Adding a faster GPU should increase performance across all resolutions, currently it's your 1050ti which is the bottleneck...simply put, the slowest component. By adding a faster GPU, you'll see the limits of your CPU, which will be way above what you are currently seeing with the 1050ti installed. Of course, by increasing resolution, you can shift the load from the CPU back to the GPU.

I'll probably just pull the trigger on the 6700 xt then. I just think from what I've seen and heard from pretty much every youtube video, modern single player games are becoming very vram hungry and not optimized for anything lower than at LEAST 10 GB. Even if for some reason my CPU is the drawback and I have issues, I'll just upgrade my CPU later. I'm on an 1151 board so not many options there but I can at least get into the 9000 series which should be good for the 6700 XT for a while.

 

[ilukey77]

6700xt
6750xt
or if budget permits a 6800xt all solid Vram options
id like to say the ARC770 16gb but it does require SAM / resizable bar to work correctly so it puts you at a disadvantage using an older CPU but in general the 16gb ARC770 would be the better than the 6700xt for just the better Vram alone !!

 

[Order 66]

I'll probably just pull the trigger on the 6700 xt then. I just think from what I've seen and heard from pretty much every youtube video, modern single player games are becoming very vram hungry and not optimized for anything lower than at LEAST 10 GB. Even if for some reason my CPU is the drawback and I have issues, I'll just upgrade my CPU later. I'm on an 1151 board so not many options there but I can at least get into the 9000 series which should be good for the 6700 XT for a while.

I would actually go for a 6800 or 6800xt as 16GB of VRAM will last at lot longer especially at 1440p than 12GB. Some (unoptimized) games are using 10GB at 1080p max settings and even more at 1440p.

 

[xmegatron17]

I would actually go for a 6800 or 6800xt as 16GB of VRAM will last at lot longer especially at 1440p than 12GB. Some (unoptimized) games are using 10GB at 1080p max settings and even more at 1440p.

I've just decided to upgrade my entire system. I found out I can't even use an external power supply upgrade on my motherboard as it doesn't have a 24-pin power slot. I'll be upgrading to a DDR5 board with an i5-12600KF most likely. In which sense I should be able to run almost any card I want to at that point with no drawback. I don't have a ton of money so it will be a process, I'll also only be playing single player games as all multiplayer stuff will be on console so even a bottleneck or lower settings would be ok with me.