[SOLVED] Will I need to upgrade my CPU to reduce bottleneck on RTX 2070 Super?

[lezmaster98]

Hello,
I am currently wanting to make an upgrade with my system by replacing the GPU (RTX 2060) to a RTX 2070 Super due to being generous and giving my older GPU away to a relative. However, I am at stump when it comes which CPU/MOBO to purchase. My main focus for my system is gaming in 1080p with high FPS+ and I am a Software Programmer. Here is my current pc at the moment:

• CPU: Intel i7-6700k 4.0Ghz (OC: 4.7 GHZ)
• Cooler: Noctua Dh-15
• MOBO: MSI Z170a Gaming 5
• GPU: MSI RTX 2060 Ventus OC
• Ram: (2x8gb) Kingston 2666MHz
• PSU: EVGA 650 G2 Full Modular
• Storage: 500GB WD Black NVMe, 2x500gb Samsung SATA SSD
• Case: Fractal Design r5

With my current setup I achieve good performance however the CPU is not necessarily bad but with recent releases of current Gen CPUs in the market I can achieve some benefits from that with not a super high cost. Also if I were to to change the CPU/MOBO I was going to change the RAM as well for faster speeds.

 

[USAFRet]

"reduce bottleneck" is not the measure you want.
"Increase performance" is what you're looking for.

Obviously, a better CPU, more and faster RAM will do that.

 

[lezmaster98]

"reduce bottleneck" is not the measure you want.
"Increase performance" is what you're looking for.

Obviously, a better CPU, more and faster RAM will do that.

Oh thank you for the correction. Do you have recommendations for the CPU and RAM?

 

[USAFRet]

Oh thank you for the correction. Do you have recommendations for the CPU and RAM?

Something like this as a starting point:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor ($171.90 @ Walmart)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard ($124.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-2400 CL14 Memory ($109.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $406.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-07-11 12:08 EDT-0400


(IGNORE THE ABOVE RAM. Wrong click)

 

[lezmaster98]

Something like this as a starting point:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor ($171.90 @ Walmart)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard ($124.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-2400 CL14 Memory ($109.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $406.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-07-11 12:08 EDT-0400

Alright, so far it looks pretty good. I was wondering if the price jump on changing the CPU to a Ryzen 3600x or Ryzen 3700x is worth? In addition for the RAM choice is it better to have faster speeds like 3200MHz or latency?

 

[USAFRet]

oops...wrong RAM.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor ($171.90 @ Walmart)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard ($124.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($119.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $416.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-07-11 12:22 EDT-0400

 

[Dj0gany]

oops...wrong RAM.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor ($171.90 @ Walmart)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard ($124.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($119.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $416.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-07-11 12:22 EDT-0400

wouldnt a B550 or even a X570 board do him better?
I mean PCIe Gen 4.0,better future proofing and other stuff.

 

[USAFRet]

wouldnt a B550 or even a X570 board do him better?
I mean PCIe Gen 4.0,better future proofing and other stuff.

Maybe.
But as said..."a starting point "

 

[RodroX]

Since you care about 1080p high FPS you could also go with Intel and get better results in that deparment.

I choosed a locked CPU to keep the price at a nice level, with an unlocked Z490 mobo to be able to use the full speed of the DDR4 RAM. Otherwise you will be limited to lower speed with the more budget chipset (like B460, etc.). For example as a starting line:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i5-10500 3.1 GHz 6-Core Processor ($236.25 @ B&H)
Motherboard: MSI Z490-A PRO ATX LGA1200 Motherboard ($159.99 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory ($77.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $474.23
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-07-22 07:33 EDT-0400

Later on you could just go and pick a Core i7 or I9 (locked, K or KF it doesn't matter) if you need the extra speed and or cores.

In any case either the R5 3600/X, R7 3700X or this Core i5 10500 will be a nice upgrade over your Core i7 6700K.

If having more resources and performance avialable is important to you then I would really pick a B550 ox X570 mobo and go with the Ryzen 7 3700X, for the price is the best option. Something like the following:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor ($279.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI B550-A PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard ($144.99 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory ($77.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $502.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-07-22 07:46 EDT-0400

Cheers

 

[Zerk2012]

Hello,
I am currently wanting to make an upgrade with my system by replacing the GPU (RTX 2060) to a RTX 2070 Super due to being generous and giving my older GPU away to a relative. However, I am at stump when it comes which CPU/MOBO to purchase. My main focus for my system is gaming in 1080p with high FPS+ and I am a Software Programmer. Here is my current pc at the moment:

• CPU: Intel i7-6700k 4.0Ghz (OC: 4.7 GHZ)
• Cooler: Noctua Dh-15
• MOBO: MSI Z170a Gaming 5
• GPU: MSI RTX 2060 Ventus OC
• Ram: (2x8gb) Kingston 2666MHz
• PSU: EVGA 650 G2 Full Modular
• Storage: 500GB WD Black NVMe, 2x500gb Samsung SATA SSD
• Case: Fractal Design r5

With my current setup I achieve good performance however the CPU is not necessarily bad but with recent releases of current Gen CPUs in the market I can achieve some benefits from that with not a super high cost. Also if I were to to change the CPU/MOBO I was going to change the RAM as well for faster speeds.

Your overclocked 6700K should still be working well I would just upgrade the video card first then see if your satisfied with the performance increase before buying a new board and processor.

 

[cryoburner]

Your overclocked 6700K should still be working well I would just upgrade the video card first then see if your satisfied with the performance increase before buying a new board and processor.

I agree, performance-wise, an i7-6700K at 4.7 GHz should perform quite similar to these newer mid-range processors in most games. In terms of performance per core, not much has changed for Intel's processors since the 6700K in terms of IPC. They are still using a very similar 14nm skylake-based architecture, and even the clock rates achievable by overclocking the unlocked models won't be much more than 10% higher than what you are already running. Intel is years behind their planned schedule for moving their desktop processors to a newer process node, and it might not be worth upgrading until they do so.

The main improvement over the last few years has been an increase in core counts at any given price level in response to strong competition from AMD. However, for gaming, the vast majority of titles still get along pretty well on 4-cores with 8-threads, at least for the time being. There are some games that will benefit from having access to more threads than that, but those are in the minority, and for the most part they should still get fairly decent performance on an 8-thread processor.

AMD's current processors similarly won't really offer more performance per core compared to what you have. They do offer a bit higher IPC, but generally lower clock rates, and not much overclocking headroom. They should be offering additional improvements with their 4000-series processors that are expected to launch in a few months or so, so those might be worth considering, but right now, a processor upgrade from either AMD or Intel would only really be beneficial if you feel an immediate need for more cores.

 

[Zerk2012]

I agree, performance-wise, an i7-6700K at 4.7 GHz should perform quite similar to these newer mid-range processors in most games. In terms of performance per core, not much has changed for Intel's processors since the 6700K in terms of IPC. They are still using a very similar 14nm skylake-based architecture, and even the clock rates achievable by overclocking the unlocked models won't be much more than 10% higher than what you are already running. Intel is years behind their planned schedule for moving their desktop processors to a newer process node, and it might not be worth upgrading until they do so.

The main improvement over the last few years has been an increase in core counts at any given price level in response to strong competition from AMD. However, for gaming, the vast majority of titles still get along pretty well on 4-cores with 8-threads, at least for the time being. There are some games that will benefit from having access to more threads than that, but those are in the minority, and for the most part they should still get fairly decent performance on an 8-thread processor.

AMD's current processors similarly won't really offer more performance per core compared to what you have. They do offer a bit higher IPC, but generally lower clock rates, and not much overclocking headroom. They should be offering additional improvements with their 4000-series processors that are expected to launch in a few months or so, so those might be worth considering, but right now, a processor upgrade from either AMD or Intel would only really be beneficial if you feel an immediate need for more cores.

And all that really has nothing to do with my statement.
Since they planned on upgrading everything their absolutely nothing to loose just buying the video card first and seeing if their satisfied with just the card upgrade.

 

[cryoburner]

And all that really has nothing to do with my statement.
Since they planned on upgrading everything their absolutely nothing to loose just buying the video card first and seeing if their satisfied with just the card upgrade.

Agreeing with you has nothing to do with your statement? <_<

I was just providing a bit of additional background as to why it's probably worth checking performance with the new graphics card before considering upgrading anything else. Ultimately, the vast majority of existing games are not likely to see much performance benefit from spending several hundred dollars or more to replace the CPU, motherboard and RAM, at least with the games and hardware available today. Maybe in a year or two there will be more reason to upgrade those other components.