Question Would it be worth upgrading my 3080?

[thestryker]

I don't plan on going to 4K. I am happy with my 1440P monitor. I think the 4090 is already more than enough to pair with a 5900X. The only way I would upgrade to a 5000 series is with a complete rebuild. Not ready to do that yet. Current build only 3 years old.

The point is more that you could potentially spend less for 4090 performance that uses less power (see 4080 vs 3090\3090 Ti) by waiting.

Your goal also seems to be high refresh rate which your CPU is going to negatively impact by a fair amount. Going from a 4080 Super to 4090 at 1440p is about a 20% performance jump on a system without a CPU bottleneck and around 12.7% on one that does. Going from the 5900X to a 5800X3D while using a 4090 is a jump of around 13.5% by itself. A CPU upgrade obviously isn't going to turn your 3080 into something it's not, but if you're talking spending $1800+ on a video card is certainly something you should seriously consider.

 

[emitfudd]

The point is more that you could potentially spend less for 4090 performance that uses less power (see 4080 vs 3090\3090 Ti) by waiting.

Your goal also seems to be high refresh rate which your CPU is going to negatively impact by a fair amount. Going from a 4080 Super to 4090 at 1440p is about a 20% performance jump on a system without a CPU bottleneck and around 12.7% on one that does. Going from the 5900X to a 5800X3D while using a 4090 is a jump of around 13.5% by itself. A CPU upgrade obviously isn't going to turn your 3080 into something it's not, but if you're talking spending $1800+ on a video card is certainly something you should seriously consider.

The goal is more to have a consistent FPS rate than a high one. As I stated, I have played numerous games lately where the FPS are good until I start building a big base or am in an area with lots of NPC's. Then the FPS are dropping down into the 40's. And your comparison of performance jumps is great, but remember I am going from a 3080, not a 4080. The performance improvement should be around 50%. Also, the 4090 should be good for quite a few years and could be swapped into a new AMD5 platform in a couple of years. Then it would be paired with something along the lines of a 7900X or 9900X or whatever they come up with. That would be a beast.

 

[John Chesterfield]

I have played numerous games lately where the FPS are good until I start building a big base or am in an area with lots of NPC's.

Which would suggest it's CPU power you're lacking, not GPU.

 

[thestryker]

The goal is more to have a consistent FPS rate than a high one. As I stated, I have played numerous games lately where the FPS are good until I start building a big base or am in an area with lots of NPC's. Then the FPS are dropping down into the 40's.

These things you're describing are CPU bottlenecks not GPU.

And your comparison of performance jumps is great, but remember I am going from a 3080, not a 4080. The performance improvement should be around 50%.

I'm not saying a 4090 is a small upgrade rather I'm saying your platform is going to hold it back which will have a very real impact on performance.

Also, the 4090 should be good for quite a few years and could be swapped into a new AMD5 platform in a couple of years. Then it would be paired with something along the lines of a 7900X or 9900X or whatever they come up with. That would be a beast.

I'm not sure what your rush is in buying a video card which costs over MSRP when you have a good one and it's this close to a new generation launch. Personally speaking I'd wait to see what the first 50 series looks like price/perf/efficiency wise because if it's anything like the 40 series the 5080 will use much less power to deliver the same or better performance than the 4090.

 

[emitfudd]

My beef with waiting to buy a 5000 series is that from past experience with my last 2 builds, the moment the cards are released there is a "supposed" shortage. Everybody is scrambling to buy up any card they can find, bots swipe most of them. The prices are always high. If I paid $800 for a 1080ti and paid $1900 for a 3080 what is a 5000 series going to cost? $2500? $3000?

If a 5900X isn't good enough, that leaves me swapping it for a 5800X3D which would have a minimal improvement or a whole new platform for one of the newer Ryzen chips or an Intel platform.

As I've mentioned, what's wrong with getting whatever improvement I can with a 4090 in my current build and swapping it into a newer AMD platform in a year or two? Sure, I could buy a 4070 ti super or a 4080 but then I'm giving up performance in a new build.

I trust all of the information you guys give me. I have also read hundreds of posts on different forums of people saying the 4090 gave them a huge boost. Haven't really seen any where somebody says the 4090 was a waste or they regret it. And a lot of them had a CPU much less capable than a 5900X.

 

[emitfudd]

Which would suggest it's CPU power you're lacking, not GPU.

Very possible but the games in question were affecting people with all different platforms and very capable CPU/GPU combos. I remember some of the posts on the new Dragon's Dogma game. People with 14900K/4090 were having the same FPS issues as everyone else.

I really believe the FPS issues I am having with Fountain of Youth are due to a poorly designed game. Looking off into the landscape I am at 118 FPS. Looking at my base (which isn't that big yet) is dropping me to 43 FPS. That's not normal for any rig.

When I play AAA games I get great FPS. My reasoning is that a 4090 will possibly bump me from a 80 to 120 FPS range to a solid 160 (165Hz monitor capped at 160). Maybe if I'm lucky it will also help with these poorly optimized games.

 

[emitfudd]

I just tried an experiment. I went into Avatar Frontier's of Pandora. I was getting 57 FPS on high settings. I changed to low settings and went up to 74. I also noticed that it shows how much GPU memory is required. High uses 8.9GB. Doesn't leave much headroom with a 10GB GPU.

This was standing in one specific spot in the game, not an average of different areas.

I also tried adjusting the settings in Fountain of Youth while looking out over the ocean instead of looking at my base. Still didn't change anything. 118 FPS on ultra or minimal (which is even lower than low).

 

[thestryker]

My beef with waiting to buy a 5000 series is that from past experience with my last 2 builds, the moment the cards are released there is a "supposed" shortage. Everybody is scrambling to buy up any card they can find, bots swipe most of them. The prices are always high. If I paid $800 for a 1080ti and paid $1900 for a 3080 what is a 5000 series going to cost? $2500? $3000?

The 3080 launched into the crypto boom so anyone buying then was getting fleeced unless they were buying founder's edition or from EVGA's availability list as both of those were price controlled.

All of the 40 series cards launched at their retail pricing and you could buy them at exactly that. You could buy a 4080 Super today for under MSRP, but the cheapest 4090 is $130 over MSRP. In fact the only card you can't get for MSRP (or less) anymore is the 4090 because the prices have gone up as they know they'll sell.

 

[emitfudd]

The 3080 launched into the crypto boom so anyone buying then was getting fleeced unless they were buying founder's edition or from EVGA's availability list as both of those were price controlled.

All of the 40 series cards launched at their retail pricing and you could buy them at exactly that. You could buy a 4080 Super today for under MSRP, but the cheapest 4090 is $130 over MSRP. In fact the only card you can't get for MSRP (or less) anymore is the 4090 because the prices have gone up as they know they'll sell.

It looks like the MSRP for a 4090 was $1599. I would assume that was for a founders edition? Aren't the beefed up name brands like MSI, Asus, Gigabyte always more expensive? They almost always offer better cooling or an overclock or some feature to justify the extra cost. I don't feel terrible about spending $200 over MSRP for an MSI.

 

[thestryker]

It looks like the MSRP for a 4090 was $1599. I would assume that was for a founders edition? Aren't the beefed up name brands like MSI, Asus, Gigabyte always more expensive? They almost always offer better cooling or an overclock or some feature to justify the extra cost. I don't feel terrible about spending $200 over MSRP for an MSI.

With modern cards there's really no advantage over the Founder's Edition cards. They have very good cooling and no disadvantages as everyone has shifted to flow through designs for that class of card. Not that it's necessarily important, but the FE 4090 also has a 600W power limit which was quite a bit higher than many others at launch, but I don't know if that's still the case. Basically since the 30 series there's only two potential advantages of non-Founder's Edition: some are sold with AIO cooling or a custom block already installed and many offer dual BIOS.

Context on pricing: MSI's Gaming X Trio launched at $1700 and it's $1800 now. The Suprim X also. launched at $1700 until MSI decided it was a $2000 card. This is true across the market with some exceptions from Asus because they're always overpriced.

 

[logainofhades]

The 3080 launched into the crypto boom so anyone buying then was getting fleeced unless they were buying founder's edition or from EVGA's availability list as both of those were price controlled.

All of the 40 series cards launched at their retail pricing and you could buy them at exactly that. You could buy a 4080 Super today for under MSRP, but the cheapest 4090 is $130 over MSRP. In fact the only card you can't get for MSRP (or less) anymore is the 4090 because the prices have gone up as they know they'll sell.

I battled bots on AMD direct to get my RX 6800 at msrp, back then.

 

[emitfudd]

With modern cards there's really no advantage over the Founder's Edition cards. They have very good cooling and no disadvantages as everyone has shifted to flow through designs for that class of card. Not that it's necessarily important, but the FE 4090 also has a 600W power limit which was quite a bit higher than many others at launch, but I don't know if that's still the case. Basically since the 30 series there's only two potential advantages of non-Founder's Edition: some are sold with AIO cooling or a custom block already installed and many offer dual BIOS.

Context on pricing: MSI's Gaming X Trio launched at $1700 and it's $1800 now. The Suprim X also. launched at $1700 until MSI decided it was a $2000 card. This is true across the market with some exceptions from Asus because they're always overpriced.

It looks like the MSI Gaming X Trio has the dual BIOS. One for silent and one for gaming. I use Afterburner to set a custom fan curve with my fans always spinning. When I bought my current card (MSI Gaming Z Trio) it ran really hot with the default fans don't spin until hot scheme. It didn't cool down very quickly and stayed hotter during gaming. Now with the fans always on and a nice fan curve it stays nice and cool.

 

[thestryker]

It looks like the MSI Gaming X Trio has the dual BIOS. One for silent and one for gaming. I use Afterburner to set a custom fan curve with my fans always spinning. When I bought my current card (MSI Gaming Z Trio) it ran really hot with the default fans don't spin until hot scheme. It didn't cool down very quickly and stayed hotter during gaming. Now with the fans always on and a nice fan curve it stays nice and cool.

I had to do the same with my EVGA card because the fans wouldn't kick on until it was already running hot. It seems like default fan curves in general are hit and miss these days. I get the whole wanting low noise thing, and that's absolutely fine when idle, but I absolutely do not want things running hot when I'm using them.

 

[emitfudd]

I figured out the FPS drop with Survival Fountain of Youth. The light sources (wall and free standing torches) are the culprit. I extinguished all of them and my FPS went from 43 to 78 while looking at my base.

 

[35below0]

Just goes to show that you can have a top tier GPU and still encounter drops and glitches because a game is not polished. Or you're playing Cities Skylines...

 

[artk2219]

With modern cards there's really no advantage over the Founder's Edition cards. They have very good cooling and no disadvantages as everyone has shifted to flow through designs for that class of card. Not that it's necessarily important, but the FE 4090 also has a 600W power limit which was quite a bit higher than many others at launch, but I don't know if that's still the case. Basically since the 30 series there's only two potential advantages of non-Founder's Edition: some are sold with AIO cooling or a custom block already installed and many offer dual BIOS.

Context on pricing: MSI's Gaming X Trio launched at $1700 and it's $1800 now. The Suprim X also. launched at $1700 until MSI decided it was a $2000 card. This is true across the market with some exceptions from Asus because they're always overpriced.

My biggest issue with founders edition cards, and Nvidia direct cards in general is that they have been a pain to RMA in the past. The cards themselves typically work just fine, but getting a timely replacement was an issue if there was a problem. Maybe that has changed in the recent years, but they used to be more of a pain to deal with for RMA's than most of the other manufacturers, and they don't really offer any price advantages.

 

[thestryker]

My biggest issue with founders edition cards, and Nvidia direct cards in general is that they have been a pain to RMA in the past. The cards themselves typically work just fine, but getting a timely replacement was an issue if there was a problem. Maybe that has changed in the recent years, but they used to be more of a pain to deal with for RMA's than most of the other manufacturers

I've been fortunate enough to have never had to RMA a video card, but that doesn't really sound surprising to me. I imagine they don't hold stock to the degree most OEMs do and probably don't have an in house repair team like EVGA did (EVGA was also outsourced manufacture).

and they don't really offer any price advantages.

Their prices don't change so 4090s (when they're in stock) are always $1600 whereas finding one on the retail market priced there is rare now sadly. There was one that went in stock today that I saw when I checked, but for the most part those have vanished. It's been a combination of some raising prices and others just not producing the MSRP priced cards.

 

[Joseph_138]

I'd pass on the 4090 because of the melting power cable issue.

 

[emitfudd]

I am copying my post from above so I can reference the FPS.


"I just tried an experiment. I went into Avatar Frontier's of Pandora. I was getting 57 FPS on high settings. I changed to low settings and went up to 74. I also noticed that it shows how much GPU memory is required. High uses 8.9GB. Doesn't leave much headroom with a 10GB GPU.

This was standing in one specific spot in the game, not an average of different areas.

I also tried adjusting the settings in Fountain of Youth while looking out over the ocean instead of looking at my base. Still didn't change anything. 118 FPS on ultra or minimal (which is even lower than low)." END of copied post.

I have installed my MSI 4090 Gaming X Trio. I opened Avatar and I am now getting around 120FPS on high. The game crashed to desktop shortly after loading. I opened it again and no crash. With the 3080 it said I was using 8.9GB of GPU memory, with the 4090 it says I am using 10.3 out of 24. Tells me that if nothing else, the 10GB 3080 is not sufficient for some games.

I went back into Survival Fountain of Youth and the FPS didn't change at all. I am not even using this game as a GPU comparison because it is that badly optimized. I even changed my shadow draw to the max the other day and it actually increased FPS a slight bit. There is something seriously wrong with that game.

All the charts I have looked at show an approximate 80FPS boost going from a 10GB 3080 to a 4090 at 1440P. Getting an increase of 60 in Avatar is pretty good. I suppose I can't ask for too much considering the 5900X CPU is likely holding things back a bit.

 

[artk2219]

I am copying my post from above so I can reference the FPS.


"I just tried an experiment. I went into Avatar Frontier's of Pandora. I was getting 57 FPS on high settings. I changed to low settings and went up to 74. I also noticed that it shows how much GPU memory is required. High uses 8.9GB. Doesn't leave much headroom with a 10GB GPU.

This was standing in one specific spot in the game, not an average of different areas.

I also tried adjusting the settings in Fountain of Youth while looking out over the ocean instead of looking at my base. Still didn't change anything. 118 FPS on ultra or minimal (which is even lower than low)." END of copied post.

I have installed my MSI 4090 Gaming X Trio. I opened Avatar and I am now getting around 120FPS on high. The game crashed to desktop shortly after loading. I opened it again and no crash. With the 3080 it said I was using 8.9GB of GPU memory, with the 4090 it says I am using 10.3 out of 24. Tells me that if nothing else, the 10GB 3080 is not sufficient for some games.

I went back into Survival Fountain of Youth and the FPS didn't change at all. I am not even using this game as a GPU comparison because it is that badly optimized. I even changed my shadow draw to the max the other day and it actually increased FPS a slight bit. There is something seriously wrong with that game.

All the charts I have looked at show an approximate 80FPS boost going from a 10GB 3080 to a 4090 at 1440P. Getting an increase of 60 in Avatar is pretty good. I suppose I can't ask for too much considering the 5900X CPU is likely holding things back a bit.

This right here is why i traded my RTX 3080 for an RX 6900XT, i figured having that 6GB of more VRAM would be useful sooner rather than later. Nvidia really did a disservice to RTX 3000 series buyers that got anything short of an RXT 3090 or RTX 3080 12GB. Although weirdly enough the RTX 3060 originally came with 12gb VRAM, more than anything short of a 3090, that was a weird decision.

 

[emitfudd]

Now I'm not so sure my 5900X is a bottleneck for the 4090. I watched a video with a side by side comparison of a 5900X and a 7800X3D. The FPS were almost identical on 1440P and even on 4K. I was really surprised. This was with a 4090 as the GPU.

I am currently playing Horizon Forbidden West on ultra settings with DLSS on quality and getting anywhere from 120 to 160 FPS. My FPS is capped at 160 with Rivatuner.

There was a slight FPS improvement on the 7800X3D with Forza Horizon but not much, maybe 5 to 8 FPS.

I have been reading up on the new 9000 series CPU's and trying to decide if moving to the AMD5 platform would be worth it. I think I am happy where I'm at right now.