Question Xeon X5670 vs Ryzen 3700X

[hirschbergt]

I’m looking at upgrading my aging Xeon x5670 (currently clocked at 4.1ghz), as I am beginning to wonder if it is bottlenecking my gtx 1070 some in certain games. Does that sound realistic, or have I just been bitten by the upgrade bug? I game at 1440p @ 60hz, but I might eventually upgrade to 144hz one day. Would a Ryzen 3700X be a sound upgrade and ensure that the 1070 and, eventually, later generation cards have plenty of headroom? Or would it be total overkill?

 

[13thmonkey]

I would say that you could well be constrained by the clock speed and IPC of that CPU.
If the rumours are right the 3700x will be good, maybe a little better than a 9700k, so more than a decent upgrade.

 

[hirschbergt]

Thanks for the input! Are there ways I might be able to predict what sort of performance uplift I might see on average, percentage wise?

 

[13thmonkey]

Not that I'm aware of, that's a pre sandy bridge chip I think, so raw performance quite a lot, maybe 40% per core clock for clock, only they'll clock faster too. How that effects gaming will vary a lot, but if be expecting 60fps would be easy wherever the gpu can cope.

 

[mdd1963]

Preliminary gaming performance indicates parity or superiority to the 9700K, so, compare your current CPU to the 9700K to roughly extrapolate...

If severely GPU limited, for example, using a GTX1060 or below, gains from CPU upgrades can be often minimal (although there may be worthy boosts to minimum FPS/1% lows, which is perhaps at least as ( if not more than) important than average fps

 

[TJ Hooker]

So long as you're only aiming for 60 fps you may not be CPU limited, depending on the game. Does usage get close to 100% on any individual core(s) while gaming?

 

[hirschbergt]

Well I’m wanting a platform that ultimately can handle up to at least 120-144hz at some point, and I’m looking at improving the minimum FPS, so I want to make sure the cpu I select is well suited for those purposes. As for cpu usage during gaming, what application would you recommend for either viewing or recording the load while playing?

 

[TJ Hooker]

I use hwinfo64. Select the "sensors only" option when you launch it. It doesn't have built in graphing, but you can tell it to log the results to a .CSV file and then graph it afterwards in Excel or whatnot if you want

 

[boju]

And Msi Afterburner

 

[hirschbergt]

I just confirmed via afterburner that at most one or two cores rarely hit maybe 90% usage when playing a game (rise of the tomb raider), so I guess I’m now unsure if a cpu upgrade would really do much for minimum FPS. Thoughts?

 

[boju]

In msi Afterburner there are fields for individual cores/threads and also total combined cpu usage. Think from memory this entry is called just cpu usage with no number.

60fps isn't such a burden on cpu's as there's not much frame pre-rendering going on. @100+ fps can increase cpu usages and depending how intensive a game is can make hard work for even the best cpus today.

This guy explains the relationship between cpu and fps.

 

[hirschbergt]

Boju, thank you for the video. It was very informative. So it looks like upgrading the platform makes sense in the long term since I eventually plan/hope to upgrade to a 144hz monitor.

 

[boju]

144Hz+ has been increasing in popularity and higher end graphics cards can achieve most of that depending on settings. With high demand on cpu's, many don't realise how much frame preparation has on a cpu until it's bought and tried and then complain about poor optimisations when their system has fps drops and can't cope. Goes to show in that video, anyone with higher end 6 cores nowadays wanting the same thing aren't safe.

 

[13thmonkey]

144Hz+ has been increasing in popularity and higher end graphics cards can achieve most of that depending on settings. With high demand on cpu's, many don't realise how much frame preparation has on a cpu until it's bought and tried. And then people blame poor optimisations. Goes to show in that video, anyone with a 6 cores nowadays wanting the same thing have wasted their money.

And that is often down to single core speed, multiple cores may give you stability.
As to whether the 3700X can do it, we'll find out in 3 weeks.

 

[boju]

I agree cores helping stability. Higher fps without hitting max usages is part of that and current i5s aren't capable from user experience ive seen. This is cpu usage levels and not benchmarks saying how many fps a cpu can achieve. Besides 1% lows, there's no other kind if measurement that i know of that measures cpu usages properly in an official manner. Time constraints i would understand why there aren't any.

 

[hirschbergt]

I’m guessing I would need to upgrade my gtx 1070 if I’m going to try to hit 100+ FPS, yeah? Thus the upgrade spiral continues...

 

[13thmonkey]

I’m guessing I would need to upgrade my gtx 1070 if I’m going to try to hit 100+ FPS, yeah? Thus the upgrade spiral continues...

It is always thus.

 

[boju]

I’m guessing I would need to upgrade my gtx 1070 if I’m going to try to hit 100+ FPS, yeah? Thus the upgrade spiral continues...

It's a never ending tail chase, merry go round ;P

 

[hirschbergt]

I guess I’m at a bit of an impasse. Do I upgrade my monitor to a 144hz 1440p first, or go with upgrading to the 3700X platform first? I can’t do both at the same time due to budget constraints. My initial inclination is to upgrade the cpu and associated platform first for initial “future proofing” and then look at 144hz later down the road, as I anticipate the 3700X will last me for quite some time.

 

[13thmonkey]

monitor prices will fall, cpu's not so much.

 

[hirschbergt]

My thoughts exactly.

 

[boju]

A monitor should be treated as an investment, it'll be the last remaining part for years to come, be good to make it count for your eventual endeavours.

 

[13thmonkey]

I'm on a 1440p 144hz G-Sync IPS screen, don't intend to change for another 5 years or so.

 

[fagetti]

with i7-875k overclocked i get no bottleneck with 980ti which is similar to 1070 performance, and this is way worse processor with less cores and single core performance. I think you wont be bottlenecked with even 1080 , 1080ti might be the limit.

You can always overclock that cpu a bit more too, to around 4.5 ghz your fine with 1070 1080 atleast.

 

[hirschbergt]

One last question related to this topic: once I make the switch to the 3700X and X470 (or X570) platform should I plan on reinstalling Windows 10? Or is W10 "smart" enough to handle such a significant hardware change?