So…I’ve been increasingly struggling to run the latest games, as the age of my 6 years old desktop is starting to show, and Starfield denying my GPU just pissed me. I know it’s a bug and I can probably play it, but it’s outright the minimum for this game, and so I’d like a refresh of the worst, or should I consider a full new desktop? I know the GPU is starting to show its age, but not sure the CPU is salvageable or you’d advice a new one… Here’s a quick short summary of the computer:
-Mobo Gygabite Z170 K3 -CPU i7 6700 -2x8GB DDR4 2133 -MSI Nvidia 1070 8GB -SSD 1TB on the SATA port (I believe I can install an m.2 instead) -EVGA G2 750W
My questions…I believe these days an AMD card would be cheaper than an Nvidia, correct? What would be an equivalent to a 3070, or a 4070? More importantly…are they bigger in size (would it fit)? Do they take more power than my 1070 (will it roast my power supply?). Power would be a bit important, as I’d rather not replace all the wiring for the power supply, and electricity is becoming kinda pricey these days… I’m basically considering upgrading GPU and RAM, and considering if this would be a good upgrade or the CPU would then be a bottleneck (hence just throw it all and go for a full new desktop…I’d rather not).
Thanks!
Your power supply is fine.
If you feel you can deal with your CPU for a few more years just upgrade the GPU and call it a day. A 3070 or a 6700xt would feel like a huge upgrade.
Having that said your computer is still entirely serviceable. I’d just hold on a few more years and upgrade the whole thing.
Im not sure how him not being able to play the game(s) he want because his pc can’t handle it translates to “pc is serviceable, wait a few years”
Thanks! Yeah, maybe I can consider a 6700xt and other minor upgrades, like getting a NVME, an extra 16GB of RAM…It’s a relief knowing that the power supply will hold!
Check what speed your mobo is capable of with the nvme drive option. A blazing fast nvme drive is a relatively cheap way of getting some more response out of your PC. That and a newer GPU it’ll feel like a whole new computer.
I second shapis’s recommendation. I was still gaming on an Ivy Bridge CPU until recently. It wasn’t until this year that games started giving me trouble at 1080p with medium settings, and that was mostly GPU related.
Your 16GB RAM might be fine for now. Most games I’ve played don’t come close to that. Of course, it’s easy enough to check while you’re playing (or doing whatever other tasks you do).
Depending on your OS, your SATA SSD might even be fine. (Although NVMe prices have been and still seem to be dropping, so picking one up in a couple months isn’t a bad idea if your motherboard can handle one.)
I have the same EVGA supply powering radeon RX 6800 without problems. I believe it would be fine even with today’s highend.
Thanks a lot, this helps!
Read your motherboard manual carefully about what NVME types it supports in which M.2 slots and whether there are any gotchas.
Some M.2 slots take SATA (2 notches) as well as PCIe (1 notch), some only one type. You can’t tell visually — you have to check the manual.
Some M.2 slots will disable a SATA cable connector if you use them.
Some M.2 slots will work at a slower speed if certain PCI slots have a card in them.
Thanks, it seems the M.2 takes SATA and PCIe. I have two slots for them. And it would seem its speed won’t be affected. At any rate, I only have the GPU slot in use (and another small one for the WifiGig thingy for the wireless Vive).
I’d recommended PC part picker to determine compatibility with all your upgrades. You can tinker with different setups fairly easily and have the costs easily accessible. I believe there are also tools to determine likely bottlenecks, but I haven’t searched for many lately.
GPU will definitely be the biggest cost, but also likely the most noticeable improvement. RAM is fairly cheap, so you can bump up to 32 Gb without much expense. Not too familiar with Intel CPUs but it’s possible you might create a bottleneck with a GPU upgrade. Not the end of the world if you’re fine with upgrading that later too.
Gamers nexus and hardware unboxed did gpu reviews for starfield. Do NOT get a 6700 xt or 6750xt like someone suggested.
You need a 6800 xt for stable 60 fps.
But you are worried about electricity cost, the rdna2 and rdna3 series is VERY inefficient (stock).
You can pay upfront for a more efficient 4070 ti/4080, or maybe pay more per lifetime with rdna 2/3.
As for the rest, you don’t wana hear it but… your rig is old my dude.
You could probably reuse the ram if you went intel.
Psus have a finite lifetime. Make sure to put money aside for when it dies.
What case do you have? Gpus have gotten BIG.
Where do you live? Microcenter has great deals right now for last gen stuff.
Edit: What resolution is your monitor? The lower the resolution, the more important the cpu is due to bottlenecking in modern games.
Edit2: hardware unboxed JUST did a video on starfield’s cpu limit. Definitely check that out.
Thanks for all these considerations. I’m still undecided, but a whole rush of stuff came in, so I’m going to have to wait for the upgrade/replacement for at least a couple months…I’ll see what the market looks like in a bit.
A plain 6800 should be pretty decent for 1080p60, unless you absolutely must have ultra settings. There are guides on what graphics settings are worth the performance hit, if you follow them you can get nearly identical visuals with a nice bump in FPS.
But I agree as far as the 6750 and 6700 XT, they’re already struggling a bit with Starfield, and it’s not going to improve going forward.
In Starfield lows with a vanilla 6800 drop below 60 fps at 1080p HIGH as per hardware unboxed testing.
Yes, it dips slightly below 60 FPS. Of course it’s up to OP if that’s good enough.
Videocard Benchmark here:
https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
Figure out your price point, then get the highest scoring card in that range.
Say for the sake of argument you don’t want to spend more than $300 on a GPU:
GeForce RTX 3060 TI at $302 and change, not bad.
Radeon RX 6750 XT out performs it, but it’s also $360 instead of 302. So are the extra 500 points on their performance scale worth $60? Probably not.
Prices are more of a guide, search around, you might find them for less. Just using the shopping tab at Google, I found the GeForce for $250 at NewEgg.
Here’s one more GPU comparison chart:
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html
As a fellow 1070 8GB user, I am in the same boat myself.
I believe you should wait for the newest 7700 XT and 7800 XT GPUs from AMD. One possible side-effect would be that Nvidia would be forced to cut prices for 4060 and 4070.
Then you can go ahead and make the best possible choice as per your budget.
My advice would be to save some more money, wait for some time and build a new system.
Note: The newest GPUs use the PCIE 4.0 interface. Not really sure if your motherboard is able to handle that.
A new GPU should be able to work on older interfaces, right? Sure, you get half the bandwidth to the CPU, but is that even the limit?
PCIE scaling is in low single digit percentages, so it isn’t an issue unless you are min/maxing.
GPU is almost always the first upgrade to go for.
Also, I went from a 1070 to a 6700 XT myself, can say it doubled framerates in games that needed it (Elite: Dangerous in planetside areas for example), so that’s something for you to consider; if you’re getting 30 FPS then it’ll be a good upgrade, if you’re only get 10 FPS it might not be enough.
Gpu will give you a big boost, agreed.
M.2 nvme ssd will cut down on your loading times, especially with big games.
Thanks! What CPU are you using it on?
Ryzen 3700X, however I suggest to not worry about bottlenecking; even if does, it’s likely to give you the most FPS per $ spent on upgrading. I ran on a i7 920 for the longest time (including the GTX 1070).
In your situation I would probably buy an AMD 7700x with 32gb of DDR5 6000, and if you can get them where you live, an AMD 6950XT (they’re really cheap here right now, equivalent to about a 3080ti-3090). Make sure to get a decent NVME SSD too.
So…basically throw everything out?
Unfortunately. The i7-6700 is like 8 years old now, and yeah not really that great for anything but basic tasks or playing old school games. Even if you get a modern GPU, you’ll be held back by the CPU. And in case you decide to upgrade to Windows 11/12 in the future (say once Microsoft ends support for Win10), you will need to upgrade your CPU and therefore everything else. Might as well do the upgrade now and switch to AMD for both CPU/GPU as it’ll work out cheaper, and AMD is a better option for gaming anyway.
Yes, buying any DDR4 components would just mean your upgrade is going to be obsolete really really soon.
You are saving money by buying current Gen components instead of last Gen components. Trying to salvage anything from your current build will just result in you needing to build a new rig again in a few years instead of 8-10 years from now.
a 4 core CPU isn’t going to cut it in 2023 anymore, and anything new that you’d want to upgrade to is going to be bottlenecked by that 1070. You could of course look at used parts if your budget is tight, there are a lot of used (ex-miner likely) GPUs out there that could tickle your fancy and I bet there are plenty of people selling their 8+ core Intel / AMD + DDR4 + motherboard as well to upgrade to DDR5
I have an i5 8600 and a 1070 and a 450W power supply. At least on that front you have plenty of headroom for an upgrade. PCPartPicker calculates the total maximum power usage as advertised if you input all your parts, so you can double check there if you’re in doubt.
