What GPU to upgrade? ARC 770 or 4060/70?

[Lily]

I have the ancient 7700k, but can't really justify the money on a new board and GPU so I have to choose since I want to buy some other stuff too (just sold all my crpyto trash).

Currently running the GTX 1080.

Should I get a new GPU or is there no point?

Should I get a 2k monitor with the new GPU to avoid bottlenecking?

Please help, I would get the 4060 but it got only 8 GB VRAM and I heard thats basically nothing in this day and age, looking to play Starfield in September

uWu

[Lily]

Originally posted by smallcat:

RTX 4070 , 200W only , 2x faster than GTX 1080 , 12GB VRAM . Later on change the CPU too .

A770 is only 28% faster than GTX 1080 but 225W

Interesting, thanks for the info, 4070 seems snice for DLSS but the 770 is very affordable

[plat]

What gpu do you have now?

You can, in theory, run any of the three but it seems at higher resolutions, the cpu will hold back all three of them. You can search for "best" matches for your i7 online.

Ideally, it would be nice to get a new and more modern board and processor and then you will have less limitations.

f you're keeping your i7 for now, I would put aside considerations for the Arc 770. Higher generations of Intel (8-9th and above) and AMD are pretty much a requirement for the resizable bar feature, depending on whether the board's manuf. has a BIOS update for that specific feature.

The Arc depends on resizable bar to improve overall performance. If you look it up, there are various opinions and theories concerning BIOS updates to boards under 3xx but I would not place any value on them--it's very risky and hit or miss from what I'm reading.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000090831/graphics.html

[Lily]

Originally posted by smallcat:

Affordable but the yield is only 28% , no point of upgrade

but benchmarks show it is way faster than my old rusty 1080?!

[76561198343548661]

Your GTX 1080 yet meets the min sys requirements of Starfield . You re tempted by these 16GB VRAM . Well , it would be nice to have but the raw 3D performance and still ample VRAM are the better option for me . But if you so eager to have 16GB VRAM for 320 bucks , you have my blessing . heh , just kidding . It s up to you !

If the VRAM turns out not enough the GPU will use the system RAM so it s not the end of the world .

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

Would not even consider A770, drivers are nowhere near ready to compete with Nvidia or AMD.

[Tomi Montana]

Originally posted by smallcat:

Your GTX 1080 yet meets the min sys requirements of Starfield . You re tempted by these 16GB VRAM . Well , it would be nice to have but the raw 3D performance and still ample VRAM are the better option for me . But if you so eager to have 16GB VRAM for 320 bucks , you have my blessing . heh , just kidding . It s up to you !

If the VRAM turns out not enough the GPU will use the system RAM so it s not the end of the world .

Yeah, but the system RAM is significantly slower than your average dedicated VRAM, Therefore resulting in stutters, texture issues etc...
You don´t want system RAM as your VRAM if you are doing anything 3D.

[Illusion of Progress]

The Arc A770 probably isn't an upgrade over your GTX 1080.

The RTX 4060 is a small one. This is an insanely poor value and the VRAM makes it that much worse.

The RTX 4070 is probably about the smallest worthwhile increase from the starting point of a GTX 1080 (I have higher standards for an increase I consider worthwhile though, and personally I'd say even that could be too small of an increase).

If you're not tied to nVidia, the RX 6800 is $400+ or the 6800 XT is $500+ and the latter has similar performance to the RTX 4070 but it's both cheaper and has more VRAM (16 GB). If ray tracing isn't a concern, it's a bit better of an option than the RTX 4070.

You don't avoid bottlenecking; it always happens to some extent because it's the literal result of "we don't have infinite performance and a PC is multiple parts with software that loads in variable ways".

If this is for a game yet to be released, I'd wait for said game to be released (or close enough that hands on data with performance is known, and I'm not familiar with the game so maybe it's at that point now?) and revisit the idea. It'll clear up any doubts about the CPU and GPU and all that.

Originally posted by Ellie:

Originally posted by smallcat:

Affordable but the yield is only 28% , no point of upgrade

but benchmarks show it is way faster than my old rusty 1080?!

It is, but not substantially.

The GTX 1080 is around par with an RTX 3060, and the RTX 4060 isn't a big increase over it. Relative to past generations, the RTX 40 series is overnamed by between half a tier and a full tier. The RTX 4060 is more of an RTX 4050 based on things like die size, core count relative to the flagship, bus width, VRAM, etc. The fact that it performs as "well" as it does despite that is a testament to how good Ada actually is in a vacuum, but relative to past generations and once price is factored, price for performance hasn't moved much.

Not even an nVidia problem I'm afraid. The 7900 XT is a little more than twice the performance of the 5700 XT and it's also a little more than twice its original MSRP. Price/performance hasn't been moving in recent years. So the mainstream GPUs of today are still barely better than your "rusty old GTX 1080".

None of this to say you shouldn't upgrade. Just to highlight what to expect with how "wonderful" the modern GPU market is. A 7700K/GTX 1080 is in that spot where it's still okay but might also not be for some games. It might be best to wait until more is known. Going purely off of what I see here...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1716740/STARFIELD/

You should be more focused on the CPU, even if the GPU is also close to minimum. You are below on the CPU though. A Ryzen 5600 or Core i5 12400 with an RTX 4070 might be an option. But until real performance is known, there's nothing else to go off of.

[Tomi Montana]

4060 is not that much faster than your old rusty GTX 1080.
(Yeah, mid range GPU market has been in a really bad or even in mediocre state in the lasť 5 years).
Intel Arc A770 is still a great risk due to drivers.

[Lily]

Originally posted by Illusion of Progress:

The Arc A770 probably isn't an upgrade over your GTX 1080.

The RTX 4060 is a small one. This is an insanely poor value and the VRAM makes it that much worse.

The RTX 4070 is probably about the smallest worthwhile increase from the starting point of a GTX 1080 (I have higher standards for an increase I consider worthwhile though, and personally I'd say even that could be too small of an increase).

If you're not tied to nVidia, the RX 6800 is $400+ or the 6800 XT is $500+ and the latter has similar performance to the RTX 4070 but it's both cheaper and has more VRAM (16 GB). If ray tracing isn't a concern, it's a bit better of an option than the RTX 4070.

You don't avoid bottlenecking; it always happens to some extent because it's the literal result of "we don't have infinite performance and a PC is multiple parts with software that loads in variable ways".

If this is for a game yet to be released, I'd wait for said to be released (or close enough that hands on data with performance is known, and I'm not familiar with the game so maybe it's at that point now?) and revisit the idea. It'll clear up any doubts about the CPU and GPU and all that.

Originally posted by Ellie:

but benchmarks show it is way faster than my old rusty 1080?!

It is, but not substantially.

The GTX 1080 is around par with an RTX 3060, and the RTX 4060 isn't a big increase over it. Relative to past generations, the RTX 40 series is overnamed by between half a tier and a full tier. The RTX 4060 is more of an RTX 4050 based on things like die size, core count relative to the flagship, bus width, VRAM, etc. The fact that it performs as "well" as it does despite that is a testament to how good Ada actually is in a vacuum, but relative to past generations and once price is factored, price for performance hasn't moved much.

Not even an nVidia problem I'm afraid. The 7900 XT is a little more than twice the performance of the 5700 XT and it's also a little more than twice its original MSRP. Price/performance hasn't been moving in recent years. So the mainstream GPUs of today are still barely better than your "rusty old GTX 1080".

None of this to say you shouldn't upgrade. Just to highlight what to expect with how "wonderful" the modern GPU market is. A 7700K/GTX 1080 is in that spot where it's still okay but might also not be for some games. It might be best to wait until more is known. Going purely off of what I see here...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1716740/STARFIELD/

You should be more focused on the CPU, even if the GPU is also close to minimum. You are below on the CPU though. A Ryzen 5600 or Core i5 12400 with an RTX 4070 might be an option. But until real performance is known, there's nothing else to go off of.

Ty very much, I guess I will play the game with my current setup or wait till I get my job...

[plat]

I went from a gtx 1080 to rtx 4070 and as I've said before: subjectively, it was a genuine upgrade, not a replacement. The whole desktop experience improved, not just the games.

I know, the cost is too much for what you get vram-wise. But I'm not at all displeased with this purchase.

However, my i9 9900 will bottleneck said rtx 4070 at about 25% at max usage (which I saw in several benchmarks like Time Spy. In real world, it prob. ain't gonna see that kind of stress for too long.

The gtx 1080 is a decent gpu as I can vouch for it. But I would never go back unless it's an absolute necessity (like my 4070 up and dies or something).

Edit: I would not consider the Arc 770 with this processor/board as stated above.

[Overseer]

AMD does have bundles where you can get a new card and the premium edition of Starfield together:
https://www.amd.com/en/promotions/starfield-bundle

[Illusion of Progress]

Yeah, you don't lose much to wait but you can gain a bunch of information to help in your decision, even if the game is very close to launch, so I'd probably do that. Keep in mind I know little about the game (so if there's released information about its performance then maybe I'm telling you to wait on something that is already known). Otherwise, just looking at those retirements and recommended listings, I'd have thoughts about the whole thing.

CPU asks for a Ryzen 5 2600X or Core i7 6800K (which is rare to see listed as it was an uncommon HEDT part). Both of these are slightly slower than your 7700K in per core performance, but have more cores. And they didn't use a more common Core i5 8x00 part, so what this tells me is the game wants a hex core. The recommended CPUs are also hex cores, but faster (the AMD 3600X in the recommended is close to an 8700 or 10400 on Intel's side, for reference, though they've chosen to list the 10600).

For the GPU your GTX 1080 is a bit faster than the minimum GTX 1070 Ti but it's close to the same, and the requirements range from a bit higher (RTX 2080 on nVidia side) to much higher (RX 6800 XT on AMD's side). The difference is probably because of ray tracing because the 6800 XT is faster besides that.

Basically I think a RTX 4070 would be a fine option (the RTX 4060 might even be) but you'll probably be instead wanting to change your platform (CPU/motherboard/RAM) more. But maybe the requirements are overstated. I'm sure you'll have people will quad cores and Pascal chips trying the game and it's launching soon so you can find out then though.

[Zef]

The entire 4000 series is a joke.

You're better of getting a second handed Nvidia 3000 or AMD 6000 series if you really want to upgrade.

Personally, i'd wait until the game is released to see if you need upgrading.

[AbedsBrother]

Originally posted by Illusion of Progress:

The Arc A770 probably isn't an upgrade over your GTX 1080.

So I had a 5700XT, which offers roughly the same performance as a 1080 (depending on the game). Then I got an A770. In optimal circumstances, the A770 was between 10-25% faster than the 5700XT.

Note the "in optimal circumstances" qualifier. The A770 drivers are still terrible in many DX11 games. The bad drivers are the primary reason I moved on from the A770 and replaced it with a different gpu. Games like Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Assassin's Creed Unity, Syndicate, Origins & Odyssey, Final Fantasy XIV, Halo (The Master Chief Collection), Tomb Raider (2013), Just Cause 4 all performed badly on Arc - in the case of Human Revolution, VERY badly. There's simply no way of knowing if a game will perform well or it won't. And this is in addition to frequent issues with Intel's Arc Control software.

Over-eager TechTubers try to smooth over Arc's issues as best they can, but it's never a good idea to buy a product for what it can become; buy it for what it IS. Right now, Arc is still trash for gaming.

[Poobah Gorg]

As a general rule when buying an Nvidia GPU the last two digits USUALLY depend on the resolution of the display you're going to use it with. If you're going 1080, get an xx60. If you're going 1440 (or intend to use it with VR as well) get the xx70.