Upgrade or not?
Upgrade or not?
Good morning/evening everyone, I’m facing a choice: upgrade or stay the same? As you’re aware, nVidia is about to release what they call a "BFGPU" – the RTX 3090. I plan to buy it on the 17th. But I’m curious whether switching my CPU from the Ryzen 7 2700X to the 3700X makes sense. Here’s my current setup: I have the RTX 3090, a Corsair H100i RGB liquid cooler, and an MSI B450I motherboard with PCIe Gen4 support. I’m also using 16GB of DDR4-3200 RAM, a Western Digital NVMe 500GB M.2 SSD, and a SanDisk 1TB SSD for storage. For the graphics, I’m running the MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti in SEA HAWK X case. The power supply is an EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 650W, which is gold-certified and fully modular.
If the PSU can handle the 3090, I might need a 750W unit. This build is mainly for gaming – mostly 1440p, but I occasionally switch to 4K. The RTX 3090 is expensive, and with the motherboard already in place, adding another CPU would push my budget to around $1700 after taxes. I’d prefer not to spend an extra $300 on a new CPU either. What are your thoughts?
First of all, as of right now, there is no benchmark, so we don't know for sure if you actually need to upgrade to a 3700X to prevent bottleneck. However, at that resolution games would be more GPU-bound so IMO you don't need to upgrade to a 3700X. Compound that by the fact that AMD is going to announce their new Zen 3 CPU in the 8th of October.
Depends on games and settings as well, not only resolutions. Generally speaking it will be sufficient. Even if you notice that it doesn't cut it, might want to wait for 4000 series Ryzen for more noticeable upgrade.
You don't need the 3090; most of your budget goes toward unnecessary VRAM for gaming. Opt for the 3080 and cut $800. A 3700X offers only a slight 10% boost in productivity with no real gaming advantage. The 4700X could be worth considering later, especially after Zen 3 releases. A 2700X is fine if you prefer it.
Additionally, you already possess a 2080 Ti GPU, and moving to the 3080 appears minor based on recent leaks—it offers only a 25% boost, making such an upgrade questionable. It doesn’t seem worth it if you’re content with your current performance, especially since you mostly play on a 1440P display.
At higher details it shouldn't be an issue, but wait for the ampere launch and see how it handles things—how the 3090 performs at 2700x with a 3080. For gaming purposes, the 3080 is more than sufficient and the 3090 isn't worth the extra ~700 bucks just yet. Wait until they officially release their specs and test them before deciding if the extra cost is justified. The 2080ti remains a solid GPU option.
Running a 2080 Ti with a R7 2700 works fine now, especially with a new card. I pushed my 2080 Ti to overclock it, getting speeds between 2085 and 2115 MHz. Most of my AAA titles ran at ultra with bottlenecks around 1440p. Lowering the settings would improve frame rates but made the bottleneck worse. At 3440 X 1440 or 4K, I hit GPU limits again even with the same settings. Now I only use 4K OLED TVs, so my CPUs are mainly a concern for older or modified games. With an Intel 5GHz CPU, I consistently reach over 130 FPS at ultra, which is ideal for 120 Hz. Regarding power, my 2080 Ti has three 8-pin connectors totaling 375 watts. If I upgrade to a card with four 8-pins, it could draw up to 525 watts. Upgrade only if the new card offers more than two 8-pin connections. Running at high overclocks on my 2080 Ti used around 550 watts from the wall (AC only), while SOTTR used about 50 less.