Any advice on if i should upgrade to a 1070?

Snostorm8

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Jul 23, 2013
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Currently got a i5 3570k, only a small OC to 3.8, gets a little unstable at 4, got a gtx 970 and 8gb of ram.

I game at 1080p, but like to max out graphics for single player and fps for online shooters, i use a 144hz monitor so framerates are a big thing for me, i normally aim for 120+ online and 80+ singleplayer.

I play the witcher 3 more than anything atm and even at high/medium my 970 is dipping to the 40's/50's in novigrad.

Is a 1070 upgrade a good option to improve everything and allow me not to need to upgrade until early 2018?

And will the 1070 be held back by my CPU?

Thanks for any answers and advice guys :)
 
Solution
+Snostrom8 From my experience a single 980 Ti is a great GPU for your goal of 1080p @ 144 Hz, therefore I presume a GTX 1070 is an equally good graphics card for your goal. But the GTX 1070 is even better: One generation newer architecture, and lower power usage. My estimation is that you'll receive approximately double the FPS with the 1070 than with your current 970. I'm stating an estimate because while I previously owned a GTX 970 (MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G), I've yet to get my hands on the GTX 1070. Off subject, I'm still really annoyed about Nvidia's mishandling of the pricing for the GTX 1070/1080 GPUs. Today (June 29th) happens to be the release date for the AMD RX 480. While I don't think that's an appropriate...
+Snostrom8 From my experience a single 980 Ti is a great GPU for your goal of 1080p @ 144 Hz, therefore I presume a GTX 1070 is an equally good graphics card for your goal. But the GTX 1070 is even better: One generation newer architecture, and lower power usage. My estimation is that you'll receive approximately double the FPS with the 1070 than with your current 970. I'm stating an estimate because while I previously owned a GTX 970 (MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G), I've yet to get my hands on the GTX 1070. Off subject, I'm still really annoyed about Nvidia's mishandling of the pricing for the GTX 1070/1080 GPUs. Today (June 29th) happens to be the release date for the AMD RX 480. While I don't think that's an appropriate substitution of a GTX 1070, my hope is that it'll put downward pricing pressure on 1070. We shall see very soon if my hope turns out to be true.

Btw: You mentioned high/medium settings in Witcher 3. Were you aware that there is a high graphics settings in that title called "Uber" ? Google it. This setting is hidden and not accessible from the game menu but from the INI file. There is also a free utility that can make the minor change for you, in order to enable it. My guess is that CD Projekt Red didn't want reviewers and hard core gamers enabling this option upon the title release and thereby lowering the FPS.

One other thing: As far as your question about the i5-3570k bottlenecking your potential GTX 1070 in Witcher 3, I honestly do not know if that'll happen. It's certainly possible. For example, even a current generation i5-6600k will bottleneck Fallout 4 with a GTX 970, but that example is an outlier. Were it me in your situation, I'd keep my eye out for an EVGA GTX 1070 SC (or FTW if it releases at a reasonable price) and then in the near future I would consider selling the four year old i5-3570K and GTX 970 used on Ebay. The i5 and GTX 970 can fetch approximately USD$125 and $200 respectively. With that money you could purchase a i7-6700K. If you're a professional (not just competitive) gamer, then you'll want as high a GPU clock rate as possible. But if you're simply a competitive gamer, and/or twitch streamer then I would suggest that you go for a 6 core Intel i7 instead. I currently own the Haswell-E i7-5820K and I love it. The latest replacement is the Broadwell-E i7-6800K. An acquaintance of mine, Joker (of Joker Productions), recently stated in a podcast that the 6800K doesn't overclock as easily as the 5820K. In this example I don't believe he was able to achieve the 4.6 Ghz he witnessed on the 5820K, and it took more voltage on the 6800K to get to a lower clock. I know that's not definitive, but it's just something to consider. Both chips use the same LGA 2011v3 socket, while the Skylake 6700K uses the LGA 1151 socket.

Ebay query: i5-3570k (used/sold)
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&LH_ItemCondition=3000&_nkw=i5-3570K&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&rt=nc&_trksid=p2045573.m1684

Ebay query: GTX 970 (used/sold)
* You didn't state that brand of 970, so the results lack pricing specificity.
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&LH_ItemCondition=3000&_nkw=gtx%20970&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&rt=nc&_trksid=p2045573.m1684

Intel i5-3570K Ark webpage:
http://ark.intel.com/products/65520/Intel-Core-i5-3570K-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_80-GHz
 
Solution

Snostorm8

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Jul 23, 2013
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smorizio I don't want to have to use my 970 all the way till 2018, that road map let's me happily upgrade everything including the 1070 in 2018

rcald2000 thanks for your answer, deffo thinking that the 1070 will be good for me then, if I can get close to £200 for my 970 that'll help it aswell. I like the idea of selling both at the same time so will probably do that. Many thanks :)

 
No problem. Obviously you could also sell the LGA 1155 socket motherboard and DDR 3 memory, as neither are compatible with a new CPU platform. You'll have to investigate which option yields you more money: selling the i5, motherboard and memory individually or as a combination. My guess is that selling them separately will get you more money, but I just thought I should mention all your options. Once you upgrade, please feel welcome to PM me photos of the inside of your build. I love pictures of people's rigs.
 

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