Gtx 1080 or 1070 thoughts for 1440p gaming at 60fps high/ultra settings?

Pcswithch · Mar 12, 2017

Hi everyone Been gaming with this build for about 6 months now and looking foward to upgrade some parts. I have a budget of only $600 bucks to spend so should I just go all out and get the gtx 1080 or should I just get the 1070 and a better cpu? I don't plan on overlooking because I am fairly new to pc gaming and I think my motherboard doesn't allow it.

Type Item Price
CPU Intel Core i5-6400 2.7GHz Quad-Core Processor $175.69 @ OutletPC
Motherboard ASRock H110M-HDV Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard $58.88 @ OutletPC
Memory Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory $109.89 @ OutletPC
Storage Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive $46.88 @ OutletPC
Storage Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive $49.33 @ OutletPC
Video Card EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 8GB SC GAMING ACX 3.0 Black Edition Video Card $379.99 @ Newegg
Case Corsair Carbide Series 88R MicroATX Mid Tower Case $40.98 @ Newegg
Power Supply Corsair Builder 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply $69.88 @ OutletPC
Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
Total (before mail-in rebates) $951.52
Mail-in rebates -$20.00
Total $931.52
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-03-12 03:16 EDT-0400

Isokolon · Mar 12, 2017

First of all: congratulations to your build. It's solid but there are some strange choices, it's always best to let it check by a set of competent eyes before buying (doing so myself) as you sometimes just overlook something.

To your question:
A 1070 will get you 60fps in games at 1440p, some might require some tinkering (although I gotta say I don't see the point in upscaling and high AA settings at 1440p)

A 1080 doesn't have any problems with that.
However the CPU is borderline for some games.

Personally I'd probably go for the 1080 and upgrade the CPU at a later date when necessary.
The CPU will bottleneck sometimes a little but you should be maintaining over 60 FPS anyway (except.for BF1 maybe)
If the CPU hold back gets more annoying and you saved up.some more, you can still upgrade.

That's my thoughts.
The other route is viable as well, going for a 1070 and a stronger CPU, but honestly when upgrading the CPU unless you got a really good deal, I'd go for an i7. Everything else doesn't feel very cost effective when you already got a 6400.
And I think an i7-6700/7700 + a 1070 is putting you over budget

jdcranke07 · Mar 12, 2017

Pcswithch :

Your i5-6400 will be perfectly fine for all titles. If you went with the 1080, you would see the biggest improvement in performance as your CPU will only really squeeze out a couple of frames more at stock speeds, if you went with a higher end CPU. The better upgrade would be the GPU and then hit up the CPU if it really does become the bottleneck in performance. At that point though, you just need to go with the highest i5 you wish to spend money on because an i7 will not have much benefit over the i5, unless you will need the extra threads for workload or you feel you need to get the i7 just cause. I would also think about either changing out one of the HDDs for an SSD or just add an SSD to the setup. Using an SSD as your OS drive will greatly speed up your PC's performance and you wouldn't have even touched the CPU or GPU at that point.

n0ns3ns3 · Mar 12, 2017

I couldn't understand what is your current build. So I assume it's what you've listed.

GTX 1070 is good for 1440p@60Hz. 1080 would be too much.
the CPU (assuming it's the i5-6400) is probably the weakest part but is kinda enough for now.

As for the upgrades, adding decent SSD (i'd recommend 500GB-1TB, but even 240GB will be nice) would be the most noticeable improvement to your experience. That would be 100-400$ (depending on your choice).
I wouldn't touch the core components of your system (CPU, RAM, GPU) for a year or two at least.

sizzling · Mar 12, 2017

One thing that stands out to me is the poor quality PSU, I would use it on a gaming build let alone one with an expensive high end gpu.

swompdonkey · Mar 13, 2017

I'm in the same boat. I have a GTX 1070 coming and am torn between 1080p and 1440p. I think for longevity I am leaning 1080....but as my PC will be doubling as a streaming device for my bedroom at about 7 feet viewing distance I would love to spring for a 32" 1440.

Would a 32" 1080p look wretched playing total war: warhammer up close?

n0ns3ns3 · Mar 13, 2017

if you don't have monitor yet, get the 1440p since you will upgrade the GPU much sooner than the monitor.
you can always set the game to 1080p if needed.

jdcranke07 · Mar 15, 2017

swompdonkey :

Both GPUs will handle 1440p well. If you start to game at 1440p, you can turn down your AA within games and it will help with keeping FPS up since AA is less necessary at higher resolutions. The difference between some games will be night and day going from 1080p to 1440p and having a larger screen will allow you to fully appreciate what the GPU is doing for you. Once you're used to it, 1080p starts to look super fuzzy. Just go with the GTX 1080 and upgrade the panel another time since it will more than likely be cheaper than the GPU as well. That GPU will last you at least two to three generations without a problem at 1080p/1440p. If you do plan to game in 2160p and want decent FPS, then you might want to hold off on the GPU until at least the next gen comes out. I know this is more info and broader than what your question entailed, but I figured I'd give my $.02.

jwcrellin · Mar 15, 2017

I game 1440p with a 1070 and often turn AA down to 2x/4x to gain some fps without any real image quality penalty.

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Gtx 1080 or 1070 thoughts for 1440p gaming at 60fps high/ultra settings?

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