Will my Processor hold up if I upgrade GPU? Suggestions please!

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Carista

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Just a small heads up, I am not particularly knowledgeable so easy to understand responses are highly appreciated!

So to keep it brief I was hoping to upgrade, because I currently have a gtx 680 2gb, and a 1440p monitor. Frame rate on a lot of games is pretty horrendous unless I drop settings -way- down.

I currently have an Asrock 970 extreme4 motherboard, and an AMD FX 8350 Black Edition, 8gb of ram, and a Gtx 680 as mentioned before.

I was hoping to upgrade the graphics card to something beefier that'll last me a good many years that will keep ultra 60 fps on the table.

My question is, would it be worthwhile buying a 1080 / 1080 ti? Is it going to run properly despite my processor? And are there any other suggestions you guys have?

If it's neccessary info, assume £1000-1200 budget (Though the lower the better, if the option will hold up), as for games i'd be playing, everything from triple A singpleplayers, to MMO's.

Thank you so much in advance if anyone takes the time to answer! (Links are highly appreciated to any recommended's)

 
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raisonjohn
Generally for ultra-settings AAA gaming, a GTX 1070 would be an "entry-level GPU" for 1440p, that is, you may have to decrease some in-game graphics settings in order to achieve constant 60fps esp. on GPU-intensive games. A GTX 1080 would definitely be a worthwhile upgrade if you want to max. out most, if not all, games in that resolution. The GTX 1080 Ti, on the other hand, would be best if your 1440p monitor can do 120~144Hz, but you have to shell out a lot of money for this card. Price/performance, I would personally get a GTX 1080 if I was in your situation.

Having said that, your current rig will definitely be faced with bottlenecking issues (i.e., the weak CPU hindering the maximum possible performance of the powerful GPU...
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Jesse_20

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Dec 11, 2015
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The 8350's show consider bottlenecking on the newer cards. You are essentially looking at replacing the motherboard, cpu, and ram in order to consider the gpu upgrade worthwhile. The cpu is your bottleneck, and unfortunately it's the best you can do with your current setup.
 
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Carista

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My trouble is I really struggle to understand CPU's, like I hear so much back and forth about what is needed / not needed for gaming when it comes to CPU's and I really understand very little of it... So I literally dont know what options there are to make an upgrade worthwhile
 
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BadBoyGreek

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Things are a bit more simple on the Intel front than AMD, or at least have been for the last 5-6 years. Generally speaking, over that time period, if you had say an Intel i5 or better, you were pretty well good to go with the latest graphics cards as long as your processor wasn't more than 2-3 years older than the GPU. But AMD has really struggled to keep up with Intel, or at least did until Ryzen got released. AMD processors released along with their Intel equivalents were simply outclassed, with even a lot of AMD's "high end" CPUs not being able to keep pace even with Intel i3's or lower end i5's.

 
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raisonjohn

raisonjohn

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Generally for ultra-settings AAA gaming, a GTX 1070 would be an "entry-level GPU" for 1440p, that is, you may have to decrease some in-game graphics settings in order to achieve constant 60fps esp. on GPU-intensive games. A GTX 1080 would definitely be a worthwhile upgrade if you want to max. out most, if not all, games in that resolution. The GTX 1080 Ti, on the other hand, would be best if your 1440p monitor can do 120~144Hz, but you have to shell out a lot of money for this card. Price/performance, I would personally get a GTX 1080 if I was in your situation.

Having said that, your current rig will definitely be faced with bottlenecking issues (i.e., the weak CPU hindering the maximum possible performance of the powerful GPU, esp. if the game is CPU-intensive.) Though a quick fix might be to decrease in-game graphics, spending for an expensive beefy GPU will be for naught if you can't maximize its full potential.

The FX series, in all honesty, is a dead-end upgrade path, now that the Ryzen series have been released. Your current FX 8350 CPU would choke a GTX 1080, a GTX 1070, and to a certain extent, even a GTX 1060.
(Source: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3192807/ultimate-bottlenecking-guide.html)

As you mentioned that we can assume you have a budget of £1000-1200, then my recommendation is to upgrade your CPU, MB, and RAM alongside the GPU you want for best (balanced/non-bottlenecking) pairing.

If you intend to overclock, here is a suggested CPU + CPU Cooler + MB + RAM + GPU (Note that the suggested build below is limited to parts mentioned, the remaining budget can be used for other parts not mentioned such as the PSU, Case, SSD/HDD, or other components you don't have yet -- I did not include these latter parts as I assume you already have them on your current PC):

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-7600K 3.8GHz Quad-Core Processor (£221.59 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 67.8 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler (£67.48 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Asus STRIX Z270F ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£161.48 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£125.47 @ Scan.co.uk)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 8GB Superclocked Gaming ACX 3.0 Video Card (£505.47 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £1081.49
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-04-07 19:14 BST+0100

If you don't intend to overclock, here is a suggested, less expensive, alternative:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-7500 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£173.94 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI B250 PC MATE ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£80.98 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory (£102.60 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1080 8GB GAMING X 8G Video Card (£525.90 @ Alza)
Total: £883.42
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-04-07 19:23 BST+0100

Assuming the budget you have is for an entire (overhaul) new PC, then here is another suggested parts list (excluding OS and peripherals):

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-7600K 3.8GHz Quad-Core Processor (£221.59 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG H5 Universal 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler (£55.89 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: Asus PRIME Z270-P ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£109.62 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory (£104.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£72.94 @ Eclipse Computers)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1080 8GB Video Card (£479.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Cooler Master MasterBox 5 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case (£49.98 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair RMx 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£91.97 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £1186.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-04-07 19:34 BST+0100

Hope these suggestions help :)
 
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