4070 or 6800XT? Upgrade CPU or nay?

Submitted ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee⁩ to ⁨foss_gaming@lemmy.world⁩

Hi guys! So, I’ve been for a while considering my options for a PC upgrade. As it stands, it’s a veteran Intel 6700, 16GB DDR4, NVME + SATA SSD drives, and an Nvidia GTX 1070. The weakest part IMHO would be the GPU, which I’m then considering upgrading, maybe for the ones in the title. What’s your thoughts on these two? Seems on the market the 6800XT is a bit pricier than the 4070 (about the equivalent to 90USD more), so I wanted to consider what’s best. I’m also considering a 2nd hand upgrade if the GPU hasn’t been burnt for too long (with purchase ticket proof), since this is a stopgap measure to keep the PC running for a couple years more maybe…

Additionally, as mentioned the CPU is a veteran Core i7 6700. Reading the Mobo’s manual, seems it’s upgradeable to 7th generation, so a 7700 (which wouldn’t cost much), but I’m also not sure it would improve much…either. What’s your thoughts?

Thanks!

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Strayce@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Bear in mind that both cards are PCIe4, whereas the 6700/7700 mainboards top out at PCIe3. They’ll work fine and you’ll likely see an improvement, but not as much as with a complete rebuild; if you’re not bottlenecking at the CPU, you’ll be bottlenecking at the bus. Otoh both cards have a good few years left in them so I’d probably go the cheaper option, skip the 7700, and put the extra money into a new mobo/ram/cpu combo.

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- iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  …right you are. PCIe3 indeed. I missed that. So your advice would be to upgrade the GPU only, then at some other time upgrade all the rest and install the already upgraded GPU, right?
  
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  - Strayce@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yep. I’m in the process of doing similar at the moment; went from an RX580 to an RX6650XT on an i5-9600. I could theoretically grab a secondhand i7 or i9, but I’d still be bottlenecking at the bus, and fixing that would necessitate a complete (expensive) rebuild. So the GPU is kind of a stop-gap while I build out the core components, then the GPU goes in the new rig when its complete. The 9600 is a fair bit newer than yours tho, so maybe the 7700 isn’t that bad an idea in the meantime if the finances work out.
    
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  - 3laws@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Not OP but that’s my advice too.
    
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Emphimisey@aussie.zone ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I was in a similar position to you a week ago with a 6700k and a GTX 1080Ti. The CPU will absolutely be a bottleneck, it’s a quad core from 2015. I would upgrade the CPU first then depending on what games you play upgrade the GPU later.

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the_q@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
If you’re on Linux then go with the 6800 XT.

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CubbyTustard@reddthat.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
[deleted]
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- 3laws@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The 4070 fits in a lot of ITX cases. And with a water loop the PCB fits anywhere since it’s so tiny.
  
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