So…I’ve been increasingly struggling to run the latest games, as the age of my 6 years old desktop is starting to show, and Starfield denying my GPU just pissed me. I know it’s a bug and I can probably play it, but it’s outright the minimum for this game, and so I’d like a refresh of the worst, or should I consider a full new desktop? I know the GPU is starting to show its age, but not sure the CPU is salvageable or you’d advice a new one… Here’s a quick short summary of the computer:
-Mobo Gygabite Z170 K3 -CPU i7 6700 -2x8GB DDR4 2133 -MSI Nvidia 1070 8GB -SSD 1TB on the SATA port (I believe I can install an m.2 instead) -EVGA G2 750W
My questions…I believe these days an AMD card would be cheaper than an Nvidia, correct? What would be an equivalent to a 3070, or a 4070? More importantly…are they bigger in size (would it fit)? Do they take more power than my 1070 (will it roast my power supply?). Power would be a bit important, as I’d rather not replace all the wiring for the power supply, and electricity is becoming kinda pricey these days… I’m basically considering upgrading GPU and RAM, and considering if this would be a good upgrade or the CPU would then be a bottleneck (hence just throw it all and go for a full new desktop…I’d rather not).
Thanks!
I have an i5 8600 and a 1070 and a 450W power supply. At least on that front you have plenty of headroom for an upgrade. PCPartPicker calculates the total maximum power usage as advertised if you input all your parts, so you can double check there if you’re in doubt.
Gamers nexus and hardware unboxed did gpu reviews for starfield. Do NOT get a 6700 xt or 6750xt like someone suggested.
You need a 6800 xt for stable 60 fps.
But you are worried about electricity cost, the rdna2 and rdna3 series is VERY inefficient (stock).
You can pay upfront for a more efficient 4070 ti/4080, or maybe pay more per lifetime with rdna 2/3.
As for the rest, you don’t wana hear it but… your rig is old my dude.
You could probably reuse the ram if you went intel.
Psus have a finite lifetime. Make sure to put money aside for when it dies.
What case do you have? Gpus have gotten BIG.
Where do you live? Microcenter has great deals right now for last gen stuff.
Edit: What resolution is your monitor? The lower the resolution, the more important the cpu is due to bottlenecking in modern games.
@iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee
Edit2: hardware unboxed JUST did a video on starfield’s cpu limit. Definitely check that out.
A plain 6800 should be pretty decent for 1080p60, unless you absolutely must have ultra settings. There are guides on what graphics settings are worth the performance hit, if you follow them you can get nearly identical visuals with a nice bump in FPS.
But I agree as far as the 6750 and 6700 XT, they’re already struggling a bit with Starfield, and it’s not going to improve going forward.
In Starfield lows with a vanilla 6800 drop below 60 fps at 1080p HIGH as per hardware unboxed testing.
As a fellow 1070 8GB user, I am in the same boat myself.
I believe you should wait for the newest 7700 XT and 7800 XT GPUs from AMD. One possible side-effect would be that Nvidia would be forced to cut prices for 4060 and 4070.
Then you can go ahead and make the best possible choice as per your budget.
My advice would be to save some more money, wait for some time and build a new system.
Note: The newest GPUs use the PCIE 4.0 interface. Not really sure if your motherboard is able to handle that.
A new GPU should be able to work on older interfaces, right? Sure, you get half the bandwidth to the CPU, but is that even the limit?
Videocard Benchmark here:
https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
Figure out your price point, then get the highest scoring card in that range.
Say for the sake of argument you don’t want to spend more than $300 on a GPU:
GeForce RTX 3060 TI at $302 and change, not bad.
Radeon RX 6750 XT out performs it, but it’s also $360 instead of 302. So are the extra 500 points on their performance scale worth $60? Probably not.
Prices are more of a guide, search around, you might find them for less. Just using the shopping tab at Google, I found the GeForce for $250 at NewEgg.
Here’s one more GPU comparison chart:
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html
