$1300 Build: GTX 1080 or GTX 1070?

[Potency]

Hey Ya'll,

Millionth post in the last week about my upcoming build. Really like getting people's input on things before making decisions.

Anyway, I'm thinking about throwing this build together in the near future: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/gLXQr7

The MSI GTX 1080 Armor 8G OC is on sale on Newegg for $510 (https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16814127945). That's roughly $50 more than the MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X on my current build. That Seems like a small price to pay to move up to the next tier of GPU (considering going from 1060 6G to 1070 is about almost a $200 price jump). I'm putting down $1280 for the above build so I don't mind throwing in $50 more if you guys thinks the dollar : performance upgrade is worth it. What do you guys think?

If I were to go with the 1080, would I risk bottlenecking in any areas with the above linked parts list?

Edit: Would I need a bigger PSU?

PS: This build is for AAA titles and WoW. No streaming, rendering, or other workstation related tasks. No particular games I'm trying to focus on for competitive play. Also, I'm planning to stay with 1080p at 60Hz unless I find a great deal on black friday/cyber monday for a fancy shmancy 144Hz monitor.

[Kagthul]

I had the 1080 Armor OC myself before i gave it to my wife and replaced it with 1080Ti FTW3.

Very sold card. Only complaint was e default fan curve did this weird off/on cycle when it was hovering near the temp where it would shut the fans off, but this was easily solved by simpy setting the fans to about 55% (always on) - they were fairly inaudible at that setting (you could tell they were on, but any sound from the speakers would completely cover it) and kept the card cool,even it heavy-GPU games like Witcher 3 with all the settings cranked up. Never got above 70c except in Furmark, and never hit the 84c throttle even in Furmark.

For only a 50$ premium it seems like a no-brainer.

As for a new PSU, i ran it just fine on a Seasonic M12II 520W PSU, with a Core-i7 4790K OCed to 4.7ghz - was never pulling more than 410W from the wall under full CPU and GPU load.

- - - Updated - - -

I would note that Coffee Lake drops literally tomorrow. Building Kaby Lake seems... lackluster.

[0bsessions]

GPU's are getting better about power consumption and a 650 should perform fine for a 1080 unless you're running a whole ton of peripherals.

FWIW, Bottlenecker says that your CPU will be a bottleneck (12% with 10% being the threshold for a real bottleneck), which is manageable. Another FWIW, the same site also says that your CPU would be bottlenecking a 1070 too. In any case, a 1070 is probably overkill for that you're looking to do anyway.

That said, I'd still recommend the upgrade for that small of a difference in price. Bottlenecks aren't necessarily bad for your system, it just means that you're not getting the most out of your GPU, but when you're only paying $50 more, that's not a big consideration. May as well futureproof at that price.

[Potency]

GPU's are getting better about power consumption and a 650 should perform fine for a 1080 unless you're running a whole ton of peripherals.

FWIW, Bottlenecker says that your CPU will be a bottleneck (12% with 10% being the threshold for a real bottleneck), which is manageable. Another FWIW, the same site also says that your CPU would be bottlenecking a 1070 too. In any case, a 1070 is probably overkill for that you're looking to do anyway.

That said, I'd still recommend the upgrade for that small of a difference in price. Bottlenecks aren't necessarily bad for your system, it just means that you're not getting the most out of your GPU, but when you're only paying $50 more, that's not a big consideration. May as well futureproof at that price.

Interesting. Does that take into account OCing the CPU? Also, that site recommends a Ryzen 5 1600X even though that CPU has per-core a lower clock speed. Since I'm not doing any rendering or other tasks that truly take advantage of 6-cores I'm skeptical of that. However, dollar for dollar, a Ryzen 5 1600X seems like a better value than an i5-7600K.

That's part of what I'm thinking too, pay $50 extra now and have the GPU be competitive for longer.

Perhaps I'll consider spending a little more on a new Covfefe Lake CPU to further future proof this build.

[Kagthul]

Youre not bottlenecking on that CPU.

One of the bigger tech Youtubers (Pauls Hardware, JayzTwoCents, BitWit, Linus, or GN, not sure which, i watch them all and they get a bit muddled) did a video on Bottlenecking recently (by 'recently' i mean within the last month or so) and they had to go down to i3s at lower clock speeds (3.5ish or lower) to see any real "bottlenecking" on GPUs all the way up to a 1070... and even then it was still delivering high fps (above 60fps in most games - hell, the Pentium-G 4560 was getting 90fps in BF1). Any modern quad core at high clock speeds will not be meaningfully bottlenecking a GTX 1080.

The amount of overcompensating/overguessing by people is at an all-time high. (Like people who insist you NEED 16GB of RAM, MUST have an SSD, MUST have a 12-thread CPU to stream "acceptably", etc.)

FWIW, the rig i built my wife (and put the GTX 1080 Armor OC in) is running a Core i5 6600K - at 4.4ghz - and is not meaningfully bottlenecking anything. Youll be fine.

[Potency]

Youre not bottlenecking on that CPU.

One of the bigger tech Youtubers (Pauls Hardware, JayzTwoCents, BitWit, Linus, or GN, not sure which, i watch them all and they get a bit muddled) did a video on Bottlenecking recently (by 'recently' i mean within the last month or so) and they had to go down to i3s at lower clock speeds (3.5ish or lower) to see any real "bottlenecking" on GPUs all the way up to a 1070... and even then it was still delivering high fps (above 60fps in most games - hell, the Pentium-G 4560 was getting 90fps in BF1). Any modern quad core at high clock speeds will not be meaningfully bottlenecking a GTX 1080.

The amount of overcompensating/overguessing by people is at an all-time high. (Like people who insist you NEED 16GB of RAM, MUST have an SSD, MUST have a 12-thread CPU to stream "acceptably", etc.)

FWIW, the rig i built my wife (and put the GTX 1080 Armor OC in) is running a Core i5 6600K - at 4.4ghz - and is not meaningfully bottlenecking anything. Youll be fine.

Gotcha. I think I might pull the trigger on the 1080 while it's on sale and hope that I can get a Coffee Lake CPU and Z370 Mobo without having to go above $1400. I'm considering it a long term investment. I don't need to be on the bleeding edge forever and want my hardware to be able to keep up when I eventually upgrade my monitor to 1440/144Hz or 4k.

My last build from January 2012 has lasted me until now without any upgrades (it truly is becoming a potato). I really only started to feel its crippling old age last year.

Just out of curiosity, how long do you all estimate the 1080 will be capable of running games at at least high settings for years to come? 3.5 years or so before it starts showing its age?

Coffe Lake is out! Should I go with a Ryzen 5 1600X or the new i3-8350k (unlocked quad core with a base clock of 4GHz)?

[Linkedblade]

I'd suggest the 8400 or 8600k

[moremana]

Coffe Lake is out! Should I go with a Ryzen 5 1600X or the new i3-8350k (unlocked quad core with a base clock of 4GHz)?

You can either go the 8350k route or the i5-8400 is only $11 more if your stuck on Intel.

So far gaming benches I have seen show the 8400 doing quite well....then again, the 8600k is only $40 more but out of stock. 8400s and 8350s are in stock. depends on how anxious you are

[Potency]

You can either go the 8350k route or the i5-8400 is only $11 more if your stuck on Intel.

So far gaming benches I have seen show the 8400 doing quite well....then again, the 8600k is only $40 more but out of stock. 8400s and 8350s are in stock. depends on how anxious you are

You'll have to pardon my ignorance. I've been checking out benchmarks for Coffee Lake as well and the i5-8400 is doing incredibly well, even surpassing the R5 1600X in some games. How is that possible with such a low per-core clock speed being only 2.8 w/ 4.0 turbo vs. the R5 1600X with a base clock of 3.6 and OC of ~4.0? Is Intel's per-core performance that much higher, even at lower clock speeds?

The trouble now if I decide to go the Intel Coffe Lake route is finding a decent 300 series mobo that's not obnoxiously expensive since I think I'd go with the i5-8400.

[moremana]

You'll have to pardon my ignorance. I've been checking out benchmarks for Coffee Lake as well and the i5-8400 is doing incredibly well, even surpassing the R5 1600X in some games. How is that possible with such a low per-core clock speed being only 2.8 w/ 4.0 turbo vs. the R5 1600X with a base clock of 3.6 and OC of ~4.0? Is Intel's per-core performance that much higher, even at lower clock speeds?

The trouble now if I decide to go the Intel Coffe Lake route is finding a decent 300 series mobo that's not obnoxiously expensive since I think I'd go with the i5-8400.

The 8400 has a turbo boost of 4.0 and yes the ipc is a better on Intel's side, unless I am mistaken, the 4.0 boost is on a single core. Thats not to discount the R5. It does extremely well for the cost.

So on games it will increase depending on the load a single boost of 4 GHz, if you watch cpu usage when playing a game, most games will use more cores, but there will always be one that is utilized much more.

So at 4Ghz on the Intels IPC it will be better than a R5 1600 at 4.0, the trade off is when games start utilizing more cores to the fullest. There are some that already do but it isnt that noticeable. @Evildeffy and @Life-Binder can explain it much better than I can. Their research is much more extensive than mine.

If I were buying right now and I had a choice of the 8400 vs the R5 1600. I would choose the i5, simply because I play WoW.

As far as the motherboards, unless you plan on going to a "K" sku, the Z370 is kind of pointless to a OC extent as you cant OC a 8400, the features are nice, but not overwhelming. When they release the lower tier boards, I have no idea, the B360 is suppose to follow, I just dont know when.

[Evildeffy]

You'll have to pardon my ignorance. I've been checking out benchmarks for Coffee Lake as well and the i5-8400 is doing incredibly well, even surpassing the R5 1600X in some games. How is that possible with such a low per-core clock speed being only 2.8 w/ 4.0 turbo vs. the R5 1600X with a base clock of 3.6 and OC of ~4.0? Is Intel's per-core performance that much higher, even at lower clock speeds?

The trouble now if I decide to go the Intel Coffe Lake route is finding a decent 300 series mobo that's not obnoxiously expensive since I think I'd go with the i5-8400.

That's because Intel is cheating a little bit with their "base clocks" as they name it just because of the TDP limitations.
However the Ryzen 5 1600X has an all-core Turbo of 3,7GHz vs. the Core i5 8400's 3,8GHz all-core turbo.

This means that in all practical situations, barring you having an OEM motherboard, you will always have 3,8GHz when something is pushing all the cores for the i5.
Intel went aggressive with turbo speeds because they are fighting a price/performance that they do not have the advantage in.
So Intel has to claw back ground somehow and aggressively increasing turbo clocks is one way of doing that.

In most games these chips should match up VERY closely with older games being advantage Intel (but really minimally, I estimate no more than 5%) and newer games likely the Ryzen 5 1600X because of increased thread count, it's certainly kicking ass in multi-threaded environments vs. the i5 8400.

Honestly in general I'd rate these chips close to the same with advantage being Ryzen 5 because of thread count AND the ability to overclock.

Intel's Skylake/Kaby Lake/Coffee Lake is about 7% ahead in IPC clock-for-clock vs. AMD's Ryzen series, it's relatively minor.

There are some games which show an inextricably large favour to team blue (GTA 5 and Watch Dogs 2 come to mind f.ex.) but all-in-all the battle is even.

The difference is that the Ryzen 5 can overclock, bringing up the muscle as well as platform cost being considerably cheaper due to the fact Intel can only provide you with Z370 boards for the rest of the year which comparatively are expensive.

So for WoW you're fighting with Intel's i5 8400 @ 4,0GHz where the AMD Ryzen 5 1600X will boost up to 4,1GHz.
With the 7% IPC deficit the difference is so minor it's not even worth mentioning.

The devil is in the details, don't be fooled by Intel's "Base clock" numbers ... they are a marketing gimmick to make things look better than the competition for exactly the reason you just displayed.

"Look ... my 2,8GHz base clock CPU can beat a 3,6GHz base clock competitor CPU! WTF?!" ... that is until you actually check the details and see that the play ground is actually very different than what you're being told.

[Jimusmc]

would it be better to wait a little bit for the 1070 TI it's gonna be as good or slightly better thasn 1080 for less than a 1080 right?

[Evildeffy]

would it be better to wait a little bit for the 1070 TI it's gonna be as good or slightly better thasn 1080 for less than a 1080 right?

If (because it's still a rumour) the GTX 1070Ti exists than it'll be slightly worse than a GTX 1080 for SLIGHTLY more than the MSRP of a GTX 1070.
The 1070Ti will be a cut down GTX 1080 but less cut down than a GTX 1070, looks like nVidia doesn't want to give Vega 56 any momentum if so.

Current pricing rumours are $ 429,-

The GTX 1070Ti will not be "as good or better" than a GTX 1080 in straight up performance, it can't be.. they are all the GP104 die and the 1080 is the full fat die.
When talking about price-to-performance though... yes of course that'll be better provided the MSRPs hold etc.

But never in pure performance.

[frozty97]

I guess you would need a bigger psu, you should go with coffee lake and 1080 maybe its a good combo!

but i am newb so

[Vanhyali]

Wait for the 1070Ti

[Warning]

In my opinion the 1070 TI release is basically NVidia creating an "excuse" to re-release the 1080 at a lower price point. Its their way of not pissing off existing 1080 customers by significantly dropping the price. I expect it's going to be extremely close to 1080 performance with only a few clear differences in specs that makes people with a 1080 still feel they have the better card, while being significantly cheaper. As others have said its aimed at taking the wind out of the sails of the vega 56.

[Kagthul]

The 8400 has a turbo boost of 4.0 and yes the ipc is a better on Intel's side, unless I am mistaken, the 4.0 boost is on a single core. Thats not to discount the R5. It does extremely well for the cost.

So on games it will increase depending on the load a single boost of 4 GHz, if you watch cpu usage when playing a game, most games will use more cores, but there will always be one that is utilized much more.

So at 4Ghz on the Intels IPC it will be better than a R5 1600 at 4.0, the trade off is when games start utilizing more cores to the fullest. There are some that already do but it isnt that noticeable. @Evildeffy and @Life-Binder can explain it much better than I can. Their research is much more extensive than mine.

If I were buying right now and I had a choice of the 8400 vs the R5 1600. I would choose the i5, simply because I play WoW.

As far as the motherboards, unless you plan on going to a "K" sku, the Z370 is kind of pointless to a OC extent as you cant OC a 8400, the features are nice, but not overwhelming. When they release the lower tier boards, I have no idea, the B360 is suppose to follow, I just dont know when.

You can “sorta” overclock the locked SKUs on Z370. All-core optimization will turn on automatically if you OC your RAM (manually or via XMP, and you can tuen it on manually ofc), and itll force even the locked SKUs to run all cores at the max turbo, so you can effectively turn the 8400 into a 4ghz chip.

JayzTwoCents discovered that ASUS boards even ship wih the all-core optimization on, which led to the i7 8700K running all six cores at max turbo on all cores in his tests when he was trying to run it stock vs a Ryzen (also at stock).

Makes the value of the 8400 much better. Heres to hoping that Intel doesnt force board makers to disable this like they did bclk OCing on non-K parts a few gens back.

[moremana]

Makes the value of the 8400 much better. Heres to hoping that Intel doesnt force board makers to disable this like they did bclk OCing on non-K parts a few gens back.

Bah you know they will, we are not allowed to have anything without paying for it..lol