Need new graphic card?

Hi all, I'm considering to look for new graphic card that can run most games at ultra setting and 1080p, so I want to ensure that isn't overkill for 1080p gaming.

My CPU is Intel i7-4790K and my GPU is GeForce GTX 970 4 GB VRAM (3.5 GB usable, but not 500 MB with slower VRAM), so of course, Nvidia paid $30 to me in 2016 as settlement from class action lawsuit because Nvidia falsified about 500 MB VRAM that found to be slow, so I'm not sure that FPS issues in some parts of area in WoW related to VRAM issues, so I found out that people own GTX 1080 has issue with low FPS in Suramar City with max setting, so they got around 20s to 30s, but it went up to over 80s-100s outside of Suramar, so those people suggested that WoW is poorly optimized. I got 30s-50s in ESO at max setting.

I'm awaiting for Blizzard to respond about issues with Suramar City (in WoW).

Do you recommended me to upgrade the GPU or I need to wait until few years? Is it best interest for me to continue with Nvidia GeForce? I had bad GeForce cards - 580 GTX (clock/memory clock issues) and GTX 970 (VRAM issues - 500 MB), also I sold my 9800 GTX+ to one of my friend and failed months later and he had to bake in oven to resolve the issue for short time, so eventually I gave my GTX 760 away to him for free - no issues so far.

Oh yes, the cost for graphic card is high due cryptocurrency, so is it worth for me to upgrade or best interest for me to keep GTX 970?

 

When I used to surf OCN, some members were using old SSD's as dedicated page files to help the GTX 970 with its VRAM issue. Though the only time this really reared its head is in games where the VRAM was being saturated and would cause problems in games.

Obviously there is better than the 970 out there, I dont think there is any titles it "cant play" yet, so I would just set some email alerts for GPU's when they fall under a certain price. I think you can do that through pcpartpicker iirc.

WoW is heavily influenced by the CPU isnt it? If you havent already, maybe consider overclocking the 4790k?

 

Oh, interesting about use SSD as dedicated page file.

I found that GTX 1070 may be better option for running 1080p game at ultra with 60 FPS, so GTX 1080 seems to be overkill unless you have monitor with faster Hz like 120 or 144, or 4K with medium-high setting.

Yes, WoW is CPU intensive and I don't know how to overclock the CPU, but I tried to overvolt the CPU when I had Intel Core 2 Quad, but caused shutdown and I had to reset the BIOS, so it isn't worth the risk for me to mess with CPU, so I had turn some setting down to got better FPS.

BTW, WoW relies on single core.

 

Hz shouldn't really cause issues as much as resolution. At 1080p you should be able to go over 100 with most games on a 1070, and many will go way higher.

 

I'm wonder about when GTX 1170 or 2070 will be released? I should wait and skip the GTX 1070?

 

As-of the time of this post, the EVGA 1070 Ti Hybrid (watercooled) is selling for $569 on Newegg. That's like $20 cheaper than their 1070 version. This was brought to my attention earlier this morning, when one of my colleagues (who is in the process of building a new rig) pulled the trigger on this GPU. You can check it out here.
A crazy deal right now (considering they sell as high as $799).

 

Oh wow, interesting, but it seems like I have no room to put rad with cooler to somewhere since rear is used for watercooled to CPU. I have a big fans in case to keep cooler instead getting too hot in my room. I use CM Storm Sniper case with big fans, so not sure about enough room for one more cooler + rad for GPU.

What is difference between air cooled and watercooled for GPU?

 

Water can carry iirc 6x more heat than air, which results in lower core temperatures.

However! This does not mean you have less heat dump into your room, you will see the same heat dump (the heat you recognize when your system is being saturated) in either air or water based solutions. The main difference is that water can be more efficient (assuming everything is assembled and working as intended) VS a standard air cooler.

You can get kind of close with air but that involves oversized heat sinks like the accelero which are also nice but kind of niche. Typically for those that like performance but also want to have lower noise levels without having to use water.

 

I understand, I think it is best interest for me to wait for GTX 1170.

 

Well first off what kinda Display are you going to run that also makes a difference which GPU you want to get as well. If your going 1080 and not 4K a GTX1080Ti would do you good here as well and if you want 4k the 1080Ti would be more the sufficient to power it. But that is my opinion.

 

I'm using 1080p with 60 Hz monitor.

I have no plan to go 4K anytime soon.

I don't want to run games with excess of over 100 FPS, so I usually lock to 60 FPS to reduce the GPU usage, but I use unlock FPS for test purpose.

Two games - WoW and ESO are struggling to maintain 60 FPS, but WoW is more CPU intensive, so Blizzard told me that no computers on market today to run at max setting so told me to use 7 that was old WoD Ultra, so as for ESO, I don't know about situation, so I noticed that GPU isn't utilize at max, but still got 30s to 40s FPS, but I found out that customers with GTX 1070 can run ESO at max with over 60 FPS all time.

 

For mmo's, cpu > gpu.

First going to need to overclock the cpu or replace cpu and overclock that.

Sadly, that's the only way to overcome inefficient coding.

 

Yeah, put an AIO on the CPU and OC it a bit. Though I don't recall my old Haswell ever struggling with any MMO I tried out, and it was an i5 at stock clocks.

 

It's pretty easy to do, even fps games like r6: siege will do it.

My friend has a 4790k and can saturate his cpu with black desert online, division and a few other titles.

Though wow is 64 bit now it's still not parallelized but it's an old game so different standards and approaches to development I would guess. (not a dev, just assuming)

 

Going to have to test r6, thought it was running OK but didn't really play much.

 

Ah it's practically one of the only games I play anymore. If I do play.

 

What is difference between AIO and Corsair liquid cooling?

I believe that most CPU still struggle with MMO at max setting, so for WoW, CPU utilization was 30%-35% if I maxed out (10) but when I changed to old WoD Ultra (7), so CPU utilization dropped to 6% to 15%.

WoD = Warlords of Draenor

 

For wow look at how many cores are being used. Total may be 30% but that may be over 1-2 cores/threads

Corsair liquid coolers are called "closed loop coolers" and arent very forward thinking but they do work. Once they break its bad news and basically can only ghetto fab repair. That's in the worse case, I've had a bunch of them when I built desktops and never had any issues but it would be wrong to say it never happens.

AIO is typically sold as a kit that you can expand on as you deem necessary. Forward thinking by design. Great for beginners or people that don't want to hunt down the individual parts to build their own loop.

 

Yes, I will going to check with CPU core and will tell later, and I do aware that WoW use single core.

I have Corsair liquid cooling for 6 years and haven't failed, but under stress test, max temp was 78 C, so I had to use this to check if my PC is stable after I had motherboard replacement due to broken PCIe. If temp goes up on idle so I will know it is failing, but I need to clean it off first.

Interesting about AIO.

 

Back, I just tested... WoW used CPU8 only so it went up to 94% with 48 C if I use max setting, so dropped to 60% after I turned down to WoD Ultra (7) and temp dropped to under 40 C. Also lock the FPS to 60 helped too.

Suramar City was one of most CPU taxing, even worse than raid that I played before.

ESO used CPU3 only with up to 72% with 40s C and GPU was around 80% at max setting, but CPU3 usage went dropped to 20% and went up to 72% - too much spikes, so I got 30s to 70s FPS, depending on area but instanced area is 100 FPS.

WoW looks beautiful on 7, so can't tell any difference but ESO looks awful if not at max setting, so I have to deal with lower than 60 FPS for ESO.

 

The Corsair units are AIO, I had one, but I think my next will be NZXT.

 

Unless they have interchangeable parts they are not AIO coolers. If they are sealed from factory they are in fact CLC coolers.

 

How about a 1080 ti?