Question Will new RTX 3080 be bottlenecked by my 2012 6-Core i7 Intel 3930k @ 3.8ghz?

dsc106

Senior member
May 31, 2012
320
10
81
Specs in sig - I have an 850w PSU, Asus Rampage Extreme sb2011 mobo and the 3930k CPU.

My CPU with the GTX 1080 TI seems to still push plenty of non-bottlenecked performance in everything from Half Life Alyx, Flight Sim 2020, etc. I am due for a CPU upgrade but not ready until next year.

In the meantime, I'd love to add ray-tracing and better performance for Cyberpunk 2077 and Flight Sim 2020 and other VR performance. Will the RTX 3080 be a good buy, or will I be bottlenecked? Worth it to get the GPU first, upgrade CPU later, or mostly pointless without a CPU upgrade?
 

blckgrffn

Diamond Member
May 1, 2003
9,110
3,028
136
www.teamjuchems.com
Yes.

In several games by 5700xt was really let down by my 3930k @ 4.2 Ghz, 32GB of RAM & all SSD. Enough that I was really bummed out, I had been hoping to skip AM4 and DDR4 altogether in main gaming rig.

Upgraded to rig in sig and the minimum frames and gameplay has been much smoother in general. I'd think the 3080 with your rig would be really peaky, giving you great peak and "average" frames but sometimes stuttering gameplay.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tlh97 and A///

dsc106

Senior member
May 31, 2012
320
10
81
I see, thank you. So it won’t do any harm vs the 1080 TI? Or will it actually result in more stuttering due to FPS fluctuation?

I’m fine if I just bump up my minimum and average frames for now - that, and “free” ray tracing for cyberpunk 2077 is what I’d be after this year calendar year. Would I benefit there?

I was planning a full system overhaul next year, but the idea of playing cyberpunk ray traced is what has me contemplating an early upgrade to the 3080...
 

blckgrffn

Diamond Member
May 1, 2003
9,110
3,028
136
www.teamjuchems.com
I see, thank you. So it won’t do any harm vs the 1080 TI? Or will it actually result in more stuttering due to FPS fluctuation?

I’m fine if I just bump up my minimum and average frames for now - that, and “free” ray tracing for cyberpunk 2077 is what I’d be after this year calendar year. Would I benefit there?

I was planning a full system overhaul next year, but the idea of playing cyberpunk ray traced is what has me contemplating an early upgrade to the 3080...

That's just it, I don't think it will help out minimum frames too much. Where my rig was slow after upgrading to the 5700xt (from a 290x) with the 3930k was times when the CPU choked out - lots of enemies on screen, chaos happening, and this was the *worst* time to really drop performance. And that was the same points of the games I was playing where the 290x was really struggling too. I am not sure if I had done it the other way (new CPU first, GPU second) how that would have played out. Maybe I would have been happier for longer? It's hard to say. Your 1080ti is certainly no slouch. I'd wager it's being held back a fair amount as well.

I get you on Cyberpunk, and I think if you are going for an Ultra Graphics performance experience at 30 to 60 FPS and don't mind some lost frames anyway it will probably be "fine". It's all about what is really acceptable to you in terms of performance. I loved my 3930k and I couldn't believe it no longer made the grade, but single core Sandy Bridge performance, when it comes down to it, is no longer near elite level.

It hurts because to even get to a $160 3600 you have to also buy all new ram and the motherboard, so you are in for ~$400 pretty easily and the 3930k setup isn't worth much to flip. But a 3600 or better is a much better pairing for that shiny 3080 :)
 

dsc106

Senior member
May 31, 2012
320
10
81
Thanks for all the feedback!

Yeah, I was looking to get a 3970x threadripper and 128gb RAm, new PSU, more nvme, the whole deal - but it’s a project and a big expense best for next year. If I could play cyberpunk, and Medal of Honor VR, this year better than I could with the 1080 then I’d probably accelerate the purchase I think... but maybe it’s foolish and I’d hardly see a performance difference outside of raytracing... hmmm
 

Shmee

Memory & Storage, Graphics Cards Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 13, 2008
7,381
2,415
146
You will be bottlenecked on your current platform, though a further OC or an upgrade to a xeon 1680v2(8 core IB EP) with an OC would help.
 

anthrax

Senior member
Feb 8, 2000
695
3
81
Specs in sig - I have an 850w PSU, Asus Rampage Extreme sb2011 mobo and the 3930k CPU.

My CPU with the GTX 1080 TI seems to still push plenty of non-bottlenecked performance in everything from Half Life Alyx, Flight Sim 2020, etc. I am due for a CPU upgrade but not ready until next year.

In the meantime, I'd love to add ray-tracing and better performance for Cyberpunk 2077 and Flight Sim 2020 and other VR performance. Will the RTX 3080 be a good buy, or will I be bottlenecked? Worth it to get the GPU first, upgrade CPU later, or mostly pointless without a CPU upgrade?

yes, especially titles like flight sim 2020. They are generally cpu bound.
 

aigomorla

CPU, Cases&Cooling Mod PC Gaming Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 28, 2005
20,839
3,174
126
bottlenecks are more seen at lower resolution then higher.
4k, you will see some bottle necks... while at 8K i don't think you need to worry as your cpu will just cry @ 8k
@ 1440 and 1080, yes expect some pretty bad bottlenecks.
 

Mopetar

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2011
7,797
5,899
136
It might even bottleneck at the higher resolutions due to the PCIe bus speeds. The 3930K is only PCIe 2.0 which means the x16 there is equivalent to PCIe 3.0 8x. There's another recent thread discussing performance differences and some games do show a difference at 1440p (particularly in the 1% frames) when using a 2080 Ti. The video also tested a 5700 XT using PCIe 3.0 x16 vs. PCIe 4.0 x16 and found that even with a mid-range card some games still saw a performance difference at 1440p.

It's possible that even if the CPU itself wasn't a bottleneck that the PCIe bus speed might start to become one. I'd definitely get an upgrade because it's pretty likely that the CPU itself will be a bottleneck in several games and going forward 8 cores are going to be a baseline for a lot of games since both of the new consoles will be using that. If you got that at or around launch I think it's fair to say that it's had a pretty good life. I forget, but I'm pretty sure that's running DDR3 as well so anything that's bandwidth hungry would get a big uplift as well.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mk pt and Tlh97

Shmee

Memory & Storage, Graphics Cards Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 13, 2008
7,381
2,415
146
The above is a pretty good point, usually Sandy E only supports PCIe gen 2. (Though I have heard that the controller will actually work at gen 3, and that there is a trick to doing it.)

Keep in mind though, that DDR3 actually got very fast. For instance, the X79 rig with a 4930k OC that I gave my sister has 4x4 GB of DDR3 2133MHz Patriot viper, in quad channel. So it depends on his memory configuration as well. Lastly, I will reiterate what I said earlier, an OCed Xeon 1680 V2 would be a good 8 core upgrade for the OP's current platform.

 

Guru

Senior member
May 5, 2017
830
361
106
Short answer yes, the RTX 2080 is supposedly up to 30% faster than the RTX 2080ti, so of course your CPU is going to become an even bigger bottleneck than it is now.
 

Kenmitch

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
8,505
2,248
136
Go big or stay home. It's up to you, but if it was me I'd either keep what I had or upgrade the whole rig.

I guess you could try it and see and just resale the card if it doesn't work so great with your current rig. Depending on availability and if you can snag a 1st batch you could even get paid to play around with it.