8700k 4070ti Bottleneck?

Irethel · 30 Oct 2023

Thinking to upgrade my current GPU (1080Ti) to something newer, this will be the last upgrade to this device.
My CPU is the i7 8700k running @4GHz, could overclock it to 4.5GHz if that helps with the new GPU.

Can't really make up my mind which graphics card would be the best choice in combination with this processor.
Here's what i thought might work out.

ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4070 OC 12 GB €726
ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 4070 OC 12 GB €828
ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti 12 GB €914
ASUS ROG STRTX RTX 4070 Ti OC 12 GB €1059

Is there any real risk of bottleneck if i combine the 8700k with one of these gpus?
Which card would you pick in combination with the 8700k?

Brink · 30 Oct 2023

Hello mate,

There's a rumor that a "Super" version of the 4070 or 4070 Ti is going to be released sometime soon for close to the same current prices. It may be worth waiting a bit longer to see.

Irethel · 30 Oct 2023

Thanks for mentioning that, i had no idea.

According to the internet, RTX 4070 Super is rumored to be equipped with Nvidia's AD103 GPU with 48 MB of L2 cache and a 16GB VRAM 256-bit GDDR6X memory, which is expected to significantly increase its performance compared to the original RTX 4070 Ti.
Now let's not speculate about prices here but what about the bottleneck, any experts around here want to shine some light on the topic? 8700k + 4070 will that work out together or could there be issues (performance gap)?

BKnight · 30 Oct 2023

I'm running a 7700k with an RTX 4070 perfectly fine.

Gaming at 1440p with all game options set to max/ultra. Runs all games perfectly fine with no slowdowns.
I do cap my framerate to 120 however. I see no need to go more than that just to heat up the CPU and GPU and just waste power.

The CPU bottleneck issue is really overblown in my opinion. Your 8700k will perfectly fine.

Irethel · 30 Oct 2023

Thanks for letting me know.
I heared rumors that cpu bottleneck is more likely to happen when the timegap between the cpu release and gpu release that are being used is relatively large, looks like you just confirmed that.
My monitor is also a 1440p one with 165Hz refreshrate, i capped the framerate (fps) at 165.

BKnight · 30 Oct 2023

I also have a Gsync 1440p monitor at 165Hz. You should always cap the frame rate to about 5 less than your monitor's Hz rate for smooth Gsync. You can do that in the Nvidia control panel, also be sure to turn ON Vsync in the control panel and OFF in the game settings. Like I previously stated I cap mine to 120...no need to push another 40fps to just heat up the CPU a bit more and draw more power.

Use max settings in the game so it makes the graphics card work harder and puts less stress on the CPU. The higher the game res the more it uses the graphics card over the CPU.

I went from a GTX 1080 to an RTX 4070 using the 7700k and the difference is huge.

Irethel · 30 Oct 2023

I've already been told that capping the refreshrate is recommended to be around 5 fps below the max refreshrate, the purpose of doing that must be to prevent screentearing? Had no tearing expect in one title that is knows for that exact issue and that was resolved by turning on vsync.
Using gsync and vsync why? If you cap the framerate in the controlpanel and use gsync why would you still turn on vsync if you encounter no issues?
About the power waste i'm not sure. More frames feel way smoother.

Malneb · 31 Oct 2023

Well as long as the motherboard has at least PCIE 3.0 X 16 which was well before Skylake then there will be very little issue. Yes i also agree bottleneck is something that gets thrown around loosely many times by people that watch or read online but don't overly understand the paradigm.

You might not preform on paper as a computer that has the best newest parts but it would not be a bad resulting real world outcome either way. Bench metrics and real world compute loads are not 1:1 imo because its 1 part theory crafting expected threshold outcomes.
Just because something compares bad on a benchmark in comparison to other parts that does not mean it works that way when actually using the computer.

The setup will be fine. People are stuck in the hype train fad of being stuck on the latest gear not knowing they are fed propaganda fear mongering online to keep buying into that. if you really know what works and what does not it means you can use your computer for much longer.

Tech is actually strange because its very slow in innovation but it seems fast. Then there is the fact that it takes a lot of industry time for standards to shape so just because parts are progressing everything else concerned takes ages to catch up and vice versa, its a dance but you don't need to be on that train every few years thinking you are left behind because of that.

long winded rant yes the computer will be fine with the GPU.

Malneb · 31 Oct 2023

Capping below refresh rate by a few fps would be frame time inductive. its about latency so in a competitive game it means that your monitor is waiting for the next frames to come not the other way around which is slower. The GPU should already be waiting to push the next frames so that means that the GPU is optimal.

Irethel · 31 Oct 2023

Thanks for the info.

The board ROG MAXIMUS XI HERO | Motherboards | ROG Global
uses PCIe 3.0 with 16 express lanes, i see there will be a little bottleneck here but it should be more than 10 frames per second lost atleast following various benchmark comparison videos, i don't want to upgrade this board, it might be pcie 3 but its fast and it was expensive.

If i understand your description of the fps cap, then you're saying that the monitor is waiting for the next frames which have already been rendered/generated by the gpu, which would not be the case if the gpu was constantly busy rendering the highest amount of frames it can produce?
My monitor uses 165hz so i capped the fps at 165 because it doesn't make sense to render more frames than the monitor can show.
But, if the gpu fails to achive the 165 fps target almost constantly in all titles because it's computing power is to weak, that means it's busy rendering all the time and so the fps cap is entirely useless in such a scenario, right?
I guess this wouldn't be the case anylonger with a 4070 card.
Or i could as BKnight suggested cap the fps at 120 which is a more realistic constant target for the 1080Ti, however if i do that i could also set the refreshrate (hz) to 120 because why use 165hz when there will never be more than 120 frames per second, would i notice any difference between using 165hz with a 120 fps cap and using 120hz with a 120 fps cap?