PC Upgrade GTX 1080 with old processor? PC guys?

[caseyjones955]

I have a self assembled system with 16gb ram, an AMD Phenom II X6 (6 core @ 3.2hz not overclocked, yet) on an MSI NF980-G65 mb, currently running a GTX770. The system masters everything at 1080p with graphics maxed. Playing stuff like Dying Light, Mad Max, Borderlands/2, Doom, Fallout4, Far Cry 3/4, Crysis 3, Path of Exile and that sort of thing and it's completely fluid.

I upgraded my AVR, lost the analog inputs for PC, had to upgrade to a Samsung 55" 4k tv so that HDMI would work right, and now that I have a 4k TV my vid card is having trouble keeping up during PC gaming. I started a cascade of events.

Gaming at 4k ads a whole new level of pain to an older video card/processor. I can still run games at 1080p but it doesnt look as sharp going from 46" to 55" so I figure I'll need to update the system to handle full 4k. I know the GTX1080 is the card to have but I'm not sure how it's going to work without the full CPU upgrade as well. I thought about an AMD 8370/Asus 990 R2.0 pro. but I think the Zen chips are just around the corner and from what I'm reading they might be Intel killers. I'm wondering if keeping my current setup but adding the GTX1080 adn maybe OC the CPU some would get me into 4k territory or if I might be bottlenecked by the older processor to the point that 4k gaming would not be a reasonable expectation. I'm sure I might have to dumb down some settings until I do get the full upgrade and thats ok. I'm planning to upgrade the processor/mb but would like to wait for the Zen chips to come out and drop in price. I might add that for an old AMD 6 core it's really zippy. Should I get the GTX1080, would it be worth it or should I just wait until I'm ready to do a full upgrade. Opinions, experiences?

Any input from PC gamers that have been down this road?

Thanks.

 

[SpecOps13]

Haven't been involved in builds for many years but it sounds cool as crap.
Beats my system to H and back. Good Luck Bro.... Happy Gaming.

 

[caseyjones955]

Thanks man. I did start playing more vid games when became less able to work full time. I dont play online much, mostly just single player. I have a gaming terminal upstairs so when my son comes over we can LAN play some cooperative stuff. It's fun and sadly addictive. I have my gaming PC piped through my home theater system and it's pretty immersive to say the least but its how a simple AVR upgrade left me doing everything.

 

[Kronx]

Thanks man. I did start playing more vid games when became less able to work full time. I dont play online much, mostly just single player. I have a gaming terminal upstairs so when my son comes over we can LAN play some cooperative stuff. It's fun and sadly addictive. I have my gaming PC piped through my home theater system and it's pretty immersive to say the least but its how a simple AVR upgrade left me doing everything.

I was an only child with a mom who didn't want to be a mom and my dad bailed the day I was born. So as a result the old Ataris and Colecovisions were my virtual babysitters.

So even at 46 years of age, I still play video games more than a 46 year old should probably play. But I can't complain because I actually found the love of my life and my best friend through World of Warcraft. She's been living with me for almost 7 years now and we're still crazy about each other.

That said, in regards to 4k gaming I havent made the leap yet so can't offer advice. Are there any games being developed that are going to even take advantage of that yet? I dont think there are many. We might be in one of those odd areas where the game development is lagging behind the hardware now? Normally it's the opposite.

My son is off on his own in the Air Force, but gaming still brings us together a couple of times a week. And I'm pretty thankful for those moments. We played together for about two hours last night in fact.

PS - How did you like Mad Max? I've been considering getting it. I've been slowly getting back into more single player/story driven games. Dusted off Witcher 3 recently and playing through the Blood and Wine DLC currently. Which is just as massive DLC. Feels almost like a game within itself. I LOVE the latest Doom. They really nailed the pace and fun of what the originals had - just had such a great time with it. I'm also a big fan of the Borderlands series. I actually like Battleborn too, but unfortunately no one is really playing that game.

 

[caseyjones955]

I was an only child with a mom who didn't want to be a mom and my dad bailed the day I was born. So as a result the old Ataris and Colecovisions were my virtual babysitters.

So even at 46 years of age, I still play video games more than a 46 year old should probably play. But I can't complain because I actually found the love of my life and my best friend through World of Warcraft. She's been living with me for almost 7 years now and we're still crazy about each other.

That said, in regards to 4k gaming I havent made the leap yet so can't offer advice. Are there any games being developed that are going to even take advantage of that yet? I dont think there are many. We might be in one of those odd areas where the game development is lagging behind the hardware now? Normally it's the opposite.

My son is off on his own in the Air Force, but gaming still brings us together a couple of times a week. And I'm pretty thankful for those moments. We played together for about two hours last night in fact.

PS - How did you like Mad Max? I've been considering getting it. I've been slowly getting back into more single player/story driven games. Dusted off Witcher 3 recently and playing through the Blood and Wine DLC currently. Which is just as massive DLC. Feels almost like a game within itself. I LOVE the latest Doom. They really nailed the pace and fun of what the originals had - just had such a great time with it. I'm also a big fan of the Borderlands series. I actually like Battleborn too, but unfortunately no one is really playing that game.

Glad you found a good friend, it's awesome and rare. Mine is a perfect wife even though she doesn't really game. You and I are very close in age, I remember the Atari very well. I used to pay WoW waaay to much but I decided to stop paying the monthly fee to play. I do miss my Hunter though. The latest Doom, LOVE IT! it's so damn violent, difficulty and gameplay are well sorted, and unlike Doom 3 it's a worthy addition to the Doom series. Other than WoW the only online game I played and enjoyed the hell out of was Interstate 76. You may remember that one. In fact if you liked I-76 you will really like Mad Max.

The only bad things I have heard about Mad Max was some repetitive battle in taking over camps, maybe a small bit of truth to it but I would buy it again, plenty of fun. Check steam for sales too, they happen often. Im comfortable recommending it, especially to someone who enjoys some single player campaign play. I'm not quite sure if it has the replay value of something like Half-Life 2/Expansions or Far Cry 3/4 but I think it might.

Normal 1080p gaming is 1920x1080, 4k is 3840x2160 so if my math is right thats about 4x the pixels to move around. I read that plenty of guys run at 1440 so as not to stress out systems and keep FPS up. Borderlands 2 has the setting for 3840x2160, I tried it, it looked fucking amazing but choppy and slow on my GTX770, from what I can see most current-ish games will support 4k resolutions and it looks fantastic. But as I'm just discovering it will cost you some upgrades, and unless you have a giant 4k monitor/TV it's not likely worth it. The 55" Samsung I just picked up looks amazing, it blows my old Sony out of the water. If your going to stay under a 40" then IMHO 1080 is just fine, not much gain unless you want to go to a bigger screen where 4k pays dividends. We have come a long ways from playing Doom2 at 640x480, in DOS because computers lacked the punch to run Doom2 AND windows 3.11 :clapping:

Just yesterday I ordered the GTX 1080. Really didnt want to spend the coin, thought of a 1070 instead but I get at least 2-3 years from a GPU. I never upgrade for bragging rights, only to keep the games I'm playing running smoothly at max-ish settings. Just yesterday I ordered an EVGA superclocked GTX1080. I'm going to try it with my current setup and see if it works ok. I plan on getting a Ryzen CPU/MB when the prices stabilize, or sooner if this card wont work with my current setup. I spend just enough time in front of the computer to make it worthwhile to enjoy the sharpest graphics and fluid FPS speeds.

 

[caseyjones955]

https://rapidcity.craigslist.org/ele/5989199008.html

Funny that just came up, I noticed this on CL, it's the same thing I had like 100 years ago. Quite a walk down memory lane there.

 

[Kronx]

Oh man I completely forgot about Interstate 76! That was a great game. Not sure if you played much of the Papyrus games back in the day before internet gaming really took off. But they made driving games. They did a NASCAR series that I really got hooked on. So much so that i even dropped the money on a wheel and pedal combo for it. It had a pretty decent amount of tweaking a driver could do for their car for the time. I had different setups for every track. They did another game called Grand Prix Legends that revolved around those 1960s grand prix cars. I seriously dont know how those drivers kept those cars on the track. Big motors, super lightweight and almost zero down force.

In the late 90s, I used to host a monthy gaming party in my garage called "Beer and Bullets" and we'd all bring our rigs and set them up and try the latest games on the LAN. I still remember us all geeking out pretty hard on the X-Wing vs TIE fighter game LucasArts released.

In the early days of internet gaming, many games didn't have the in the built in internet play since everyone was on dial up. Most games only had LAN multi-player. So services like MPlayer or TEN(Total Entertainment Network) would host games and allow players to dial in basically emulate a LAN game.

I remember getting so hooked on the NASCAR series by Papyrus and TEN actually had some NASCAR sponsored events where a dozen or more people could race which was really rare in those days as most games would only support 4 player or the occasional 8 player. That NASCAR game on TEN was one of the more memorable gaming experiences I had... drafting in Talledega... trading paint in Bristol. 1st and 2nd place fighting like mad on that lap. I loved it.

I picked up Mad Max and I'm really enjoying so far. Haven't gotten too far into the main story. Once the side mission stuff opened up I got distracted with that. Harpooning a driver and yanking them right out of the driver seat makes me chuckle every time.

 

[adambweird]

You guys make me jealous, ive had nothing but my old Gateway with a Pentium 2 for my gaming up until late last year when she gave up the ghost, lol. Needless to say im a wee bit out of date with PC gaming, lol.

 

[Kronx]

You guys make me jealous, ive had nothing but my old Gateway with a Pentium 2 for my gaming up until late last year when she gave up the ghost, lol. Needless to say im a wee bit out of date with PC gaming, lol.

Wow thats an OLD PC man! I remember going from a 486 to a Pentium purely so I could run Quake haha.

 

[caseyjones955]

The LAN play we did was pretty much just my Son and I. Did quite a bit of Doom2, DN3d, Blood 2, DiabloII which I also played over dialup with friends. Alot of that sort of stuff. Even did I76 and I82 (not as good) via LAN.

Soooo the GTX1080 showed up today and luckily it is working with my elderly MB and processor. I think my MB was one of the first to support PCIe, but it works. I just played Doom at full 4k and it's amazing, so fluid and beautiful. Borderlands 2 and POE are balls out. Dying Light runs well at 4k but I think it may be bouncing off the CPU bottleneck. It runs well but it just feels like it could be more snappy, going to 1440 didnt make a difference so I think there is a CPU factor at play.

I think I'm going to go and try Mad Max in 4k right now and see how it works. I toldja it was a fun game. The side quests are fun, once you upgrade the harpoon it can do many things, really handy when your chipping away at a convoy but yanking someone right out of the driver seat and flinging them across the field is surely hilarious.

 

[Kronx]

The LAN play we did was pretty much just my Son and I. Did quite a bit of Doom2, DN3d, Blood 2, DiabloII which I also played over dialup with friends. Alot of that sort of stuff. Even did I76 and I82 (not as good) via LAN.

Soooo the GTX1080 showed up today and luckily it is working with my elderly MB and processor. I think my MB was one of the first to support PCIe, but it works. I just played Doom at full 4k and it's amazing, so fluid and beautiful. Borderlands 2 and POE are balls out. Dying Light runs well at 4k but I think it may be bouncing off the CPU bottleneck. It runs well but it just feels like it could be more snappy, going to 1440 didnt make a difference so I think there is a CPU factor at play.

I think I'm going to go and try Mad Max in 4k right now and see how it works. I toldja it was a fun game. The side quests are fun, once you upgrade the harpoon it can do many things, really handy when your chipping away at a convoy but yanking someone right out of the driver seat and flinging them across the field is surely hilarious.

I'm sure more games will eventually come out that can really take advantage of that hardware. The problem is most games are still using the same 3D engines for the last several years. They're sort of pushing those engines to the coding limits.

Still liking Mad Max. Only knock I really have on it thusfar is that if you outside the main quest you lose some personality of the game. By that I mean I wish they threw in some different personalities on those informants/scouts or add some side quests where you interact with more characters of the world.

One thing I really loved about Witcher 3 is they really blur the line between main quest and side quest. And it's blurred because they put just as much production value to those side quests. Close up in-game cinematics, voice over acting, etc. Mad Max doesn't really do that. There's the main quest... and then just sort of open world. I think if they went one more layer on the camp missions... like giving those scouts/informants more variation on personality, maybe have them work more with you as you strip down a camps defenses or as you lower threat levels in the area it would have really knocked it out of the park.

If you think about all of those funny side characters you come across in Borderlands 2 for example. I think Mad Max could have used some of that. Dont need an over the top character like Tiny Tina, but at least make those informants/scouts a bit more diverse.

I can also see the "captain system" that was used in the game Shadows of Mordor REALLY fitting perfect in the Max Max universe.

I hope they continue the Mad Max series... this is a solid and good game and room for a lot of fun growth in future titles should they do them. Really enjoying it.

 

[caseyjones955]

Thats funny, my son was just showing me Witcher 3 gameplay and suggesting that I get it, so probably will. I'm not familiar with Shadows of Mordor but now I'll have to check it out. I have become very fond of open world.

As far as these game engines being dated, yup, but for the most part they work well and are great looking. All the games I have include resolutions for 4k, look and run fantastic. No doubt we'll see advances until it looks real too life. I love seeing the new tech come out, the only part of that that sucks is it often means upgrading hardware.

Now that you mention it Mad Max could use more levity and Borderlands 2 style side quests. I got the Season Pass for BL2 and really enjoy it. Mad Max is fairly dark and bleak but I respect that and the character of it but definitely seeing what you mean about the lack of interaction. I think the reason Mad Max is the way it is is to emphasize solitude and desolation. I noticed it and you did, so no doubt others have, I'm sure the next will have some more variety in side quests and NPCs. I feel like I easily got my moneys worth out of it and I'm sure I'll replay it but I do look forward to the next one.

My son and I have discussed wanting to see an Interstate 77, a Blood 3 and a Redneck Rampage 2, all based on current technology without sacrificing the original character of the games. I would not mind something in addition along the lines of Flatout UC.

 

[Kronx]

I think value for dollar/best bang for your buck -- it doesn't get much better than Witcher 3. The amount of content in that game is really far beyond what you typically find in the gaming industry. Witcher 3 was a game made for RPG gamers IMO. The game isn't perfect. But its not far from it. Unfortunately I think the most important aspect of the game is probably their weakest -- the combat mechanics. IMO you've got to put some work into gear and builds to make the combat work in a fun way. And the game doesn't really do enough within the game to inform the player of that and how to do that. You have to read/watch build & gear guides. Or at least I did. Not to say I had to to do that to finish the game. But I needed to do it to enjoy the combat the way I wanted to. That's really my only knock on Witcher 3. Once I got the gear and skills for the playstyle I enjoyed figured out, it was great fun. One of the best RPGs made IMO.

I finished Mad Max. Good times. I don't see myself playing it again, but well worth the $20 I paid for it. Once you got deep into those V8 motor upgrades holy smokes that car would book it.

The next game I'm really looking forward to is Mass Effect Andromeda. They showed off the combat in the game and it looks really great. Not sure if you've ever tried the Mass Effect series, but me and my son are big fans of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrWgLMH8yRU

 

[caseyjones955]

Mass Effect looks pretty cool, reminds me of an advanced version of Red Faction. My son has recommended it so I'll probably give it a shot too. I decided I'll get witcher 3 and hope that my Diablo, 2, 3 and Path of Exile experience help me out with gear choices. Theres always the internet. I think it's going to be beautiful in 4k.

As far as the big video card upgrade, its sweet. I have everything pretty much dialed in but I will have to upgrade the CPU. The Athlon II 1090T, even overclocked does bottleneck on a couple of CPU intensive games depending on settings. GPU at 28% while CPU has all 6 cores smoking along at 98%. Still a stellar upgrade though to be sure but I see the new Ryzen chip in the next few months. Shifting priority now to getting my Venture ready for spring.

Glad you enjoyed Mad Max. To bad you have to wait until so late in the game to get the V8, even with full bumpers and armor it hauls along nicely.

 

[jbretthorton]

Did not know we had some gaming nerds on here lol...
Here is my recent DIY build and passion!
It is a 2 DOF + traction loss racing simulator in VR!!
Sooooo much fun and very realistic!!
Force feed back steering wheel, Base shakers on each corner to simulate input to each wheel... etc.... No... I'm not a nerd..... :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq_db8_cAKI

 

[Redbone]

I played and raided in WoW until level 70 and then went on to run PvP to level 90, but haven't played in years. It was a lot of fun but too much of a time sink for me.
I would love to play a new machine, my WoW machine was pretty basic, the GPU could only run 30 FPS so the graphic intensive fights were not great.

 

[Kronx]

Did not know we had some gaming nerds on here lol...
Here is my recent DIY build and passion!
It is a 2 DOF + traction loss racing simulator in VR!!
Sooooo much fun and very realistic!!
Force feed back steering wheel, Base shakers on each corner to simulate input to each wheel... etc.... No... I'm not a nerd..... :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq_db8_cAKI

Holy crap that's awesome! That looks fun as hell!

 

[jbretthorton]

By far the most fun I have ever had in gaming!
3d, literally feels like you are sitting in the car!

 

[caseyjones955]

Did not know we had some gaming nerds on here lol...
Here is my recent DIY build and passion!
It is a 2 DOF + traction loss racing simulator in VR!!
Sooooo much fun and very realistic!!
Force feed back steering wheel, Base shakers on each corner to simulate input to each wheel... etc.... No... I'm not a nerd..... :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq_db8_cAKI

That is awesome! I used to have a force feedback wheel but I think your setup there is easily the coolest thing I have ever seen.

 

[jbretthorton]

If ya'll where close you'd be welcome to try it!