Question Old Setup (Core i5 3550 and GTX 1070 Strix 8GB) Am I asking for trouble?

[arajigar]

Hi everyone.

First of all, my system Is quite old:

Core i5 3550
16GB DDR3 RAM 1600 Gskill
Gigabyte ga z77 ds3h motherboard (BIOS maxed)
Windows 7 all updated (on SSD)

Recently I bought an almost mint GTX 1070 strix for my setup, a purchase of which I cannot resist because of its prize (less than 90€).

Its not that I was not happy with my GTX 1050, which performs quite well for its age and its low memory (3 GB), but I thought it could be a good oportunity to add more horsepower to my computer.

I am aware about how modern GPUs will collide with old CPUs, so some questions come up to my mind:

Will the system run fine?
Will I find myself into a bottleneck situation that turns my system unuseable? (I did read the guide, but theres some controversy about the results and situations depicted there)
Is there a way to set all up to prevent such problems?
Will It be a good upgrade changing the i5 3550 for an i7 3770? Or itll be a waste of money? ( I have already an i5 4690 with its own mobo to replace the ga z77, but Ive read that the 4690 performs worst than the 3550).

My intention is play games at good framerates. Altough my game library is full of pre 2015 games, I want to max a bit some of them, like Doom 2016, DOOM eternal, or the last Wolfensteins, which I can only run in medium settings if I want them run at constant 60 fps.

I only play games in 1080p max, if available.

Thanks in anticipation.

 

[DSzymborski]

That's not really what bottlenecks are. They don't render a PC unusable, they simply prevent you from utilizing the full benefits of the much stronger part.

The 4690 should outperform the 3550 (not sure who is saying that an incrementally superior architecture at a higher clock and turbo and same cores ought to be the lesser performer), but not dramatically so since these are very old CPUs at this point. The 4690 also out to marginally beat out the 3770, unless it's a highly threaded task.

The 1070 is quite an old GPU too, and it was commonly paired with CPUs like this at the time (it's a nine-year-old card, so not that much more modern than the Haswell is). This was during the Haswell->Sky Lake/Kaby Lake era, in which gains were quite incremental, so if a 1070 could be bottlenecked by a 4690, there's not much it wouldn't have been bottlenecked by at the time.

 

[Lutfij]

First of all, my system Is quite old:
Core i5 3550
16GB DDR3 RAM 1600 Gskill
Gigabyte ga z77 ds3h motherboard (BIOS maxed)
Windows 7 all updated (on SSD)
When posting a thread of troubleshooting nature, it's customary to include your full system's specs. Please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the age of the PSU apart from it's make and model. BIOS version for your motherboard at this moment of time.

Recently I bought an almost mint GTX 1070 strix for my setup, a purchase of which I cannot resist because of its prize (less than 90€).
+
Will the system run fine?
The saying goes, ask first, then go buy. You already own it, the only thing left for you to do is put it through it's paces. What sort of workloads do you tax the system with?

If you do go for a Haswell processor, you'll have to swap the motherboard. The sweet spot for Haswell/Haswell refresh was DDR3-2133MHz, paired with a Z87/Z97 chipsetted motehrboard. For what it's worth, I don't think you should be investing in yester years tech.

 

[TerryLaze]

I am aware about how modern GPUs will collide with old CPUs, so some questions come up to my mind:

Will the system run fine?

The 1070 is the same generation as the 1050, they came out at the same time.
The 1070 will be using more power so make sure your PSU can handle it, if the system shuts down when playing or games crash to desktop it could be the PSU.

The 1070 will allow you to do exactly what you say, increase the graphics on games that your system can already run.

 

[arajigar]

CPU: Core i5 3550
CPU cooler: Nox Hmmre h101
Motherboard: Gigabyte ga z77 ds3h (latest BIOS)
Ram: Gskill Ripjaws 4x4 GB 1600 DDR3
SSD/HDD: Sandisk 120 GB (only OS istalled)
GPU: (Actual)Gigabyte Geforce GTX 1050 3GB DDR5
GPU: (Upgrade)ASUS Geforce GTX 1070 Strix 8GB DDR5
PSU: Nox Hummer 650 Watt Plus Bronze
Chassis: Nox Hummer ZX 5 fan setup (140 mm 2F, 2U, 1R)
OS: Win 7 SP3 All updates applied
Monitor: KeepOut 27" 60mhz

Sorry for the 4690 mistake. The "perform worst" was about its energy consuption and dollar-per-fps performance. I commit the mistake of reading an old test on a paper magazine years ago, and the informaatión was like fire printed on my mind. 😅

 

[DSzymborski]

No need to apologize, my main concern was that there was a misleading source out there! If there's something bad out there, it's good to know about it just in case someone else has similar concerns. I'm actually more concerned seeing the Nox power supply as they sell a lot of very cheaply made PSUs, mostly to Spain, and they were caught a few times costing down power supplies after they were reviewed. I know the 1070 didn't cost much, but I'd be uneasy.

 

[RodroX]

Get a better, more reliable PSU for the GTX 1070.

 

[geofelt]

Since you own the GTX1070, why not try it and see how you do.
Since your cpu may be your limiting factor, try this simple test first:
Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
This makes the graphics card loaf a bit.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

 

[dark_globe]

gtx 1070 is miles better compared to gtx 1050 .
as long as you stick to older pre 2015/16 titles which was basically optimized for 4 core cpus you will be fine and you will be able to utilize near full potential of gtx 1070 (it is also an old card by todays standards)
(4 core intel cpus with strong single core performance was the meta for gaming since about 2010
up until 2016/2017 - the last intel 4c/8t flag ship cpu i7 7700K was released in Q1/2017 after that the true "revolution" begun and intel stopped being lazy
because it was forced by AMD to release 6 and 8 core cpus into mainstream)

if you can for sure replace the 3550 with 4690 it is a faster chip with higher boost clock -
it is around 15% faster on average in synthetic benchmarks and will also be faster in gaming .

and yeah get the better power supply .

 

[TerryLaze]

as long as you stick to older pre 2015/16 titles which was basically optimized for 4 core cpus you will be fine

The g5600 is a dual core with 4 threads, and last year it was still producing 70FPS with demanding games in 1440p.
The ryzen 3 2200g is a quad with 4 threads.
The thing that will hold him back for modern games is still the GPU, or the clocks or the architecture, but not the core count.

 

[dark_globe]

The g5600 is a dual core with 4 threads, and last year it was still producing 70FPS with demanding games in 1440p.
The ryzen 3 2200g is a quad with 4 threads.
The thing that will hold him back for modern games is still the GPU, or the clocks or the architecture, but not the core count.

it is funny how you picked 3 games released in 2018 "to prove a point (and nit-pick?) i guess" ...
regardless you are missing the 1% and 0,1% lows there , which will tell you a whole lot more about the overall smoothness of the game than the average FPS ,
also there is no question you can cherry pick "cpu friendly" games in which even old quad or even dual core cpus are still doing fine , but for modern gaming and AAA titles those cpus are pretty much obsolete ...

so it all depends on what your expectations are and what do you want to play .
if you want to tell me it is OK to pair the rtx 3090 with i5 3550
and try to play the latest games on it than no it´s not
(3550 is also missing a lot of new instructions) .
i personally noticed a pretty big difference in smoothness in cs:go and AC odyssey
even when i jumped from i5 8600 to 9700K (paired with gtx 1080 back in the day) ...
just out of curiosity i also tested i5 10400f which i got for free for a few days
and it was not a good experience after already gaming on i7 9700K .

those locked i5 cpus have pretty low all core boost clock -
that is the main reason why even older i7k is able to hold 1% lows much better ...
while 10400f will only boost up to 4.0GHz when all cores are being used
the 9700K is boosting up to 4,6GHz on all cores -
not to mention it has further potential with OC and sometimes
those extra 2 physical cores don´t hurt either .
i sticked with 9700K up until Q1/2023 (IIRC)

 

[TerryLaze]

you are missing the 1% and 0,1% lows there , which will tell you a whole lot more about the overall smoothness than the average FPS ,
also there is no question you can cherry pick "cpu friendly" games in which even old quad or even dual core cpus are still doing fine , but for modern gaming and AAA titles those cpus are obsolete ...

"you are missing the 1% and 0,1% lows there"
Nobody with a low end/old system is going to worry about that.

"also there is no question you can cherry pick "cpu friendly" games in which even old quad or even dual core cpus are still doing fine , but for modern gaming and AAA titles those cpus are obsolete ..."

All of the games are after 2016 which was YOUR goalpost and they are all triple A and popular games, also these are the games that TOM's used to determine the best CPUs of that year.....

 

[dark_globe]

"you are missing the 1% and 0,1% lows there"
Nobody with a low end/old system is going to worry about that.

yes i´m pretty sure they will notice and "worry about it"
once they will be getting sudden drops to 30FPS or below
in certain scenarios or in some cpu demanding locations of the game
(but on average the game is running at 80FPS so i guess they are fine right) ...

"also there is no question you can cherry pick "cpu friendly" games in which even old quad or even dual core cpus are still doing fine , but for modern gaming and AAA titles those cpus are obsolete ..."

All of the games are after 2016 which was YOUR goalpost and they are all triple A and popular games, also these are the games that TOM's used to determine the best CPUs of that year.....

it was just a rough estimate not the word set in stone .
i can just as easily pick 4 older games in which those 2 cpus are gonna struggle to keep up ...

furthermore the g5600 and ryzen 2200g was both released in 2018
(so it makes sense they are able to play games released in the same year)
3550 is much older being released in Q2/2012 so i´m not even sure what is your point ...
g5600 and 2200g both have better single core performance vs 3550
and 2200g also has better multithread performance compared to an old i5 3550 .

so as i was saying:
if you want to imply that it is OK to pair the rtx 3090 with i5 3550 or
with g5600 or 2200g even
and try to play the latest games on it than no it´s not ...
and nobody would do it anyways .
same as nobody would buy the rtx 3090 and than pair it with a decade old quad core cpu
to play 7-10yo games exclusively ...

 

[VizzieTheViz]

Is just try to use the card and see if it works with your psu. Don’t really see the sense in spending about 150 euros on a really good psu to use a 90 euro gpu.

 

[TerryLaze]

yes i´m pretty sure they will notice and "worry about it"
once they will be getting sudden drops to 30FPS or below
in certain scenarios or in some cpu demanding locations of the game
(but on average the game is running at 80FPS so i guess they are fine right) ...



it was just a rough estimate not the word set in stone .
i can just as easily pick 4 older games in which those 2 cpus are gonna struggle to keep up ...

furthermore the g5600 and ryzen 2200g was both released in 2018
(so it makes sense they are able to play games released in the same year)
3550 is much older being released in Q2/2012 so i´m not even sure what is your point ...
g5600 and 2200g both have better single core performance vs 3550
and 2200g also has better multithread performance compared to an old i5 3550 .

so as i was saying:
if you want to imply that it is OK to pair the rtx 3090 with i5 3550 or
with g5600 or 2200g even
and try to play the latest games on it than no it´s not ...
and nobody would do it anyways .
same as nobody would buy the rtx 3090 and than pair it with a decade old quad core cpu
to play 7-10yo games exclusively ...

What was your point when you said
"as long as you stick to older pre 2015/16 titles which was basically optimized for 4 core cpus you will be fine"
when you meant to say optimized for technology of that time.

 

[dark_globe]

What was your point when you said
"as long as you stick to older pre 2015/16 titles which was basically optimized for 4 core cpus you will be fine"
when you meant to say optimized for technology of that time.

i ment just what i have said -
i5 3550 (or better yet i5 4690) and gtx 1070 is a decently good combo to play older AAA titles
from the era when game developers was optimizing their games for strong dual and quad core cpus and
intel was dominating the gaming market with its i5/i7 quad core cpus
with only minor generational performance uplifts ...
if you want to play words than sure you can say "for the technology of that time"

that era was most evident from the beginning of the 10´ decade up until circa 2017
when the last intel quad core flagship (7700K) was released .
after that the former quad core i7 flagship basically degraded into i3 performance ballpark category
in just a 3 years time with the release of 4c/8t i3 10100 because AMDs ryzen cpus
were pushing intel to release better cpus .
(of course that doesn´t mean 7700K was no longer able to play games
but it was becoming obsolete faster than any other previous intels flagship from that decade)

by the way even in the chart you cherry picked it is evident that the performance of the rtx 3090
is basically cut in half with those 2 cpus compared to some faster chips
(and again those are just average fps and also benchmarked in 1440p
in which the cpu bottleneck is even less evident than it is in 1080p)

 

[arajigar]

So. Your advices are...

-Buy a better PSU
-Upgrade CPU (not strictly necessary)
-Increase resolutions past 1080p
-Stick with games not newer than Doom eternal (this one is the limit, I guess).
-Dont be worried too much about bottlenecks, because a 15% wont be (in most cases) noticeable with old games.

Am I right???

 

[artk2219]

I think the 1070 is a good upgrade from your 1050 for a marginal amount. I would also look at upgrading to a xeon since your motherboard supports them, it would help you get better performance on newer games. You can generally find them for much cheaper than i7's.

Model Threads Base Turbo L3 TDP Features

Xeon E3-1240 v2	4 / 8	3.4 GHz	3.8 GHz	8 MB	69W	AES, AVX, HT, TXT, TBT
Xeon E3-1245 v2	4 / 8	3.4 GHz	3.8 GHz	8 MB	77W	AES, AVX, HT, TXT, TBT
Core i7-3770	4 / 8	3.4 GHz	3.9 GHz	8 MB	77W	AES, AVX, HT, TXT, TBT
Core i7-3770K	4 / 8	3.5 GHz	3.9 GHz	8 MB	77W	AES, AVX, HT, TBT, Unlock
Xeon E3-1270 v2	4 / 8	3.5 GHz	3.9 GHz	8 MB	69W	AES, AVX, HT, TXT, TBT
Xeon E3-1275 v2	4 / 8	3.5 GHz	3.9 GHz	8 MB	77W	AES, AVX, HT, TXT, TBT
Xeon E3-1280 v2	4 / 8	3.6 GHz	4 GHz	8 MB	69W	AES, AVX, HT, TXT, TBT
Xeon E3-1290 v2	4 / 8	3.7 GHz	4.1 GHz	8 MB	87W	AES, AVX, HT, TXT, TBT

 

[dark_globe]

So. Your advices are...

-Buy a better PSU
-Upgrade CPU (not strictly necessary)
-Increase resolutions past 1080p
-Stick with games not newer than Doom eternal (this one is the limit, I guess).
-Dont be worried too much about bottlenecks, because a 15% wont be (in most cases) noticeable with old games.

Am I right???

correct .
also you don´t need to buy an expensive power supply , just something reliable .
resolution ? not necessarily , although gtx 1070 is able to handle 1440p with old AAA titles .
it depends on your preference and the games you will be playing .
in any case i would advice you to get a 144Hz panel if you decide to upgrade

where are you located ?
because availability of some power supplies and their prices vary a lot depending on the region .

those xeon cpus were really popular back in the day ,
offering an i7 level of performance for better price
(not sure if you can find one at a second hand market places though ,
again it depends on your location i guess) .
for example after a quick search i was able to find some 4c/8t models
for as cheap as €30 in my country ,
not all models are supported by your motherboard though (something to keep in mind as well) .

 

[arajigar]

About the Xeons, wont they need some tweaking with the MOBO to make them work on non-server MOBOs??

And... will all those work on mine?🤔

BtW. Im from Spain, and PC second hand market is unexplainably expensive... 😅

 

[dark_globe]

About the Xeons, wont they need some tweaking with the MOBO to make them work on non-server MOBOs??

And... will all those work on mine?🤔

BtW. Im from Spain, and PC second hand market is unexplainably expensive... 😅

here is the list of all the xeons supported by your motherboard
(not all of them are worth buying though -
only those which are 4c/8t and preferably ivy bridge revision = near i7 3770 level of performance)

it will run just fine you won´t even need a bios update .

however if they are too expensive in your country than don´t even bother
i would get one only if it´s in the 30€-40€ range ...

 

[PiersPlowman]

Speaking from experience, at 1080p, an i5 4690 will not be able to deliver 60FPS reliably in certain games, notably RDR2. And that is with an RX480, a GPU weaker than your 1070.

 

[arajigar]

Finally, I found a core i7 3770 (quite cheap btw 😁 I followed your advice. It performs like a Xeon 1240. Now its time for rebuild all. I wish I could pick two solutions... Ill click like to all answers!!!