Depends on the game. Bottleneck shouldn't give you increased stuttering or anything i don't think, but you're just leaving potential performance on the table cause the gpu can't fully stretch its legs. When i went from a vega 64 to a 6950xt, at 3440×1440, i noticed an uplift but depending on the game it wasn't as big as i thought it would be. Then i upgraded my cpu from a 3900x to a 5800x3d and in gta online my fps doubled. Went from barely hitting 60 to 100+ fps
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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It depends on the program. If it's a CPU intensive program, it will matter a lot.
Meh I basically only play AAA games on this system. I have a separate machine for work and that kind of things.
Games can be CPU-bound, too.
Helldivers 2 is one.
Well I'm pretty sure it'll still be better than my 3050 and I mostly focused on the kinds of games I play when doing my research. I can only think of one game I play that may be considered CPU-intensive which is BeamNG.Drive but there are settings in it which can bring literally any GPU to a crawl if needed.
Bottleneck location depends on the game you're running. There will always be a bottleneck - don't worry about it it'll be fine
If the price is right it’s a good upgrade. I always alternate upgrading CPU and GPU.
Games shouldn’t crash, but you’ll probably run into stutters/frame rate inconsistencies. And those drive me insane. But if you adjust your settings so you still get decent FPS then you’ll be fine. If you set an FPS limit you should be fine. I’d imagine an i7 or i9 should be pretty cheap. That would be a nice upgrade, but still bottleneck.
Also idk if I’d want a 1440p monitor with a 3080 at this point. Only 10/12 gigs of vram is pretty dire for such a nice GPU.
Unfortunately I can't upgrade the CPU due to some very important reasons. And I don't need it either as I'm planning to get a new machine next year.
As always it depends on the price you pay for your upgrade. Why the 3080 specifically? What kind of performance uplift are you expecting? A 3080 is probably gonna fall asleep at 1080p.
A CPU bottleneck won't give you crashes by itself, unless there's something else wrong with your system. It just means that as you reach higher framerates (whatever the cause, better GPU, lower settings or resolution etc.) your CPU will be the limiting factor. For most games that might still be comfortably within your expectations, even if your GPU isn't being fully utilized. The main outliers are mostly esports games on lower settings and resolutions. If you play graphically demanding games on high settings or want to upgrade to a higher resolution at some point, then knock yourself out I guess. I find it kinda hard to guesstimate how "efficient" a GPU upgrade will be, since it depends on so many factors. If you can, then you may as well just give it a try, see how you like it and send it back if you're disappointed (assuming that's easy to do where you live).
That's just about what I thought. Thank you for confirmation.
You're not going to get crashes or anything like that, it's just usually a waste of money if you're optimizing for gaming (though it might be different if you catch a good sale). Also, upgrading your CPU is usually harder - you often need to buy a new mainboard and RAM as well, and you'll have an easier time selling a GPU than a CPU on the secondhand market.
I mean, what's the point of getting a worse GPU (for example 5060 Ti or 3070 Ti) for the same price? 3080 seems to be of good value here and not too much of an unnecessary waste like 3080 Ti.
As I said, "it might be different if you catch a good sale". Also, I assumed you were buying a new CPU instead of using the one you already have, but that seems to have been a misunderstanding.
but will it give me any serious issues such as freezes or full on crashes?
More probable that you will get low fps or that your strategy game turns into a crawl if the CPU can't keep up.
I doubt you'll be able to get a new cpu that fits your motherboard socket though, so unless you find one second hand you'll end up replacing the motherboard and your memory too if you try to upgrade.
I would definitely not recommend buying a 3080 in 2025 for 1080p gaming, unless it's basically free.
You'd probably be much better off with something like 9060 XT 16GB, which would be good for 1080p now and good to use with a future 1440p upgrade, or 9070 XT if you want to splurge
I'm not gonna upgrade this PC. I'll get a whole new one when I need it. It's just I have money to spare so might as well throw a new GPU in for now. Also I chose 3080 because it's very good value here. Even AMD side doesn't offer much better. I could get a 3080 Ti but that's just asking for trouble in my case.
Why is a 5 year old card designed for 4K gaming a good value and offers more than new and cheaper cards designed for 1080p and 1440p gaming?
A 3080 has the GPU oomf to run 4k, but doesn't have the VRAM to do it. Thanks to Nvidia gimping it with only 10 or 12 gigs of vram as soon as you try pushing the eye candy you're gonna start bumping into the vram limit. Even at 1440 or 1080p it can be an issue. That's probably why these cards have gotten so cheap.
It's really a shame because it's still a very good performing GPU, but without the VRAM it's severely hampered with what you can do.
Right, that's kind of my point. I wouldn't recommend a 3080 period, anymore, especially for 1080p gaming. It is a card that never really made much sense, even new, and in the last 5 years there are newer and cheaper cards that will match or beat 3080 performance for 1080p/1440p
From quite an extensive research I did, I can surely say all of your points are wrong.
3080 is an overkill for 1080p but over time games get more intensive so it becomes only more of a viable option. Limited VRAM works against it but for now it's still fine in most titles unless you go 4k.
3080 made total sense. It had enough VRAM at the time and now is even considered one of the best NVidia GPUs ever made by some people. NVidia could make it more future proof but wouldn't it attract miners?
Prices depend on the area but I haven't seen one where anything beats the 3080 for the price. 6900 XT can beat it in some titles but it's actually slightly slower on average (if I'm not mistaken). And obviously the AMD card has way inferior productivity features.
You sound set on buying the 3080, which is totally fine I guess. It's not like it won't render 1080p games with great performance.
You're just going to be overpaying for an obsolete GPU that you won't actually be able to utilize fully, and will be bottlenecked on VRAM before games can actually push it fully. Meanwhile there are newer GPUs that will also render 1080p games with the same performance for less money. The 3080 has already aged out and has no future proof value so you'll just end up replacing it soon. So its just a really poor choice and poor value to buy one in 2025.
It had enough VRAM at the time and now is even considered one of the best NVidia GPUs ever made by some people
It's wild how wrong you are. The 3080 was widely received as a total flop and NVIDIA was heavily criticized for it because it was obvious they purposely put too little VRAM to encourage more sales of the 3090... It is the worst X080 series GPU NVIDIA has released and only had marginal performance uplift over the 2080.
EDIT: lol you can downvote me but it doesn't make me wrong
Meanwhile there are newer GPUs that will also render 1080p games with the same performance for less money
Like 5060 Ti for 1.5x the price and 20% less performance? Nah I don't think so. I think I know prices in my own country better ngl.
Ok, dunno why you're asking for help when you already know better lol. I tried to help you
Lemmy people seem to have the issue of completely forgetting the original topic. I noticed this earlier when asking about mouse compatibility on Linux and people started recommending mice for almost the price of a new PS5. I was asking about the potential bottleneck. I already did my research beforehand and confirmed that 3080 is indeed good value and suitable for my needs.
I already did my research beforehand and confirmed that 3080 is indeed good value and suitable for my needs.
But... its literally not in any way...
Ok I'm pretty sure supporting such argument will get me banned for a few days but whatever. If you're so sure that there are better deals in my country, suggest me some options and I'll check them again.
Because developing country market. Also idc about the "features".
Ok lol you do you. In that case, you can also completely ignore any CPU bottleneck potential. There's no real downside to a CPU bottleneck for you, then.
Not all bottlenecks are created equal.
In the case of all CPU bottleneck, a relatively overpowered GPU might allow you to have better effects and resolution without increasing frame rates or loading times if those are held up by the CPU. But also turning down those features won't improve frames like they probably would with a more posmwerfull CPU. Like you might possibly get the same frames at 1440 with the new card, but it is also possible that something else on lile the mobo/RAM might be a bottleneck for loading textures or some other game related feature.
It won't hurt anything to get a good deal on a GPU if you plan on upgrading the rest in the not too distant future to get the real benefit out of it.
Yea that's what I thought. Thanks for your reply.
I have an i5 10600k and a 3060 and I haven't noticed any sort of cpu bottlenecking. Mostly I just play indie games, but I can play the oblivion remaster with most settings on high with a few on ultra as well.
Well 3080 is probably like 70% faster (don't wanna check now) so it's a whole different story. Though my current CPU handles games at 120 FPS (or even 240 in competitive titles) so I think it shouldn't be much worse if I keep the same framerate and crank up the settings (specifically path tracing lol). And in older titles I can underclock the card I guess?