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Chrispy_ wrote:

jwolberg wrote:

I did not get any benchmark numbers as I wasn't entirely familiar with any programs that could provide any other than just being able to comfortably play on higher settings with smoother framerates.  I still have my old card and would be more than happy to put it back in and run some benchmarks before and after if you have any suggestions of programs to use?

Unigine Valley is a good simple benchmark.
It's pretty old now but it's DX11 which is what practically every game runs right now, so it's still valid.
Relatively small download and quick install - just pick the Exreme HD preset and hit run, then click the benchmark button top left. It'll spit out an FPS number which you can compare against other sites (here is just one example giving the 1070 Founder's Edition 99FPS on the default Extreme HD setting)
The other popular tool is 3D Mark (Firestrike) but that's far more demanding on your GPU and less likely to show up the effect of a CPU bottleneck.

My average FPS on the "default" Extreme HD were 76.2 as I noted above and 54FPS when running at my monitor's native resolution.  It does seem that I am getting a bit lower FPS than the link you posted, which is indeed probably due to my CPU as you indicated.  When I am on Kaby Lake 6 months from now I will have to post back some new scores to see if it increases at all.

jwolberg wrote:

Here's some benchmarks I just ran using Unigine Valley.  Note that the default resolution for "Extreme HD" is 1920x1080 which is not my monitor's native resolution, so I also ran it at 2560x1440.

Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0

FPS:
76.2
Score:
3188
Min FPS:
18.9
Max FPS:
133.1

Mode:
1920x1080 8xAA fullscreen
Preset
Extreme HD



Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0

FPS:
54.0
Score:
2259
Min FPS:
23.5
Max FPS:
109.2
Mode:
2560x1440 8xAA fullscreen
Preset
Custom
Quality
Ultra

Sounds like your 950 CPU is the bottleneck at 1080p. These guys on reddit are getting close to 100 fps @1080p with more modern CPUs: https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/4p8lia/post_results_of_your_1070_heaven_benchmark_score/
The good news is that at 1440p, the benchmark seems to be more GPU-limited. The OP got ~56 fps @ 1440p with his 1070.
So looks like there's nothing wrong with your GPU, but at some point, you may want to consider a CPU upgrade if it starts to hold you back in games (I'd say only if you start chasing 120/144/165 Hz gaming, which, btw, is A-MA-ZING ).

Yep, depending on the exact CPU model and clockspeed, GTX 1070 cards score between 88 and 100 fps at the 1080p Extreme HD setting on Valley, so you're only getting 75-85% of the potential performance your GTX1070 has to offer.

It's also worth noting that Unigine Valley is not particularly demanding on the CPU, so if you're seeing poor performance in the Valley benchmark, you could be missing out on even more performance in CPU-intensive titles.

Voldenuit wrote:

These guys on reddit are getting close to 100 fps @1080p with more modern CPUs: https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/4p8lia/post_results_of_your_1070_heaven_benchmark_score/

Wrong benchmark; Heaven is an older benchmark. By complete chance though, 100FPS is about the same as what a 1070 should be capable of getting in the Valley benchmark too.

From my experience on a similar processor (i5 750 Quad Core), you need to overclock your CPU to be able to properly feed a modern enthusiast GPU.

I was able to overclock the i5 750 from 2.66 to 4.0 GHz on an EVGA P55 FTW, voltage is a bit high (1.38) but it is super stable and gave my old PC some more longevity. That allowed it to run 2 GTX 670s in SLI without issues back in the BF3 days.

Chrispy_ wrote:

Yep, depending on the exact CPU model and clockspeed, GTX 1070 cards score between 88 and 100 fps at the 1080p Extreme HD setting on Valley, so you're only getting 75-85% of the potential performance your GTX1070 has to offer.

It's also worth noting that Unigine Valley is not particularly demanding on the CPU, so if you're seeing poor performance in the Valley benchmark, you could be missing out on even more performance in CPU-intensive titles.

Voldenuit wrote:

These guys on reddit are getting close to 100 fps @1080p with more modern CPUs: https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/4p8lia/post_results_of_your_1070_heaven_benchmark_score/

Wrong benchmark; Heaven is an older benchmark. By complete chance though, 100FPS is about the same as what a 1070 should be capable of getting in the Valley benchmark too.

Thanks for confirming this.  It seems like what I thought was happening anyway.  It didn't seem that I was getting the full amount of performance that I was expecting and it's due to my old CPU ( built this PC at the end of 2011 ).  As I said previously, I am due for an upgrade and will probably buy into Kaby Lake in 6 months when it comes out for the desktop.  Granted, I am still able to run games at Ultra at my monitor's native resolution which I was not able to do before on my old 660 Ti, but I'm also not getting the full throughput of the card either.


I appreciate everyone's feedback in this thread!

Since it sounds like you are running your CPU at stock clocks and have a decent aftermarket cpu cooler, I'd encourage you to OC your CPU.  Every little bit counts.  Shouldn't be too hard to find someone else's settings that they've posted online.  I usually Google "[CPU model] stock voltage overclock" or you can use an i7-950 review's overclocking results as a starting point, although they typically push voltages up to see what max OC is achievable (although that Legit Reviews OC using +.15V doesn't seem overly Xtreme).  Looks like a 25% OC to 4GHz is fairly attainable.  I like to leave CPU voltage at/around stock and just tweak frequency within that limitation for a good "daily driver" OC.

Also, check out the first links in this forum which looks like it applies to your family of CPU.

Chrispy_ wrote:

Yep, depending on the exact CPU model and clockspeed, GTX 1070 cards score between 88 and 100 fps at the 1080p Extreme HD setting on Valley, so you're only getting 75-85% of the potential performance your GTX1070 has to offer.

It's also worth noting that Unigine Valley is not particularly demanding on the CPU, so if you're seeing poor performance in the Valley benchmark, you could be missing out on even more performance in CPU-intensive titles.

Voldenuit wrote:

These guys on reddit are getting close to 100 fps @1080p with more modern CPUs: https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/4p8lia/post_results_of_your_1070_heaven_benchmark_score/

Wrong benchmark; Heaven is an older benchmark. By complete chance though, 100FPS is about the same as what a 1070 should be capable of getting in the Valley benchmark too.

Whoops, LOL my bad.
Man, I'm behind the times, I didn't even realize that Unigine had a new benchmark out .

TBH, Heaven is a tessellation-specific test, whilst Valley is closer to the sort of scene you would get in an open-world game that relies on fillrate and raw throughput.

Whilst it's true that Valley is the newer of the two benchmarks, they're both DX11 and both more relevant to the 360/PS3 era of gaming. I haven't seen a good (free) benchmark for this generation. 3DMark seems to be so wrong with game performance that it's not even something I look at anymore.

Hi all.

Forgive me for resurrecting an old post, but I thought I'd post back with new results since the recommendation was to upgrade. I purchased a i7-8700k on a Z370 AORUS Gaming 7 with 32GB of DDR4 3200. I re-ran the test at 1920x1080 ( don't have a 2560x1440 monitor at work ) with the below results:

jwolberg wrote:

Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0

FPS:
76.2
Score:
3188
Min FPS:
18.9
Max FPS:
133.1
System

Platform:
Windows 8 (build 9200) 64bit
CPU model:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 950 @ 3.07GHz (3064MHz) x4
GPU model:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 21.21.13.7270 (4095MB) x1
Settings

Render:
Direct3D11
Mode:
1920x1080 8xAA fullscreen
Preset
Extreme HD

And today's benchmark:

Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0

FPS:
92.8
Score:
3881
Min FPS:
39.3
Max FPS:
192.9
System

Platform:
Windows 8 (build 9200) 64bit
CPU model:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700K CPU @ 3.70GHz (3695MHz) x6
GPU model:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 23.21.13.8813 (4095MB) x1
Settings

Render:
Direct3D11
Mode:
1920x1080 8xAA fullscreen
Preset
Extreme HD

This is at the stock clock of my GPU ( 1594 stock/1784 boost ). I have not overclocked the 8700k yet. Looks like it was a pretty significant boost.

Next mystery: how on Earth did you actually get ahold of an 8700K?

I got it about a week ago. I used the Chrome plugin called Distil to screen scrape the Newegg page looking for the words "Add to Cart". When it found them, it would notify me via e-mail and Chrome popup. I had it set to refresh the page every 20 seconds. I also used NowInStock and had it text me, but it was about 45 seconds or so behind Distil.

CPU model:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700K CPU @ 3.70GHz (3695MHz) x6

Jealous.

Platform:
Windows 8 (build 9200) 64bit

Suddenly feels sorry for OP.

We should rename this thread: "Confessions of a Newegg ninja."

Thanks for the update jwolberg! Also, I'm keeping your trick in mind next time I need to snag something online.

Voldenuit wrote:

Windows 8 (build 9200) 64bit

Suddenly feels sorry for OP.

Yeah. Jwolberg, you can still take advantage of Microsoft's free upgrade, just do a clean install of 10 and plug in the Win 8 key. I don't think the fall update has changed that.

Kougar wrote:

Thanks for the update jwolberg! Also, I'm keeping your trick in mind next time I need to snag something online.

Voldenuit wrote:

Windows 8 (build 9200) 64bit

Suddenly feels sorry for OP.

Yeah. Jwolberg, you can still take advantage of Microsoft's free upgrade, just do a clean install of 10 and plug in the Win 8 key. I don't think the fall update has changed that.

Don't feel sorry for me. I am absolutely running Windows 10. For some reason it does not pick it up as that. If you go back to my original results on the first page, you'll see I noticed the same thing.

jwolberg wrote:

Don't feel sorry for me. I am absolutely running Windows 10. For some reason it does not pick it up as that. If you go back to my original results on the first page, you'll see I noticed the same thing.

Oh, that's good then. Strange how many programs are still mis-reporting Win 10 as Win 8, was using one a few days ago but I don't remember which it was now.

Just a quick update. I OCed my system a bit and let it stress overnight without an issue. I brought all 6 cores up to 4.9Ghz from stock and brought my GPU up from 1784Ghz boost to 2062Ghz and the GPU memory from 8008Mhz to 9068Mhz. I also OCed my RAM a little bit from 3200Mhz to 3460Mhz. I could probably go a little higher here. Tests are below for comparison:

Original score from my old i7-950 at 2560x1440:

Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0

FPS:
54.0
Score:
2259
Min FPS:
23.5
Max FPS:
109.2
System

Platform:
Windows 8 (build 9200) 64bit
CPU model:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 950 @ 3.07GHz (3064MHz) x4
GPU model:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 21.21.13.7270 (4095MB) x1
Settings

Render:
Direct3D11
Mode:
2560x1440 8xAA fullscreen
Preset
Custom
Quality
Ultra

New score with OC:

Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0

FPS:
63.8
Score:
2669
Min FPS:
33.6
Max FPS:
124.8
System

Platform:
Windows 8 (build 9200) 64bit
CPU model:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700K CPU @ 3.70GHz (3696MHz) x6
GPU model:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 23.21.13.8813 (4095MB) x1
Settings

Render:
Direct3D11
Mode:
2560x1440 8xAA fullscreen
Preset
Custom
Quality
Ultra

And for 1920x1080. Original score from i7-950:

Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0

FPS:
76.2
Score:
3188
Min FPS:
18.9
Max FPS:
133.1
System

Platform:
Windows 8 (build 9200) 64bit
CPU model:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 950 @ 3.07GHz (3064MHz) x4
GPU model:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 21.21.13.7270 (4095MB) x1
Settings

Render:
Direct3D11
Mode:
1920x1080 8xAA fullscreen
Preset
Extreme HD

New machine at stock clock for everything:

Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0

FPS:
92.8
Score:
3881
Min FPS:
39.3
Max FPS:
192.9
System

Platform:
Windows 8 (build 9200) 64bit
CPU model:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700K CPU @ 3.70GHz (3695MHz) x6
GPU model:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 23.21.13.8813 (4095MB) x1
Settings

Render:
Direct3D11
Mode:
1920x1080 8xAA fullscreen
Preset
Extreme HD

And new machine with OC:

Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0

FPS:
103.5
Score:
4330
Min FPS:
38.9
Max FPS:
213.0
System

Platform:
Windows 8 (build 9200) 64bit
CPU model:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700K CPU @ 3.70GHz (3695MHz) x6
GPU model:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 23.21.13.8813 (4095MB) x1
Settings

Render:
Direct3D11
Mode:
1920x1080 8xAA fullscreen
Preset
Extreme HD

I think my next upgrade is going to have to be a 144Hz monitor. Thoughts? I've been eyeballing the Asus PG279Q for a while now. I've never experienced anything above 60Hz nor have I even seen someone else using one. From what I've read though it's a buy one and never go back sort of thing.

Would you consider the 120 Hz AW3418DW for a cool grand?
One drawback that I see is that many G-Sync monitors are still on the old DisplayPort 1.2a specification instead of the newer DisplayPort 1.4.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

Would you consider the 120 Hz AW3418DW for a cool grand?
One drawback that I see is that many G-Sync monitors are still on the old DisplayPort 1.2a specification instead of the newer DisplayPort 1.4.

Little bit too big for my current setup

Forgive my ignorance, but what are the differences between 1.2a and 1.4?

jwolberg wrote:

Forgive my ignorance, but what are the differences between 1.2a and 1.4?

For the Alienware AW3418DW monitor, having higher than DisplayPort 1.2(a) would mean not having to overclock the DisplayPort connection to achieve the maximum refresh rate. Of course as a 4K monitor that Alienware is a bad fit for a GTX 1070. I'd also note that Dell is basically selling that device with the OC capability, meaning that feature falls under their extensive 3 year warranty.

For the Asus PG279Q, having DisplayPort 1.2(a) doesn't really mean anything. The PG279Q is a 2K, 8bit, 165Hz panel, that's right within specs for DisplayPort 1.2(a).

DisplayPort 1.4 brings feature support for technologies the monitor doesn't have. Think 4K or higher plus, HDR, 10bit color, and high refresh rate like newer TVs and some monitors have. The 1070 has DisplayPort 1.4 support, but whether the monitor does or not really depends upon the feature set of the monitor.

Ryu Connor wrote:

jwolberg wrote:

Forgive my ignorance, but what are the differences between 1.2a and 1.4?

For the Alienware AW3418DW monitor, having higher than DisplayPort 1.2(a) would mean not having to overclock the DisplayPort connection to achieve the maximum refresh rate. Of course as a 4K monitor that Alienware is a bad fit for a GTX 1070. I'd also note that Dell is basically selling that device with the OC capability, meaning that feature falls under their extensive 3 year warranty.

For the Asus PG279Q, having DisplayPort 1.2(a) doesn't really mean anything. The PG279Q is a 2K, 8bit, 165Hz panel, that's right within specs for DisplayPort 1.2(a).

DisplayPort 1.4 brings feature support for technologies the monitor doesn't have. Think 4K or higher, HDR, 10bit color, and high refresh rate like newer TVs and some monitors have. The 1070 has DisplayPort 1.4 support, but whether the monitor does or not really depends upon the feature set of the monitor.

I'm content playing at 2k and honestly don't see myself shelling out not only for a card capable of 4k, but then the associated monitor to go with it. I don't really keep up with display tech though. Is there something in the pipeline worth waiting for knowing that or should I start saving for an early christmas present?

At 2560x1440 = 3.7 MP, the $600 AOC Agon AG271QG could be worth your consideration for G-Sync gaming. It seems to have similar specifications to the $745 Asus ROG Swift PG279Q. On the FreeSync side, the $470 Nixeus NX-EDG27 is similar.

jwolberg wrote:

I'm content playing at 2k and honestly don't see myself shelling out not only for a card capable of 4k, but then the associated monitor to go with it. I don't really keep up with display tech though. Is there something in the pipeline worth waiting for knowing that or should I start saving for an early christmas present?

Monitors are slowly starting to catch up with TVs in terms of feature set and there are games debuting with HDR built in.

What I mean by starting to catch up with TVs is, the implementation of the UltraHD feature set (4K, 10bit color, HDR10, Rec.2020 color space)

So the question about saving for a better monitor really comes down to if you want it all or not. Do you want UltraHD, the ability to experience HDR games, and gaming monitor features too?

If yes, next year will see wide deployment of true UltraHD gaming monitors. They'll probably have crazy prices too.

If no, buy now and don't worry about it. Given you're only interested in 2K gaming, I think you already have a clear answer of there's no reason to wait. JAE even linked a few price competitive options.