Hi,

I have been considering an upgrade from my Nvidia GTX 580 to a 780 at some point in the next year. Just wondering though, should I be considering a CPU upgrade soon or even before I buy the new graphics card? I currently have an i5 750 @ 3.6ghz which I've had for the last 4 years. It's not causing me any slowdowns in any of the games at the moment but would a new card create a bottleneck and limit the effectiveness of the upgrade? I game at either 1680*1050 or 1920*1080 depending on which monitor I use, if it makes a difference to everyone's thinking.

Also what sort of percentage gains could I expect from the upgrade. I don't think it's worth the cost to change personally unless I can see 50% increase in framerates at the same settings. Especially if I need a new CPU cause that would be a new motherboard as well, so I'd be talking £500-600 for an upgrade for new graphics, cpu and motherboard!

Any thoughts? Thanks.

Although a more recent cpu such as the 2500k would help to deliver better frame rates, I think your cpu should be adequate for now. How much of an fps boost you'd get across the board, however, I don't know.

I had an i5 750@4Ghz when I bought my first GTX780. It was fine as everyone told me it would be, but it really didn't do the card any justice.

When I upgraded me Mobo and CPU as well it was a massive performance leap

If you're expecting a 50% increase don't bother.

If you really want to upgrade go for the GTX 870 when that comes out (I'm guessing June-July), it would be around the same performance as the 780 and it would be cheaper. Even maybe go for the 880 if you want to spend more money. (Though in my opinion spending £150-£200 extra for the 10% extra performance isn't worth it.)

I would suggest to upgrade your CPU too. I upgraded from an i7 920 to an i5 3570k and definitely noticed a difference.

tummelv said:

Also what sort of percentage gains could I expect from the upgrade. I don't think it's worth the cost to change personally unless I can see 50% increase in framerates at the same settings.

Click to expand...

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/767?vs=827

Going from an GTX 580 to a GTX 780 is a really good upgrade....plus the extra Vram is a great bonus...

When I upgraded from i5 750 to 3770k I noticed no improvement it graphics performance, maybe 1% at best! I ran the Heaven benchmark to prove it. I believe I was using a Gtx 480 at the time(either that or a 670). Maybe with newer graphics cards the CPU would be much more of a bottleneck I don't know, but if funds low I'd keep the CPU for now and just upgrade the GPU and possibly wait for the next gen of CPU's.

Upgrade the gpu, doesnt matter if the cpu bottle necks it, try to overclock the cpu a little more.

Thanks for the replies guys. Think I will leave the CPU for now, might try and OC a bit more like something else said.

Praeceps said:

If you really want to upgrade go for the GTX 870 when that comes out (I'm guessing June-July), it would be around the same performance as the 780 and it would be cheaper. Even maybe go for the 880 if you want to spend more money. (Though in my opinion spending £150-£200 extra for the 10% extra performance isn't worth it.)

I would suggest to upgrade your CPU too. I upgraded from an i7 920 to an i5 3570k and definitely noticed a difference.

Click to expand...

Have nvidia GPUs traditionally been like this? The x70 being within 10% performance of the x80? If so a 870 for ~£250-300 is very tempting so might just wait for that.