Graphics card upgrade worth it?

Mailman86 · 10 Oct 2011 at 07:31

I'm looking for a cheap upgrade and I was wandering if there is any point in me just upgrading my graphics card to something like a 560Ti? Would I be bottlenecked by my processor? What kind of FPS difference do you think I would notice in games? I'm just looking for that bit extra as some games flag a bit when I turn up the details. I have no overclocks by the way as I've never done it before!

I currently have:

Corsair 650W PSU
Asus P5Q
Intel E8500
Nvidia 280 GTX
2x2GB RAM
Crucial M225 SSD

I game at 1920x1080 and I have a secondary monitor which runs at 1920x1200.

95thrifles · 10 Oct 2011 at 11:10

IMO you'd be best waiting n saving up until you can afford a whole new system at once, incl a nice new monitor too
Your current system as it stands is quite nicely balanced and yes any upgrades will be bottlenecked so wait til you can afford it all

pastymuncher · 10 Oct 2011 at 11:19

Is that E8500 overclocked at all? In that motherboard it should get to at least 4Ghz and possibly 4.5Ghz.

Mailman86 · 10 Oct 2011 at 13:14

pastymuncher said:
Is that E8500 overclocked at all? In that motherboard it should get to at least 4Ghz and possibly 4.5Ghz.

No it's not. Am I likely to see much of a real world increase in games then (significant increase in average game FPS)?

shadow_boxer · 10 Oct 2011 at 13:24

+1 for overclocking. It will boost your performance and you will notice a gain as for whether it is significant depends on how far you can overclock it. It is a fairly well balanced system but if you overclock your CPU, I don't think the GTX560Ti will be bottleneck too much if at all (apart from games that can utilise quad core CPUs for example). You could then save towards a CPU/mobo/RAM upgrade.

Mailman86 · 10 Oct 2011 at 13:43

Guess I'll give overclocking a go then. Wish me luck (I think I'll need it).

danbt · 10 Oct 2011 at 13:56

Yeh. Id say Overclock as much as you can. Get as much as you can out of your current hardware. Then build a new rig. Thats what I'm planning to do.

g_tripwood · 10 Oct 2011 at 15:49

Agree with #2 - upgrade it all when you can.

Mailman86 · 10 Oct 2011 at 15:52

I could afford to do it all now but I don't think I could justify that much given that it runs most games ok enough as it is. I was very tempted last night though but sense prevailed.

Xelene · 10 Oct 2011 at 19:23

See if you can pick up a quad cheaply, overclock it.

Fragg · 10 Oct 2011 at 19:26

im sorry, but you a new monitor will be priority 1.

you can pick up a nice little 24" led, 1920/1200 for 160 pound here on overclockers

Mailman86 · 10 Oct 2011 at 20:43

Oh sorry I just realised that was a typo with the monitor resolution. My primary one runs at 1920x1080 (it's been a long few days).

I'm overclocking as we speaking. Going well so far.