Which Nvidia GPU would be bottlenecked by the rest of my hardware?

[DanScott]

Hi,

I've been eyeing up a new GPU for a while and now that the prices are starting to come down I might finally be able to justify paying the price.

My question is, which Nvidia GPU would be bottlenecked by the rest of my hardware?

Motherboard: Asus P6T Deluxe
CPU: i7 920 @ 3.6 GHz
Memory: 16GB 2800 MHz

Ideally, I'd like to play any game on ultra at 1080p at 60+ fps and maybe upgrade to a 144 Hz monitor in the future.

Thanks

Dan

 

[DanScott]

GTX 1070 may be borderline, depending on what games you are playing. If I were you I'd upgrade that i7 920 for a Xeon X5670 (or similar) for about £40, they will give you 6 cores/12 threads, and you can get them up to 4.0-4.5GHz with reasonable cooling.

Thank you for taking the time to help Journey, really appreciated. I play the following:

• CS:GO (runs fine already)
• BF4+1
• Sims 3+4
• GTA V
• PUBG
• Skyrim

The games I currently struggle with are Skyrim, PUBG and GTA V. I'd love to be able to play Skyrim & GTA V on Ultra and not worry about FPS.

What benefit will I get from upgrading my CPU to a Xeon X5670 or similar? I hadn't planned on upgrading my CPU until something fails and then I'd get a new CPU, motherboard and memory but if I'll see a noticeably performance boost for £40 why not!

 

[DanScott]

Well, you'd immediately gain another 2 cores / 4 threads, so you literally have another 50% processing power for background processes or heavily threaded applications/games. You'd extend the life of your system considerably, since with a decent overclock you'd only be slowing down the very top end current GPU's once you hit Ultra Quality 1080p or V. High settings 1440p. You would be limited if you went to 144Hz 1080p, and a whole platform upgrade would be required to get the most from some of those titles, especially if you are at GTX 1080+ performance.

However, if you are willing to put in a couple of hours work, and already have a reasonable cooling solution, then upgrading to the Xeon is a nice weekend project, and great satisfaction when you see just how capable your current system is.

I don't have a reasonable cooling solution but that needs an upgrade and I'm probably going to get either a BeQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 or NZXT Kraken X62 which should do the job nicely, just waiting around for a sale. I am swaying between the two as I value silence but the NZXT Kraken X62 is beautiful, I've got a Fractal R5 case so I'm hesitant about removing the top vents releasing the noise.

I'm really glad I posted on here now, I never would have even considered upgrading my CPU at the moment at least without upgrading the whole platform. I'm willing to put in the work, once I get started I quite enjoy having a tinker.

Can I assume you are running a nice SSD currently?

I've got 2 SSD's at the moment for my OS and main games

 

[DanScott]

If going the 1070 route then get a TI - real close in price and worth the extra, with a X56** you'll be good for a fair while

Thanks for the tip, I'll continue scanning the marketplace for a decent deal and see what I can find.

 

[DanScott]

Well if you do buy one, you usually have plenty of choice, any of the X56xx CPU's should work, I've had some luck with most of the models, but tend to stick to the X5670, or the newer X5675. Quite a few available on that famous auction site for less than £40 delivered, be prepared to wait 3 weeks for delivery though

Thanks, I'll check it out

Out of curiosity, how have you ended up with 16GB of RAM? Are you not running in triple channel mode? If that is the case, you should try and make sure you get the system running in triple channel since the extra memory bandwidth is really worth while, and DDR3 is pretty cheap these days.

I'm not running triple channel mode no... didn't realise I was missing out! From having a quick Google 1 x 8GB of Corsair Vengeance Pro 1600MHz is coming up as more expensive then the 16GB I originally bought! In fact I could sell the memory and make a profit what's going on!

 

[DanScott]

Don't be buying RAM new, especially DDR3, lots of people getting rid of it these days. I just picked up 24GB for ~£45 (3x 8GB) 1600MHz from an auction. Also don't panic if your RAM doesn't match exactly, just try and get some that it 1600MHz, and it is usually OK, it will just set the timings to the lowest common denominator, but over all you'll likely gain to to the hugely increased bandwidth.

Just be careful not to buy EEC/Registered server RAM!

Thank you for all the help and advice, RAM is looking pretty expensive but I'll keep hunting around. Think I'll try and upgrade my CPU/GPU first as I don't notice any RAM issues at the moment (that I'm aware of). May even buy a 144Hz monitor beforehand to get the most out of CS:GO!

Why are there all these nice shiny things that I want so badly! Just need an endless supply of money

 

[DanScott]

I don't think there is a bottle-neck as such, rather it's a question of keeping your PC balanced so both the GPU and CPU are about the same performance levels. There is always benefit to getting the best GPU that you can afford so really it just comes down to how much you want to spend. Whatever you spend now will turn out to be a good investment because even if your current PC can't make the most of it, your next PC can. If you have no intention of upgrading your PC then personally I would go for a GTX 1060. However, if you plan on upgrading the rest of the PC then I would go for a 1070.

To be honest I don't plan on upgrading the bulk of my PC until my hand is forced, if I can make do with a GTX 1060 for a good few years I'll be happy with that. Thanks