Will my hardware be enough..

[TravisTea]

Hey guys! I plan on updating my hardware early next year whenever tax season is upon us. My question is, will my hardware be ok to power the GTX 970 I just ordered? I decided to buy the Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 video card while it was in stock this last week. Anyway, my hardware is as follows: Xeon W3520 (i7 920), MSI X58 Pro-E motherboard, 6gbs Corsair XM3 1333 MHz. I know my power supply is plenty, but I'm concerned with how much my hardware will potentially bottleneck this gpu. I currently have this cpu overclocked at 3.5ghz but look to push it to around 4ghz or so to help alleviate any potential strains. Do I even need to do this? Any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated! Thanks! 

[SuperStroopwafel]

should be fine

[Toddwjp]

i think you will be fine

[thekeemo]

Your fine as is

[costacis21]

there will be no bottleneck sir

[TravisTea]

Awesome! Thanks for all of the responses! You guys are quick! When I go to upgrade, will an i5 be ok for a dual gpu setup, or would it be about the same as what I currently have?

[i_build_nanosuits]

Awesome! Thanks for all of the responses! You guys are quick! When I go to upgrade, will an i5 be ok for a dual gpu setup, or would it be about the same as what I currently have?

a core i5 haswell is okay for most games at 1080P with dual GTX 970, of course the CPU will be the weakest link in some instances but overall it should do fine...but by the time you'll perform this upgrade my guess is that some newer multi-threaded games and console ports will be out and those will make great use of more CPU threads so you might want to consider a core i7 at this point...but who knows.

[TravisTea]

Right on. I was just looking up the Xeon X5650. If I can snag one for $60 would that be a better upgrade than a whole new setup? It's a 6 core cpu that apparently overclocks like a champ. I figure a chip like that and a SSD would be a nice addition that could hold me over for a while. Thoughts?

[Krytopsy]

you might be fine but try to overclock your ram to 1600mhz or 1866

[i_build_nanosuits]

you might be fine but try to overclock your ram to 1600mhz or 1866

RAM speed won't affect gaming performance when using a dedicated graphics card, this has been proved over and over again it would be a waste of time, 800mhz would be plenty for gaming...1333mhz is totally fine:

 

[Krytopsy]

All games aren't programmed the way Metro is.

[i_build_nanosuits]

All games aren't programmed the way Metro is.

i've tested sooo many games on my own system to know it won't affect performance...the one that was making the biggest difference is watchdogs and even then it was within 2-3 FPS improvement to go from 800mhz to 1866mhz.

heck, when you think about it...CPU performance nearly impact framerates in most games...how in the world could RAM make a difference.

[Krytopsy]

''it was within 2-3 FPS improvement to go from 800mhz to 1866mhz'' ''how in the world could RAM make a difference'' You brought it up here, not me.

[i_build_nanosuits]

''it was within 2-3 FPS improvement to go from 800mhz to 1866mhz'' ''how in the world could RAM make a difference'' You brought it up here, not me.

you've just suggested the OP should try to overclock his 1333mhz RAM or am i high?!

 

Krytopsy

Member

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• Member
• 712 posts

Posted 14 minutes ago

you might be fine but try to overclock your ram to 1600mhz or 1866

[TravisTea]

I've already seen videos from Linus, Tek Syndicate, and Jayz2Centz about OC'ing ram and have no interest in it. Not enough gain to justify it. CPU I have no issue OC'ing though.