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GPU upgrade compatibility

Infestation
By Infestation
in Graphics Cards
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Hey guys, I am a complete beginner who is just starting to learn about computer hardware. My current computer is an HP H8-1559 I bought a couple years back. Specs Here. While not a high end computer, it has served my general needs very well. However, my biggest frustrations with my current computer are a crappy entry level graphics card, Radeon HD 7570 and long load times for a few of my commonly run applications. I have thought about building a new computer (my first build), but have decided I probably don't need to for my uses. My usage could probably be considered as a "light gamer," where my games of choice are League of Legends and Path of Exile. While neither are particularly taxing, a potato could run LoL, I have noticed some large drops in FPS in Path of Exile on even moderate-low settings. I could probably buy a GPU and perhaps a cheap SSD and be very happy with my current rig,

 

My dream GPU (I'm on a tight budget!), the GTX 960 is currently on sale and I can grab a pretty decent price for it. However, I am concerned about compatability of the 960 with my current motherboard, M3970AM-HP that only offers PCIE 2.0 instead of the 960's required 3.0. There appears to be enough physical space within the case to support the dimensions of the GTX 960. I do not want to buy a really expensive paper weight. I like the idea of the GTX 960 being able to open up the possibility of playing pretty much any game on pretty high settings. However, for my current needs, the 960 is probably overkill. The problem is, the cheaper GPUs I have looked at tend to have higher power draw (what?), and while I'll probably squeak by with the prebuild 460W PSU I would definitely need a new PSU for the other cards I have looked at, which means at least in the short term it would not really save me any money. my final concern is that my current processor, AMD FX-8350 may bottleneck the powerful GTX 960 and I may not get any benefit from having a high end graphics card. Any help in resolving my dilemma is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

 

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https://linustechtips.com/topic/590675-gpu-upgrade-compatibility/
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1. PCIe 2.0 is more than enough for the 960, 3.0 is not required.

2. There shouldn't be any bottlenecking, the FX-8350 is a plenty capable CPU and some people even use 980 Ti's with the 8350.

3. The 460W power supply is probably enough, but I would recommend getting a ~$40 500 or 600 Watt one by a reputable brand to be safe.

 

Happy upgrading!

Main PC: i5 4590 @ 3.5 GHz ♦ RX 480 Armor OC ♦ 16 GB DDR3 ♦ GA-Z97-HD3 ♦ 120 GB 840 EVO ♦ 120 GB Intel 520 ♦ W10 Home

Scrapyard PC: Xeon X5460 @ 3.8 GHz ♦ HD 7870 ♦ 8 GB DDR2 ♦ GA-P35-DS3L ♦ 80 GB Intel 320 ♦ 160 GB WD Caviar SE ♦ W10 Home

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The upgrade would be compatible. However, I'd recommend getting similarly priced 4GB R9 380 over the GTX 960, simply because it's the better GPU of the two.

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The problem is that this is an nVidia product and scoring any nVidia product a "zero" is also highly predictive of the number of nVidia products the reviewer will receive for review in the future.

On 2015-01-28 at 5:24 PM, Victorious Secret said:

Only yours, you don't shitpost on the same level that we can, mainly because this thread is finally dead and should be locked.

On 2016-06-07 at 11:25 PM, patrickjp93 said:

I wasn't wrong. It's extremely rare that I am. I provided sources as well. Different devs can disagree. Further, we now have confirmed discrepancy from Twitter about he use of the pre-release 1080 driver in AMD's demo despite the release 1080 driver having been out a week prior.

On 2016-09-10 at 4:32 PM, Hikaru12 said:

You apparently haven't seen his responses to questions on YouTube. He is very condescending and aggressive in his comments with which there is little justification. He acts totally different in his videos. I don't necessarily care for this content style and there is nothing really unique about him or his channel. His endless dick jokes and toilet humor are annoying as well.

 

 

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Thank you guys for the help! I chose to grab the 960 over  R9 380 as during my research I couldn't find significant performance differences between the two chips, and I can grab a sale price of 30$ below the cheapest price of the 380. I believe  that I want to upgrade my PSU just to be on the safe side. I can pick up a great deal on a corsair CX750M 750W power supply. While complete overkill for my current rig, I am thinking buying a powerful PSU will enable me to use the same one 3-4 years down the road when I want to build a really powerful machine. Or I could save 20 bucks and buy a 600W one? What do you guys think? Thanks again for helping a beginner!

 

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1 minute ago, Infestation said:

Thank you guys for the help! I chose to grab the 960 over  R9 380 as during my research I couldn't find significant performance differences between the two chips, and I can grab a sale price of 30$ below the cheapest price of the 380. I believe  that I want to upgrade my PSU just to be on the safe side. I can pick up a great deal on a corsair CX750M 750W power supply. While complete overkill for my current rig, I am thinking buying a powerful PSU will enable me to use the same one 3-4 years down the road when I want to build a really powerful machine. Or I could save 20 bucks and buy a 600W one? What do you guys think? Thanks again for helping a beginner!

You couldn't find any significant performance difference? You gotta watch the DigitalFoundry benchmarks then. xD

Quote

The problem is that this is an nVidia product and scoring any nVidia product a "zero" is also highly predictive of the number of nVidia products the reviewer will receive for review in the future.

On 2015-01-28 at 5:24 PM, Victorious Secret said:

Only yours, you don't shitpost on the same level that we can, mainly because this thread is finally dead and should be locked.

On 2016-06-07 at 11:25 PM, patrickjp93 said:

I wasn't wrong. It's extremely rare that I am. I provided sources as well. Different devs can disagree. Further, we now have confirmed discrepancy from Twitter about he use of the pre-release 1080 driver in AMD's demo despite the release 1080 driver having been out a week prior.

On 2016-09-10 at 4:32 PM, Hikaru12 said:

You apparently haven't seen his responses to questions on YouTube. He is very condescending and aggressive in his comments with which there is little justification. He acts totally different in his videos. I don't necessarily care for this content style and there is nothing really unique about him or his channel. His endless dick jokes and toilet humor are annoying as well.

 

 

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