gtx 750 ti Upgrade path for an aged PC - bottlenecking issues?

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I bought a pre-built PC with the following specifications 4 years ago:

 

CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 260

RAM: 4GB DDR3

Motherboard: Gigabyte M68MT-S2P

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GT 220 (Gigabyte)

HDD: SATA

PSU: 320W-unknown-brand cheapness

 

I'm currently on Windows 10 Pro 64-bit/Arch Linux dualboot.

 

Recently, I've upgraded my PSU to a decent 520 watt Seasonic M12II in anticipation of further upgrades. I play primarily 3 games - Assetto Corsa, Elite Dangerous: Horizons and Euro Truck Simulator 2 (I also have a number of titles from early 2000s in my library and as such they're out of the question here).

 

Obviously, I am in dire need of a better CPU. I am planning to do a mobo+CPU upgrade sometime in the future but at the moment I don't have the budget to do so. In terms of a GPU upgrade, I'm focusing on a GTX 750 Ti and I'm not willing to spend more on a better GPU because I'd be pretty content with at least 40 FPS on medium - high settings on the games I play. From the looks of it, this particular GPU seems to be great value for money for the titles I wish to play and my requirements. Putting this GPU on my current build would result in some (severe?) bottlenecking issues though.

 

Which upgrade path should I take - buy the GTX 750 Ti now or take the long path of saving up some money and upgrading the mobo+CPU before the GPU? I'm leaning towards a GPU upgrade first for instant gratification and a perceived performance boost when I eventually upgrade other components of my PC but I'm also quite open for suggestions.

 

P.S. Does bottlenecking damage the components? I'm aware that it exists on most (all?) PC builds to a certain extent but I wonder whether my particular configuration would cause damage to the GTX 750 Ti.

[m0k]

whats your budget? usd/cad? 

 

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12 minutes ago, mok said:

whats your budget? usd/cad? 

 

Just enough for the GTX 750 Ti at the moment.

[CostcoSamples]

For very tight budgets, you can do really well on the used market.  I would look for a used Sandy Bridge or newer i7 CPU with motherboard and RAM, then pickup a new RX 480 or 470.  You'll be rockin 1080p high settings 60+fps on any game for well under $400 USD.

 

Don't get the 750 Ti.  It's very old and not worth the price.  If you just need a cheap GPU, get an RX 460 or 470.

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9 minutes ago, CostcoSamples said:

For very tight budgets, you can do really well on the used market.  I would look for a used Sandy Bridge or newer i7 CPU with motherboard and RAM, then pickup a new RX 480 or 470.  You'll be rockin 1080p high settings 60+fps on any game for well under $400 USD.

 

Don't get the 750 Ti.  It's very old and not worth the price.  If you just need a cheap GPU, get an RX 460 or 470.

Thank you for the reply.

 

I never buy used items so they are out of the question.

 

As for the RX 460, it costs almost twice as much as the GTX 750 Ti where I live. I'm quite limited with my options here and a GTX 750 Ti fits the bill pretty well. I'm not too fussy about it being old though - I expect it to be an entry level performer and I'm OK with that. I managed to live with a GT 220 for 4 years after all and the only reason forcing me to upgrade is a lack of DX11 support on the GT 220 (and, well, low graphics on Assetto Corsa).

[CostcoSamples]

You should rethink the used market.  You will get much higher performance for your money and can mitigate the risk by only looking at parts that you can test before buying.  Make the seller show you that it works before you buy.

 

CPUs and GPUs are generally pretty robust and don't fail very often unless they have been abused physically.  Do a visual inspection to see that there is no physical damage.  If you are careful, there is no reason to be afraid of the used market.  

 

As for bottleneck causing damage, it won't.  In this case all it would mean is your CPU cannot feed data to the GPU fast enough, so your GPU won't run at full performance.