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[Ghostsquidy]

I've been thinking of a GPU upgrade for a while. I have a i7 2600, 8gb of 1333mhz memory, and a 2TB 5400rpm HDD

 

How powerful of a GPU could I go before the 2600 was a bottleneck to the GPU?

[Princess Luna]

a GTX 1060 3gb or RX 580 4gb would be a very fair GPU for this system, should you want brand new, a second hand GTX 980 Ti might bottleneck a few times but it would still be worth it.

[Ghostsquidy]

Thanks! I was thinking a Rx570 would be good for the price. But I'll get an RX580 once I save up

[Guest]

You won't get a bottleneck with a 2600 :).

 

Depends on game and res and such bleh

[AshleyAshes]

4 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

a GTX 1060 3gb or RX 580 4gb would be a very fair GPU for this system, should you want brand new, a second hand GTX 980 Ti might bottleneck a few times but it would still be worth it.

...It's a fucking 2600.  You can pair it with a much nicer GPU than those and get a LOT more performance out of it than those would offer.  I mean geez, LTT did  video JUST LAST WEEK and many others have also done videos showing just what a dramatic improvement can be seen on systems as old as Sandy Bridge if you just put in a nice fast GPU.

 

But instead people are suggesting the 3GB GTX 1060?  Just... Geeez...

[Ghostsquidy]

Thanks, its kind of surprising that cpu performance is only 75% better or so from 2011.

[AshleyAshes]

2 minutes ago, Ghostsquidy said:

Thanks, its kind of surprising that cpu performance is only 75% better or so from 2011.

Not only that but games don't make the best use of CPUs.  In most cases, technological innovation has been in graphics rather than the actual simulation within a game.  So things get prettier and demands on the GPU have grown much faster than that of the CPU.

 

However it's a pretty common and ignorant theme that many on this forum parrot.  They talk about 'bottle necking' as if it is a 'hard wall' where a GPU no longer performs any better than a slower GPU.  This is patently false and you can go on and find practical test after practical test showing otherwise.  Most will basically say 'The i5 2500k still kicks a reasonable amount of ass' and the same for the top and second teir CPUs from every generation since.

 

Bottleneck is REAL but it's more a percentage loss in efficiency.  As in 'This GPU might go 15% faster if you get a faster CPU'.  So you can buy a bad ass GPU and pair it with your older system and get MOST of the performance that it would get if you did a whole platform upgrade and you'd spend a LOT less money.  A conservative high end platform upgrade would be around $500 USD, for new RAM, CPU, and mobo.  That's a LOT of money to squeeze 10-20% more out of a GTX 1070, 1080 or 1080 Ti.  You could instead use that money to increase your budget for an even BETTER GPU and see WAY better performance than if you went with a cheaper GPU plus a platform upgrade.  Orrr... You could just NOT spend that money and SAVEit and use it for other things or keep it until you want to upgrade again in a few years.

 

In short, most people who say that almost any quad core CPU from Intel since Sandy Bridge 'just isn't worth it' to upgrade your GPU beyond something cheap or even suggest that you replace the whole system, are basically idiots.

 

But what would I know? I run a GTX 1080 in a four year old Ivy Bridge-E i7 4930k system.  And I've installed that same GPU in a Sandy Bridge Mobile i7 2630QM system and run GTA5 at 4K@60 (Mostly 'normal', some 'high' settings) and my HTPC is an i7 3770K with a R9 390X 8GB in it that I also use for 'Normal Settings' 4K gaming.  I clearly have no experience.

[Ghostsquidy]

Thanks a ton man! That really helps my understanding of bottlenecks I'll save up for a RX 580 or something. I don't want to spend too much

[AshleyAshes]

4 minutes ago, Ghostsquidy said:

Thanks a ton man! That really helps my understanding of bottlenecks I'll save up for a RX 580 or something. I don't want to spend too much

Obviously, for sure, get what you can afford.  But don't sell yourself short and don't just take my word for it, you can find lots of stuff comparing multiple generations of CPUs with top tier GPUs.  With a 2600 however my vote would be just get whatever GPU that you want and fits your budget/needs and don't fear your CPU as being a reason to limit what you buy.

Also, if you do spend more on a GPU, then if you ever do upgrade your whole platform... You already have a nice GPU for it!

[Ghostsquidy]

One other thing, my PC has a weird issue when restarting. It will turn off with lights still on, then load through the bios again on reboot. But when I get to the windows loading circle thing. It freezes up the system completely. Requiring me to turn it off using the power button.