Upgrading an old desktop

[Mky000005]

I’m pretty smart when it comes to computers but I’m just a little stumped right now because I have this desktop that I’ve been gaming on a little bit, I’ve been working on this computer for about a year now to fix it anyway long story short it’s a pretty old desktop (I think 2008) it has a core 2 quad cpu q9300 at 2.5 GHz and 8 gb of RAM and the graphics card is a Nvidia GeForce GT 520 and whenever I play any sort of games like fortnight the graphics card just can’t handle anything but very low settings so I bought the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 from Best Buy but now I’m wondering if my CPU is going to bottle neck? Whenever I am playing a game my graphics card is always maxed out at 100% and my CPU hovers around 20–30% while I’m playing so do you think it will bottle neck or will my CPU be able to handle the GTX 1050 also I just bought the forests on steam and I am aware that my graphics card doesn’t even meet the minimum requirements for the forest and it’s almost unplayable on my current graphics card but when I do play the forest my CPU hovers around 20-50% and my GPU 100% I have windows 10 if that makes any difference  I hope to get an answer soon my new GPU is coming in one week! 

[Guest]

Well, yeah, a Q9300 is only slightly better than a Q6600 and thats commonly paired with something like a GT 730/740. The 750ti is a common choice for older C2Q upgrades but thats still bottlenecking the card.

A 1050 will be bottlenecked out the ass, but it will still perform OK.

If you got a Q9300 you may or may not be able to get a Xeon of some kinds for it, generally better performing than a Q9650 even at the higher end for like 30 bucks.

But then its sorta like, ya might as well just do a whole platform upgrade if youre gonna spend 30$ on an old xeon when for another 100$ you can get a haswell i7 and motherboard.

[Dell Dorado]

If you also want to get a new CPU, you have to get a new motherboard because a core 2 duo socket wouldn't work with another, modern CPU.

 

I recommend, if you're on a budget, to get the i5-8400. And the  GA-B250M-D3H motherboard from gigabyte. WHY IS MY FONT LIKE THIS!?!?!

[Mky000005]

 The reason I bought the GTX 1050 was because it was the cheapest GPU I could find I looked for the GTX 750 TI but the cheapest price I could find was from Amazon and it was $150 I got the GTX 1050 from Best Buy for $120 do you think I’m going to get any performance downgrade from bottlenecking will I see any game glitches or frame rate dropping from bottlenecking? Like I said I’m very smart with computers but I’ve never stepped into the gaming area of it  how much better do you think it will perform than the GeForce GT 520?

[Mky000005]

Just now, Mky000005 said:

 The reason I bought the GTX 1050 was because it was the cheapest GPU I could find I looked for the GTX 750 TI but the cheapest price I could find was from Amazon and it was $150 I got the GTX 1050 from Best Buy for $120 do you think I’m going to get any performance downgrade from bottlenecking will I see any game glitches or frame rate dropping from bottlenecking? Like I said I’m very smart with computers but I’ve never stepped into the gaming area of it  how much better do you think it will perform than the GeForce GT 520?

 Sadly I’m kind of out of a budget right now I’m in the process of buying a car and I can really only afford a graphics card right now but I might look into the Xeon processor that you were talking about if they’re only $30  but is that going to fit in the socket I have ?                   (Core 2 quad q9300)

[BarackOBatman]

@Mky000005

 

I'd turn up the settings all the way and see how she runs (GPU/CPU usage and all.) In many games, you'll definitely be bottlenecked by the C2Q.

Fortnite? Can't say for sure, but I could Imagine it'd be a pretty decent combo for this game. Overwatch, R6 Seige and eSports games should run pretty OK too (even with high graphics settings). Just don't try and play PUBG or any new AAA releases.

Bottom line... q9300 will be sufficient for the 1050 in less CPU intensive or nicely cpu optimized games IMO.

[Mky000005]

9 hours ago, BarackOBatman said:

@Mky000005

 

I'd turn up the settings all the way and see how she runs (GPU/CPU usage and all.) In many games, you'll definitely be bottlenecked by the C2Q.

Fortnite? Can't say for sure, but I could Imagine it'd be a pretty decent combo for this game. Overwatch, R6 Seige and eSports games should run pretty OK too (even with high graphics settings). Just don't try and play PUBG or any new AAA releases.

Bottom line... q9300 will be sufficient for the 1050 in less CPU intensive or nicely cpu optimized games IMO.

Yeah I definitely don’t plan on playing any AAA games but would you have any guess as to how good the  GTX 1050  will run on the forest on steam it’s my favorite game right now but I have to play at about 10 FPS with my GT 520 that I have right now And that’s with all the settings completely turned down or off and it’s to the point where sometimes half of the map doesn’t even load and I end up falling off the map because my GT 520 can’t handle it lol but when I open task manager it says my CPU is only at about 30–40%  so do you think I will get a big improvement before my CPU starts the bottleneck with the new card (GTX 1050)?

[BarackOBatman]

15 hours ago, Mky000005 said:

Yeah I definitely don’t plan on playing any AAA games but would you have any guess as to how good the  GTX 1050  will run on the forest on steam it’s my favorite game right now but I have to play at about 10 FPS with my GT 520 that I have right now And that’s with all the settings completely turned down or off and it’s to the point where sometimes half of the map doesn’t even load and I end up falling off the map because my GT 520 can’t handle it lol but when I open task manager it says my CPU is only at about 30–40%  so do you think I will get a big improvement before my CPU starts the bottleneck with the new card (GTX 1050)?

I think it will be a big improvement, yes. But its hard to guess if it will be playable... (also depends on your definition of playable)

 

If i had to guess, I'd say maybe at High (Not Ultra) Settings (but minimum settings on those which require CPU resources) You could maybe see %100 CPU (depends on optimization) and like %60 GPU. The big question is will the FPS consistently be enough. The 1050 is in the ballpark of 10 times more performance of the GT 520 according to synthetic benchmarks. As long as the CPU can keep above 30 FPS at all time, you should be looking alright-ish.

 

You could try and test the CPUs capabilites in fortnite by removing the GT 520's GPU bottleneck. I usually do this by nerfing the resolution until i'm at less than %90 gpu usage. If i need to go below the game's minimum resolution and graphics settings, i usually try creating a custom resolutions (temporarily) in Nvidia control panel. Usually half of the monitors native is a decent starting place (Example: Native=1920x1080, set the custom resolution to 960x540) and test to see if you can get %100 CPU usage with decent framerates.

[Mky000005]

11 hours ago, BarackOBatman said:

I think it will be a big improvement, yes. But its hard to guess if it will be playable... (also depends on your definition of playable)

 

If i had to guess, I'd say maybe at High (Not Ultra) Settings (but minimum settings on those which require CPU resources) You could maybe see %100 CPU (depends on optimization) and like %60 GPU. The big question is will the FPS consistently be enough. The 1050 is in the ballpark of 10 times more performance of the GT 520 according to synthetic benchmarks. As long as the CPU can keep above 30 FPS at all time, you should be looking alright-ish.

 

You could try and test the CPUs capabilites in fortnite by removing the GT 520's GPU bottleneck. I usually do this by nerfing the resolution until i'm at less than %90 gpu usage. If i need to go below the game's minimum resolution and graphics settings, i usually try creating a custom resolutions (temporarily) in Nvidia control panel. Usually half of the monitors native is a decent starting place (Example: Native=1920x1080, set the custom resolution to 960x540) and test to see if you can get %100 CPU usage with decent framerates.

All right so I’ve just finished doing that test and here are the results. I turned everything down to the lowest settings on Fortnite and then I went to the Nvidia control panel and turned everything down further and The highest I could get my CPU to go was about 80% utilization  and for some reason I couldn’t get my graphics card to go any lower than 100% for about two or three minutes it was at 98% and then it just went back to 100% and stayed there, but in fortnight I got a steady 50 FPS which is  absolutely playable for me, Im used to about 22-28 FPS on average in Fortnite so I would say anything 30 FPS or over is just fine for me and I try to keep my expectations low because this computer is about 10 years old and has been broken for about two years until I just recently fixed it.. so what do you think about that. My results  anything out of the ordinary?

[BarackOBatman]

13 hours ago, Mky000005 said:

All right so I’ve just finished doing that test and here are the results. I turned everything down to the lowest settings on Fortnite and then I went to the Nvidia control panel and turned everything down further and The highest I could get my CPU to go was about 80% utilization  and for some reason I couldn’t get my graphics card to go any lower than 100% for about two or three minutes it was at 98% and then it just went back to 100% and stayed there, but in fortnight I got a steady 50 FPS which is  absolutely playable for me, Im used to about 22-28 FPS on average in Fortnite so I would say anything 30 FPS or over is just fine for me and I try to keep my expectations low because this computer is about 10 years old and has been broken for about two years until I just recently fixed it.. so what do you think about that. My results  anything out of the ordinary?

EDIT: Bah... sorry but i misread "the forest" as fortnite in the previous post... ideally, you wouldve tested the forest and not Fortnite as this is the game you actually care about playing. You should be looking good regardless though since the forest seems to have even lighter requirements than the game you tested.

 

ORIGINAL:

Sounds pretty great! You CPU is up to the task for this game (fortnite).

Although you likely wont fully be able utilize the GTX 1050's performance due to CPU limitations, you'll still get some playable frame rates (50 FPS steady) with nice graphics settings. I'd say for the 1050, your money would not be wasted.

Edited May 2, 2018 by BarackOBatman
Misread previous post...

[Mky000005]

10 hours ago, BarackOBatman said:

EDIT: Bah... sorry but i misread "the forest" as fortnite in the previous post... ideally, you wouldve tested the forest and not Fortnite as this is the game you actually care about playing. You should be looking good regardless though since the forest seems to have even lighter requirements than the game you tested.

 

ORIGINAL:

Sounds pretty great! You CPU is up to the task for this game (fortnite).

Although you likely wont fully be able utilize the GTX 1050's performance due to CPU limitations, you'll still get some playable frame rates (50 FPS steady) with nice graphics settings. I'd say for the 1050, your money would not be wasted.

 All right sounds great. One more thing, what kind of Settings are CPU intensive? Because the forest has like 50 different settings and some of them you can’t even pronounce so it’s hard for  me to tell which ones are CPU intensive and which ones are GPU intensive

[BarackOBatman]

13 hours ago, Mky000005 said:

 All right sounds great. One more thing, what kind of Settings are CPU intensive? Because the forest has like 50 different settings and some of them you can’t even pronounce so it’s hard for  me to tell which ones are CPU intensive and which ones are GPU intensive

I'm really not familiar with this game so i'm not sure.

This guide seems to cover most of the main ones for general gaming. https://www.quora.com/When-PC-gaming-what-graphic-settings-affect-the-CPU-or-GPU-more

Also, according to the game's recommended system requirement, your cpu is good enough, so i suspect that you wont be CPU limited at all in this game.

[Mky000005]

On 5/3/2018 at 11:41 AM, BarackOBatman said:

I'm really not familiar with this game so i'm not sure.

This guide seems to cover most of the main ones for general gaming. https://www.quora.com/When-PC-gaming-what-graphic-settings-affect-the-CPU-or-GPU-more

Also, according to the game's recommended system requirement, your cpu is good enough, so i suspect that you wont be CPU limited at all in this game.

 All right so I just got the card and put it in and I cannot say enough about this card it is absolutely amazing the GTX 1050 can easily run fortnight on all Epic settings at almost 70 FPS and the forest on all ultra settings at about 65 FPS! I was trying to keep my expectations low  but this card is amazing and I haven’t gotten any bottleneck at all so far the highest I’ve gotten my CPU is 75% and my GPU 100%  The only weird thing I’ve noticed so far is I’ve been getting a lot of lag spikes every couple minutes or so the game will sort of pause for a second and then play again like a little hiccup on both fortnight and the forest also on MSI afterburner it said the GTX 1050 was running at 1.7 GHz and on the box it says it should only go up to 1.5 GHz so I don’t know why it’s going up so high I’m not over clocking it

[BarackOBatman]

13 hours ago, Mky000005 said:

 All right so I just got the card and put it in and I cannot say enough about this card it is absolutely amazing the GTX 1050 can easily run fortnight on all Epic settings at almost 70 FPS and the forest on all ultra settings at about 65 FPS! I was trying to keep my expectations low  but this card is amazing and I haven’t gotten any bottleneck at all so far the highest I’ve gotten my CPU is 75% and my GPU 100%  The only weird thing I’ve noticed so far is I’ve been getting a lot of lag spikes every couple minutes or so the game will sort of pause for a second and then play again like a little hiccup on both fortnight and the forest also on MSI afterburner it said the GTX 1050 was running at 1.7 GHz and on the box it says it should only go up to 1.5 GHz so I don’t know why it’s going up so high I’m not over clocking it

Nvidia's GPU boost 2.0 would account for the high clockspeed. It more or less "auto-OCs" when thermals allow it and its build into the graphics drivers.

 

Glad the graphics card is working out well!