Thinking of upgrading to GTX 760 or 770. May experience bottlenecking. Need some advice.

marioblanket

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So my computer is becoming more and more outdated and my poor performance in modern games is getting a bit depressing. I received some Amazon gift money for Christmas and I'm thinking of splurging on a GTX 760 or 770 for an instant performance boost and then replacing my motherboard and processor sometime later when I can afford it.

Here are my current specs:

AMD Phenom II x6 1055T OC'd to 3.6ghz
8GB DDR3 1600
GTX 460 1GB x 2 in SLI

I had hoped that the GTX 460's in SLI would get me by for a little longer, but I noticed some serious FPS stuttering in Bioshock Infinite on medium and I've recently gotten really into The Secret World, which runs like garbage on my current setup even on the lowest settings. For instance, high intensity boss encounters go below 10 FPS and it becomes nearly unplayable. I truly miss the days of playing games on Very High or Ultra settings and I would love to be able to do so again at 1920 x 1200 resolution.

Now, I'm sure if I do pull out the two GTX 460's and throw in a GTX 770, there will be some serious bottlenecking with my old processor. Is this a serious issue? Or will I simply experience a minor cap in performance until I upgrade my motherboard and processor, which would otherwise be no big deal?

Also, it seems like the GTX 760 is technically a better value in terms of performance vs. cost. The GTX 770 is about $100 more right now, but I'm still interested in it for the purpose of future proofing my system. What do you guys think about that? This is the one I'm interested in, by the way. I picked a non-prime deal to dodge tax. It's not pre-OC'd but I'd consider boosting the core clock speed up to 1150, as suggested by one of the reviewers. Are there any other ones you would suggest?

Lastly, I know this technically goes outside of the graphics card category itself, but I'm still using this old motherboard and I'm thinking of just throwing in an FX-8320 or an FX8350 to solve my outdated CPU issues. Would that be wise, or should I still shoot for a newer motherboard? Also, would an AMD FX CPU and the GTX 760 or 770 be perfectly fine for playing games on Ultra @ 1920 x 1200 with a single monitor, or should I consider switching to a Haswell i5?

That's it, I promise. Thanks so much for your time.

 
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Ok well, its simple, with mantle we'll be gaming on pc with the right way for the first time. If you know a lot about gaming than you probably once in your life would've asked this to yourself. How come people say that consoles use very poor hardware compared to PC and yet I see consoles playing the same game with a little bit lower graphical settings with no problems...

Malkeur

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The one you linked is the one I was looking at buying myself. I was advised to spend the money on a 780 due to its better resistance to future proofing and the performance, but I'm also no standard to measure yourself by.

As far as the cpu and mobo, they're pretty cheap to buy bundled together, is that an option for you?
 

marioblanket

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While I can get the graphics card now, I would still have to wait a few weeks before I could afford a CPU or mobo, bundled or otherwise. Looking for a bundle deal is a really good idea, though. I'll have to look around and see what I can find.
 

Taruntj5

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Are you serious??? After all amd's done with mantle providing the very right way for gaming for the very first time and just removing the term "CPU bottenecking" from gaming, you still gonna go for an nVidia card?????
 

marioblanket

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This isn't the most helpful response. It'd be awesome if you could go into a bit more detail here to help me understand what you mean. Thanks!
 

Taruntj5

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Ok well, its simple, with mantle we'll be gaming on pc with the right way for the first time. If you know a lot about gaming than you probably once in your life would've asked this to yourself. How come people say that consoles use very poor hardware compared to PC and yet I see consoles playing the same game with a little bit lower graphical settings with no problems and still consoles hold 60fps more constantly compared to most PC's(or cards) on demanding games. Well, the answer to that my friend is that console use a low-level api which really truly
utilizes the power the console can produce. But on the pc we use "Directx" which is a high-level api meaning it handles a lot of other things other than gaming graphics so it isn't completely focused on gaming and hence low-performance and really hardwork for cpu's to handle the GPU leading to Bottlenecks. So, with mantle we'll be able be able to use the same concept as consoles and will get better performace.
Mantle can handle 100,000 drawcalls per frame(which is a lot compared to what we have now). And i don't remember the guy's name but he said that Anti-Aliasing on mantle can be done 100 times faster than DirectX. Directx is just an sort of like "Just Deal with it" thingy by microsoft. Because they don't have any competetion from anyone. Windows is huge compared to any other OS's, so they never really cared to make it any better but with mantle and steam OS coming out. Oh Boy PC gaming is gonna get a lot better.
So, if you wanna buy a card of that supports yesterday's technology, sure go ahead, it's not my money.
But yeah you really need to do some research before spending your money.
 
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marioblanket

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Asking questions on this forum is part of my research.

I appreciate the explanation of AMD's mantle. I also looked into it a bit on my own. The two major concerns I have are: How soon will most games be making use of Mantle? And will NVidia also gain access to Mantle or possibly come up with their own, similar API? It's not like they'll just sit back and do nothing.

Anyway, I'd also like to get back on topic if anyone else can weigh in. Thanks so much. :)
 

Vojin

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it will be extreme botleneck,buy fx 8320 first.Fx 8350 isnt worth it it is oced 8320.or if you wanna change mobo buy i5 it runs much more cooler,if you consider amd buy good cpu cooler