New GPU or New CPU. GTX 500 Ti and AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition

jn0505

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I have a GTX 550 Ti, it's definitely a little outdated. It keeps up well enough, but I would like something a little smoother, and something not as HOT. This card idles at around 35C-45C, and when I game it maxes out on me at about 65C-81C. It is cleaned every 1st day of the month as well as my entire case. I have 2 Corsair SP120 Quiet Edition and 2 Corsair SP120 Performance, also I have a Noctua NH-D14 cooler.

Now, my CPU is old too, but it keeps up just fine, I don't see any hiccups during use. Everything is fast loading, start up, shut down. I have 16gb ddr3 RAM working too. I computer animate and model a lot for school. I have a laptop that can render better than this desktop can, it's a Lenovo Y500. has a 3rd gen i7, 8gb ram, Nvidia GT 750M 2gb. It does the job way better than my desktop. And there are computer in school that can render better than what I have anyways, I think they all have Xeon processors.

So what I'm asking is, should I get a better CPU or GPU?

I do all my work on the desktop and transfer it over to the laptop and render it there. The only thing is, when I'm running the modeling programs, the desktop reaches up to 66C and it gets ridiculously hot in my room. I can also use the CUDA cores with Nvidia to render faster on my desktop, it will help out the CPU a bit, but it doesn't matter as much, since I will be working off of my laptop and the school's desktops more often than on my own desktop...

I'm on a budget, of around..... Lets say $150? give or take a bit, depending on you're opinions. If I do find something that I like that you guys recommend, I'm going to sell my GTX 550 Ti, so hopefully that will give me a little extra cash. Also, what would be a reasonable price for my card to sell at? I have an ASrock M3A770DE, so it would need to be compatible, I also have a 700W PSU.

Thanks. Any help is very appreciated!
 
Solution
I personally love the GTX750Ti. It has VERY powerful cores being that this is a "Maxwell" GPU. The 750Ti has almost 1.8 teraflops of compute performance, and it does REALLY well with CUDA stuff and is also really good for mining bitcoin and litecoin.

Plus if you want cool and quiet, no other card will run as cool or as quiet as this one. Especially none from AMD.

If you were only a pure gamer, and didn't do any compute work with CUDA, and didn't care about a little more noise and heat, I'd recommend the 265. But since you do work with CUDA and you do care about heat, the 750Ti is the way to go.

Plus the 265 is like 20 dollars more expensive than the 750Ti right now. So you won't be able to find a 265 for 150$. Maybe 170$. But you can...

Nickname_

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Since you have got a pretty good cooling unit I recommend ,if you haven't done so yet, to OC (Overclock) your Phenom II to 4ghz or higher if you want the max overclock mess around with your voltages. I think that you should upgrade your GPU because as I said if you OC'd you CPU is good to go. Your GPU , on the other hand , is fairly outdated as you said and again reffering back to what you said your GPU runs hot because it old. TO SUM IT UP CHANGE YOUR GPU!!

~Nickname_
 

Nickname_

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:) Hope this helped!

Edit: I suggest to buy an R7 260X, it is powerful cheap and can handle almost any game you throw at it at 720p usually at 'Medium' to 'High' settings

~Nickname_
 

jn0505

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I'm not the best at computers when it comes down to overclocking and changing the voltage and frequencies... I tried looking it up once, and followed it, but I was always a bit scared that I might screw it up... So I reset the CPU back to defaults.

I've been looking for some GPUs since this post, and I've come to find 2 that I really like, I've read the reviews, seen benchmarks, watched videos about them, compared them, and it came down to these:

http://

http://

I'm not sure which to get, but I watched a review and saw that the GTX 750 Ti definitely outperforms the other in many ways. But I would like an opinion from you if possible.

I want to make sure that it will run smooth, cool, n quiet. My PSU is so loud anyways, that I have no problem with a loud fan to be honest. But I'm hoping to change my PSU to a 600W that a friend has that says runs quiet.

Thanks
 

Nickname_

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I'd ask myself "Which is cheaper?". Since there isn't a big difference in gaming. They are both as good. Just make sure the GPU is GDDR5 2GB RAM.This is a mistake I have made in the past.

Nvidia = Adobe Products
AMD = OpenGL stuff
 

jn0505

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I do a lot of Modeling/Animating with 3d rendering software as well as adobe programs. I read that CUDA Cores are better for what the software uses.

So should I go for an Nvidia card?
 

EricJohn2004

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I personally love the GTX750Ti. It has VERY powerful cores being that this is a "Maxwell" GPU. The 750Ti has almost 1.8 teraflops of compute performance, and it does REALLY well with CUDA stuff and is also really good for mining bitcoin and litecoin.

Plus if you want cool and quiet, no other card will run as cool or as quiet as this one. Especially none from AMD.

If you were only a pure gamer, and didn't do any compute work with CUDA, and didn't care about a little more noise and heat, I'd recommend the 265. But since you do work with CUDA and you do care about heat, the 750Ti is the way to go.

Plus the 265 is like 20 dollars more expensive than the 750Ti right now. So you won't be able to find a 265 for 150$. Maybe 170$. But you can find a 750Ti for 150$.
 
Solution

EricJohn2004

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Feb 13, 2014
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If you wanted to get off a little cheaper but have almost the same performance you could also get the GTX750. It has like 15% less cores but everything else is the same. Plus I hear the 750's overclock to like 1350Mhz! Which would make that card way faster than the 750Ti.

You can find that card here for 120$

http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-Dual-Link-Graphics-01G-P4-2751-KR/dp/B00IDG3NDY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396894815&sr=8-1&keywords=GTX750

It's only 1GB but 1GB is more than enough for the settings you'll be playing at. Which should be 1080p at medium-low settings or 720p at medium/high settings. I prefer 1080p myself. And those are only for the most high end of games. A GTX750 would MAX out games like COD Black Ops II and almost MAX out Bioshock Infinate.
 

jn0505

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Alright, perfect. At least I got you with experience with that card. I'll go look it up, I think i saw one at Best Buy, not sure if it's a FTW edition, but if not ill just order one from NewEgg.

Thanks a lot. I'll stick with 750 Ti for now. See how that goes. Plus, for a few dollars more, I'll just get the Ti FTW, it's not that much more. :D