I am looking at a Gigabyte GTX 760 2GB to replace my Sapphire Radeon HD 5750 but I am pretty sure it will be bottlenecked by my motherboard and CPU. They are both obsolete -- an ASUS LGA1156 socket motherboard and an Intel i3-530 CPU. I bought these back in 2010 as a cheap way out of Pentium 4, knowing they weren't ideal for gaming, but they've actually been OK for the most part.
So I am debating, along with the GTX 760 should I maybe buy a used i7-870 (~$140), or an i5-760 (~$90), or just save my money and continue using the i3 until I can buy a better motherboard and CPU, which might not happen for a long time?
And given my limited CPU options on this motherboard, should I even bother with the new graphics card yet? I am concerned about the bottlenecking, and also that by the time I have money for a new motherboard and CPU -- and probably a power supply since I'm using a 550W model now -- I will wish I had just waited and picked from whatever GeForce series is out at the time.
In a nutshell, I want to play the latest gen games (e.g. Watch Dogs is on my list) with higher than medium graphics settings. From reviews I believe a GTX 760 will allow max settings on most games in 1080p but I'm not so sure in my case, given my motherboard and CPU.
I feel like this is a big rambling brain dump but I'm having a hard time with this decision, and maybe there are other possible options I haven't thought of. It's also tough since I'm on an extremely tight budget (loads of cash would definitely make this easier
). Any opinions or suggestions would be appreciated. I am happy to provide any other info about my rig or clarify anything above.
So I am debating, along with the GTX 760 should I maybe buy a used i7-870 (~$140), or an i5-760 (~$90), or just save my money and continue using the i3 until I can buy a better motherboard and CPU, which might not happen for a long time?
And given my limited CPU options on this motherboard, should I even bother with the new graphics card yet? I am concerned about the bottlenecking, and also that by the time I have money for a new motherboard and CPU -- and probably a power supply since I'm using a 550W model now -- I will wish I had just waited and picked from whatever GeForce series is out at the time.
In a nutshell, I want to play the latest gen games (e.g. Watch Dogs is on my list) with higher than medium graphics settings. From reviews I believe a GTX 760 will allow max settings on most games in 1080p but I'm not so sure in my case, given my motherboard and CPU.
I feel like this is a big rambling brain dump but I'm having a hard time with this decision, and maybe there are other possible options I haven't thought of. It's also tough since I'm on an extremely tight budget (loads of cash would definitely make this easier
). Any opinions or suggestions would be appreciated. I am happy to provide any other info about my rig or clarify anything above.
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