GTX 980 upgrade questions

sizon199 · Sep 22, 2014

Hello . Do you think that the following will work ? I want to keep this setup for at least 4 years.
I want to upgrade to 980 (from gtx 460) . But i have 2 questions.

First of all my motherboard ( gigabyte h67-ma-usb-b3) only supports pcie 2.0 . Will the gpu bottleneck ?

Secondly , i m concerned about my cpu . I have an i5 2500 , and i though about upgrading to i7 3770. But then i checked many gaming benchmarks and saw close to no difference(mostly 1 fps or no difference at all) . Is there any other reason why i should upgrade my cpu as well?

PC specs:
I5 2500
GTX 460
750W COOLERMASTER SILENT PSU
8GB DDR3 1300MHZ CORSAIR VALUE(2X4)
Gigabyte h67-ma-usb-b3
Resolution 1920x1080

Is there any reason why i should upgrade my cpu ? Or buy a new pc altogether ?

Update: Thanks for the replies guys. Do you know if i will need any extra fans or cooling system to keep the gpu temp down ?For some reason my current gpu gets really hot when iddling(50C) and 90C when gaming.Keep in mind that its factory overclocked.

Can you reccomend any SSD compatible with my MOBO? Do you know if Samsung 840 Evo is?

Joseph DeGarmo · Sep 22, 2014

PCI-E 2.0 will bottleneck the 980 by a marginal amount. Same goes with the CPU. Since you are gaming at 1080p, an i7-4790k, z97 motherboard, and a GTX 970 will work out quite nicely.

smackers_12 · Sep 22, 2014

The 2500 is a perfectly powerful cpu and will not bottleneck the 980. Pci-e 2.0 is still fine for a 980. I have seen at least 3 threads today and yesterday about a 980 with a 2500/2500k, please search the forum before posting

guanyu210379 · Sep 22, 2014

1. Upgrading the proc == upgrading the mobo. In my opinion, it is not yet the time to do to an I5 2500 so unless you want it.
2. Getting GTX980 will work just fine with your current mobo (PCIe2.0) and PSU. You can ignore the bottleneck of putting PCIe3.0 card in PCIe2.0 slot but I5 2500 might bottleneck GTX980 a tiny little bit but nothing to be a concern of.

I5 2500 might bottleneck GTX980 a bit but in my opinion, it is not yet the time to invest for a new mobo and proc. I would rather wait until DDR4 became mainstream then upgrade the proc, mobo and RAM-

VincentP · Sep 22, 2014

Core i5 2500 is perfectly fine. There is a reason it is still in the top tier on the CPU hierarchy list:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-5.html

As for PCI-E 2.0 being an issue, have a look at this article:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Ivy_Bridge_PCI-Express_Scaling/23.html

This is for the GTX 680 which is a bit slower, but these banchmarks show not only is PCI-E 2.0 x16 enough for a GTX 680, but PCI-E 2.0 x8 gives 98% of the frame rate at PCI-E 2.0 x16 and even PCI-E 2.0 x4 gives 94%. By comparison PCI-E 3.0 x16 gave 101% of the frame rate with PCI-E 2.0 x16.
PCI-E 2.0 x16 is heaps for the GTX 980.

sizon199 · Sep 22, 2014

guanyu210379 :

Sounds great .Thats what i will end up doing.

sizon199 · Sep 22, 2014

smackers_12 :

Nice to know. I will keep this in mind next time

guanyu210379 · Sep 22, 2014

Yup, just get the GTX980 for now.

sizon199 · Sep 22, 2014

VincentP :

Great! So i should install the 980 to the PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16) and i will see almost no performance dip ?

Swede69 · Sep 22, 2014

980GTX was such a let down, I really was hoping it would compete with my 2x 770 SC ACX Sli, too bad many next year Nvidia!

sizon199 · Sep 22, 2014

guanyu210379 :

By the way , do you have any knowledge around SSDs ?

sizon199 · Sep 22, 2014

Swede69 :

Well i cant run SLI on my mobo :S .

guanyu210379 · Sep 22, 2014

sizon199 :

Another great boost for your system is an SSD.
I used SSD since 3 years now, even since my Q6600 rig.
I would never build any new rig without an SSD ever again.

SSD will not add any extra fps on gaming but will speed up the loading screen, booting time, etc.
Opening programs will be a lot faster and your rig will feel a lot more resposive.

If you do not have any SSD yet.
I would recommend getting Samsung 840 EVO and at least 250GB or more.

sizon199 · Sep 22, 2014

guanyu210379 :

Yes! I just updated my post . My friend has a Samsung 840 Evo and its real fast. I love how responsive it is. But i m not familiar with SATA so i dont really know if its compatible with my MOBO.

guanyu210379 · Sep 22, 2014

sizon199 :

Don't worry! it is compatible with sour SATA.
Any SATA3 HDDs/SSDs are compatible even with SATA2, it just that they will run slower on SATA2 than on SATA3.

The only thing that could be a problem is only your mobo BIOS, I dunno 100% if it is compatible with your BIOS but it is worth to try. The possibility that it will run on your mobo is a lot higher than that it will not run.

sizon199 · Sep 22, 2014

guanyu210379 :

:| My current HDD has about 110 Seq ,and the SSD has 500(but running on sata 3). On sata 2 i will get half speed (250) which is only double from my current speed

.
I ve read that samsung offers a program called magician that can speed up the drive furthermore but it consumes 3 gb of ram.

guanyu210379 · Sep 22, 2014

sizon199 :

1. About the SATA thing, Gigabyte h67-ma-usb-b3 has 2xSATA3 (600) according to the datasheet, you just have to connect it there.
2. I never installed extra software to speed the SSD up. I have no experience about the magician stuffs.

sizon199 · Sep 22, 2014

guanyu210379 :

Lol, i picked wrong solution. I wanted to choose the one you talked about the upgrade so anyone with the same query can see it. Any way to change it?
I can only see this : SATA 6Gb/s . Does this mean its SATA 3?
And SATA 3GB/S = SATA 2?

guanyu210379 · Sep 22, 2014

sizon199 :

Yup,
SATA3 = 6Gbps
SATA2 = 3Gbps

It is easy to fix,
The SATA2 and SATA3 are on different SATA mobo ports.
Look at the mobo manual to find which ones are SATA3 and which ones are SATA2.
Connect the HDD/SSD accordingly.

GTX 980 upgrade questions

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