Need Expert advice regarding Video Card decision

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avalach21

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Hey guys. So I am helping my girlfriend put together her first desktop. She has wanted to for a long time, but now she finally has a good job and a boyfriend who knows how to build them so we're gonna put one together over the next month or 2 and watch for black friday/holiday deals.

We have a pretty solid build mapped out centered around a core i5-4690k.

Some of the main games she wants to play are Portal 2, Borderlands 2, Torchlight 2 and Starcraft II etc.

But all that aside, I've been toying with the idea of giving her the Videocard from my current computer, since I can pretty much max all those games out @ 1080p. She won't be playing anything much more intensive, like any FPS or any openworld games or anything, and then I can use it as an excuse to upgrade my own video card.

My current build I built 5 years ago (~black friday of 09), but it's still going pretty strong IMO. I have an i5 750 overclocked to 3.6ghz with 8 gigs of RAM and an HD5850.

I was considering upgrading to a GTX970 and just giving her my HD5850, since I would be doing more intensive gaming than her, and she wouldn't mind saving a bit on her build. Do you think a GTX 970 would be "bottlenecked" by my 5 year old i5 750? I guess the main thing I want to run in the coming months is GTA V.

Just looking for some gurus to weigh in on this or if we should just get her a fresh new vid card and build me an all new fresh rig in the next year or whatever.
 
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lullemannen90


No, it will work fine. All processors can do the same things, but at a different speed (some slower and some faster). You're processor is overclocked so it shouldn't be a problem. It also depends on the games, some demands more of the CPU than others. Go for it, if it doesn't work the way you want it to, you can always return it ;)
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lullemannen90

lullemannen90

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No, I don't think it will bottleneck (if it does, then not by much). I have a GTX 770 and a i7-860 @2.80ghz and I can play all my games at ultra, such as BF4. Games rely more on the GPU than the CPU (in most cases).
 
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beetlejuicegr

beetlejuicegr

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An HD 5850 will be above fine for her. Plus none of the games you reffer to is a visually extremely heavy game. Plus, important part is your monitor. If you are at 1080p then you are fine. I have personal experience on this.
I had an ATI HD 5870 and an i5 2500k. I was playing ALL games you referred to easily at 1920x1200 max settings! The only games i had to lose ultra settings and go down to medium/high were Crysis3 and the like. She will have a stronger cpu, i doubt she will have ANY issues .

Also your strategy is fine. I have been trading to my wife's pc and my mother's in law pc my hardware when i upgrade mine. IT works miracles and keeps the cost of the overall hardware cost in the house at minimum.

But on your side.
Your i5-750 is not that strong if you start playing games like World of warcraft and the like because these games are what we call cpu bound. Other cpu bound games could be LoL, Robocraft etc. My initial setup some years ago was i7-920 @ 4ghz and HD4890and i jumped instantly to HD5870.
Due to a stupid move from myself i damaged the motherboard and i had to make an upgrade. So i went to i5-2500k. There was a signigicant increase on frames per second on ALL games not just the cpu bound!. I assume this would happen to you too if you changed your cpu/mobo.

A GTX 970 costs about 400euro, thats like 550 $?
Why dont you do this..
Do the upgrade to your gf's pc but dont buy a GTX 970. Instead buy a card like R9 280
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/search.asp?keywords=r9+280
and get a new cpu and mobo (i3 4th gen). Why? because simply you can upgrade your cpu way later 2-3 years :).
The old ram will be used no extra cost there . the cost of all this should be at the price of gtx 970 AND your pc, i can guarantee you it will be way more balanced. Nothing will bottleneck anything, unless you wanna use 3 monitors. (gtx 970 also needs just to be sure a 500++ watt psu)

So think about it, i bet you can also sell the i5 750 and the board on ebay or smth and lower the cost even more, perhaps going to i5 with that money calculated in (i5 first gen boards are sold high due to absence in the market)

I believe that in many cases your i5-750 will bottleneck your GTX970.
 
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avalach21

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^^ thanks for your input. The GTX 970 is only ~$330. I figure it's less than a new console and would allow me to play all the new games coming out at better settings/fps than the consoles can do.

WoW is really that CPU intensive? I mean, I know they do some pretty significant updates to the game, but its still the same base engine. And my 2001 PC with a Single Core 2.0 GHZ Pentium 4 ran that game no problem at launch. Haven't played the game since Burning Crusade maybe on that PC, I'm sure it wouldnt run it anymore but... geeze.

Any other examples of CPU intensive games out there?
 
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lullemannen90

lullemannen90

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No, it will work fine. All processors can do the same things, but at a different speed (some slower and some faster). You're processor is overclocked so it shouldn't be a problem. It also depends on the games, some demands more of the CPU than others. Go for it, if it doesn't work the way you want it to, you can always return it ;)
 
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