Upgrading my PC: Video Card Upgrade Path Question

grufftech

Distinguished
Aug 4, 2011
1
0
18,510
So i'm planning on upgrading my system. Haven't done so in about 4 ish years, and its time to upgrade.

[cpp]Summary
CPU
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.00GHz 46 °C
Wolfdale 45nm Technology
RAM
8.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 479MHz (5-7-7-22)
Motherboard
EVGA 132-CK-NF78 (Socket 775) 41 °C
Graphics
SMBX2431 (1920x1080@60Hz)
512MB GeForce 8800 GTS 512 (BFG Tech) 75 °C
512MB GeForce 8800 GTS 512 (BFG Tech) 71 °C
SLI Enabled
Hard Drives
63GB SAMSUNG SAMSUNG MMCRE64G5MXP SCSI Disk Device (RAID)
488GB Seagate ST350063 0NS SCSI Disk Device (RAID)[/cpp]


Planning on upgrading to the new Sandy Bridge.

MSI P67A-G45 (B3) LGA 1155 Intel P67
Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
Corsair CWCH60 Hydro Series H60 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB

But where i keep getting tripped up, is my VGA.

Seen above, I have dual GeForce 8800 GTS 512's in SLI. Now, those cards are SEVERAL generations behind.

According to this
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card-game-performance-radeon-hd-6670,2935-7.html

(published May 2011)

My card is somewhere around 9 from the "top". The card i'm looking at, is the GeForce 560 TI. 5 spaces ahead of my 8800GTS.

Where i'm stumped though, is my 8800GTS's are in SLI, so they're significantly more powerful then just a single 8800GTS 512. It says not to upgrade within 3 teirs, because you may not feel a improvement. Well I want to feel an improvement.

Will the GeForce 560 TI out perform my SLI 8800GTS 512's?

I want everything on this system to outperform my old, with still room to grow. (space for more memory, i can buy a better CPU if i wanted it, add in a second video card, so on and so forth. )

(also i do overclock quiet a bit, right now my settings are stock to get a baseline. also my memory is ***, i know. )
 

fatfatr

Distinguished
Nov 15, 2009
133
0
18,680
If you really want DX11 and troll on the forums because you can't play all games with maxed eyecandy, go ahead and buy the a 560 or two. If you want to save some cash, don't upgrade since you won't notice much of a real world difference and you'll be disappointed.
 
It would be a significant upgrade, but it would definitely be the weak part of that build.

To remove all doubt go with a GTX570. Get yourself phat, good quality psu so you can add another down the road and for overclocking. You won't need to overclock your cpu for one GTX570, but for 2 you will.