GPU vs. CPU power on my new build

kane0187

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Aug 19, 2011
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First time poster, long time lurker!

As I was sharing my proposed build with my friends, one of them brought up the possibility that my proposed GPU's will sacrifice a lot of power by being bottleknecked by my CPU.

What I'm looking for is to see if there is any large or serious disparity as I know this question depends on the type of use and particular application.

CPU
Intel i5 2500K - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072

GPU (x2)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130660

Any thoughts or suggestions?

I usually am gaming lower needs games like Starcraft 2, Heroes of Newerth, Team Fortress 2, Portal, etc.

Thanks!!
 

wathman

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Jun 22, 2009
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It's possible you might bottleneck some, but I haven't read anything recently that would clearly prove that you are wasting cash on the GPU side of the equation. What I can tell you for sure is that the next i7 processor up is not much of a performance boost over the i5 you picked.

If you have some time to tinker, build your rig with just 1 GPU in place and do some frame rate benchmarks in your games. Drop the second one in and compare your results. If the difference isn't more than a few fps, you have a bottleneck.
 

kane0187

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I guess no real reason for going SLI in particular. My desktop now is so bad I have no frame of reference for what is or isn't overkill.

I think I'll get a mobo that supports SLI but maybe take your recommendation and if need be, slap on a 2nd one later down the road.
 

nd_hunter

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He doesn't need anything near that powerful for the games he listed. And, he linked to a GTX 560, not GTX 560 Ti.
 

kane0187

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Yeah I've got a 24'' monitor that's running that resolution I believe so I'll be needing that! I'm also using a smaller 19'' that came with my original desktop just as a secondary monitor. Would that warrant any cause to go for the 2Gb if I bumped the 2nd monitor to a 24'' as well?
 

kane0187

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Awesome! That's what I'll be going with then! Thanks everyone for all your helpful advice and suggestions :love: