Will my setup be of any bottleneck if I get the 670GTX?

XYMan

Honorable
Jun 16, 2012
166
0
10,710
Hi.

This might be a no brainer for most of you guys to tell if my setup will actually be a bottleneck if I bought a 670GTX but I need you to bare with me on this one because I'm still saving up for the big purchase of almost $5k and I'm just trying to buy some of the pieces alone to make it easier for me to actually buy the whole thing in the end.

I already bought the monitor, keyboard, mouse and headset which you might think is funny but they ran me about 750$ and I sure as hell don't want to buy the full PC with money that I don't have and make the payment method as divided monthly payments so I found this buying parts individually pretty smart (gimme credits for thinking of that all by myself :3)

Anyways, lets get to it.

Motherboard: Gigabyte EP35C-DS3R
CPU: Intel Q8200 @ 2.33Ghz w/stock cooler (NOT OC'ed)
RAM: 6GB of 1333Mhz (4GB stick + 2GB stick)
PSU: Stock ass 500W

It's pretty pathetic I know but I've seen other similar setups that had same CPU or same motherboard (not in the same setup) and the owners said they were getting a pretty close result to what the actual benchmarks of this website provided to some games, the threads to those setups were really vague so I didn't get much out of if there were other problems like crashes, freezes (hardware collisions and whatnot). So I wanted to start a new thread and ask you guys what you think.

I already checked out the PSU and a website said that the 670GTX actually has the same power consumption as the GTX560TI which a friend of mine already has and he said everything is running fine and dandy with his 550W PSU, so I'm pretty confident with what I have.

I also checked out the RAM and most guys said 6GB will be a minimum amount for games like Battlefield 3 (which is the main game I play).

I should also add that I monitored my hardware performance while playing BF3 @ Low settings (which all I can run the game on o.o) and saw that both CPU and RAM didn't pass the 80% load while the graphics card reached the 99% limit. Now I know if I actually got the 670GTX and everything was compatible and I could run the game at High settings lets say the CPU and RAM theoretically would be doing considerably more amount of work that they did with the Low preset, but then again, I took in consideration that graphics is usually handled by the graphics card itself mainly so maybe in this case I'm relying on the graphics card itself too much that I'm neglecting that the CPU and RAM can do a major bottleneck for me.

So to summer up, will the 670GTX be compatible with what I have now taking in consideration an 80-90% efficiency from the card instead of a deadly 40% or lower with a nasty bottleneck from one of the parts?

I should remind you that this card will also be used in the future setup that I'm gonna buy (hopefully), so I need it, if not now, then for later.


Thanks in advance.
Have a great life :3
 
Solution
considering the socket 2011 hexacore you are planning on the h100(works w/s775 too)
is a good choice but like you say don't know if it can do much with your C2Q8200. you
said you ran BF3 on ultra? using what card? what fps? at 1080p? if you are running it
on a lower end card at 1080p i am guessing your fps bites(at least if you plan to be
competitive in multiplayer, single player gameplay is a little more forgiving for the gpu
and apparently a lot more forgiving for the cpu. if you are getting low fps at high res
on a lower spec card, you may be in a situation where your card is taking so long to
render frames that the cpu is sitting there waiting for the gpu to get done and say
"please sir, may i have some more?" A faster card at the...

XYMan

Honorable
Jun 16, 2012
166
0
10,710



Thanks for the suggestion.

I wouldn't say I have any mind in picking up a better cooler, the current one has some pins smashed with its stupid ass Intel 4 pin design. But I can't get a newer power supply because the whole point of purchasing this card at this time is to try and get it working with a good efficiency level without having to upgrade everything else in my PC, that includes the PSU as it would pull me off a good amount of bucks even though I don't really have to since I read that a 550W is enough for a 670GTX, I have to drop my 2nd storage HDD to make the card work comfortably with my 500W but I wouldn't want to purchase a new one for sure.

The 670GTX is the ideal choice for me when it comes to performance and price, a less/more performance would be painful/overkill for my needs and a more expensive card would add considerable amount of money to its cost for any massive performance gain. So I'll stick with the 670GTX. Plus I read the 560TI is bugged as hell for some reason, so I wouldn't wanna bid my money on the same crap.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Don't buy the card.


You've been sold on marking hype and you're emotionally attached to the numbers 670. GTX 560TI is a very good card, and there are many cheaper cards that are very worth considering. Judging by the way you reject all other options -- You're not here for advice, but instead you seem to be trying to justify your purchase.

You should also be aware that you've been tricked into buying very over priced computer parts. No reasonable PC costs more than $1200-$1600 including monitor & OS. Maybe my numbers are debatable but no way you can reasonably defend a $5000 purchase. Especially not when in the same line you tell me that it's such a significant price versus your income that you'll have to save up for it.


I think you should seriously reconsider your spending habits and seriously limit your budget. Unfortunately, I don't think you can.

I think you've lost control.

have a great life :3
 

XYMan

Honorable
Jun 16, 2012
166
0
10,710



lol, I knew one of you will go psychological on my ass but you're kind of right, I do want a justification for my purchase more than an advice. But the thing is, I want that 670 so bad because of its Multi View capability. You see, I work in the graphics designing industry and I need those 3 monitors. I was actually gonna buy the 560TI at first, but then I saw a couple of friends do and have lots of bugs with them, so I googled their problems and apparently other people were having the exact same problems, so I closed the deal on that card, then I moved to the 570GTX, and it looked perfect, every aspect of it, but then I saw that it doesn't support those sweet 3 monitors, it wasn't an instant close to me. I looked for other ways to make a third monitor work and found some DVI to USB conversion methods but the sellers said you will not have the same color quality for that monitor as you would want because it's using the onboard CPU graphics, that too also wasn't an instant close for me for that card, what sealed the deal is that the 670GTX with all its glory can run with WAY less power consumption than the 570GTX, so I said I can run that card on my current PC if there wasn't any true bottlenecks that basically killed the card to perform 30-40% of its performance and still have it when I get a newer PC and install it there.


If you're curious, this is what I want in my setup:

CPU: Intel i7 3930K
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100
Motherboard: Asus P9X79 Deluxe
Memory: Corsair 4x8GB Dominator (CMP32GX3M4X1600C10) (very important to have that)
VGA Card: Asus 670GTX of course
Hard Disks: WD 2TB Black + WD 3TB Green
SSD: Corsair 120GB
PSU: Corsair HX1050 Silver
Case: Corsair CC600TM
Keyboard: Corsair K90 (have it)
Headset: Corsair 1500 (have it)
Mouse: Corsair M90 (have it)
Monitor: 3xDell U2312HM (have 1)

It does reach a little more than $4k, after all I live in Israel so everything here is like 20% than the US.

Sooo yeah. Back to the real question, can the card have a serious bottleneck? :3
 

XYMan

Honorable
Jun 16, 2012
166
0
10,710



The PSU came with the NZXT Alpha MidiATX Gaming Case, I can't find a proper link for the case with that specific PSU.
 

jtenorj

Distinguished
i think it is entirely possible that your cpu and maybe your ram may seriously bottleneck
the gtx670 at higher graphical settings. the cpu will likely be sending more world detail
geometry to the gpu(alot more) and my be called to perform more calculations for a
higher level of physics simulation. The higher texture settings may have a eat further
into your ram usage to the point that you are thrashing with the hard drive. since your
Q8200(only 2x2MB l2 cache) is running at 2.33(7x333) and your mem is 1333 same as
your fsb speed(333x4) I really don't see you being able to overclock much at all.

what exactly are you wanting to do with your pc once you have all the parts? are you
just wanting to mainly game at 6mpixels or do you need that intel hexacore with the
required x79 mobo and quad channel mem to do actual work with heavily thread apps
or a lot of heavy multi-tasking? You said you considered gtx560ti and gtx570 for triple
but they couldn't support it like you like so you went with a newer geforce. Have issues
with HD5000,6000 or 7000 series gpus with eyefinity? I know even the newer HD7000
cards don't have as good gaming power efficiency as the gtx600 Kepler based cards but
not sure a gtx670 will be enough for triple monitor in the long run. Maybe work triple
monitor but game 1080p using 7850, 7870 or GTX660ti? If all you want is to game you
can get less ram than 32GB(2x4), a core i5k processor and a decent z77 mobo( as well
as a lower watt power supply since you might not do cf/sli due to microstuttering) and
a much less expensive but effective dual fan air cooler like corsair a70.

and if you do want triple monitor on a single card a 7950(w new boost bios) or 7970
(ghz ed. or not) further overclocked may serve you better. I know they use more power
according to hardocp the 7970 may have been the first single GPU card to make modern
titles at 6mpixel playable with relatively high settings.

Finally be wary of pushing that ?500w psu of yours. If it is lacking in high qualilty
components it may burn trying to pull 60-67% or more of its rating. your cpu is 95w and
a gtx670 is 170w not to mention your HDD, mobo, fans memory and optical. also you
need to know how many amps it has on the 12v rail since this is one of the single most
important aspects of a PSU in a modern pc( for both GPU and the CPU too since the
mobo takes 12v and chops it up into smaller bites for the cpu). forgot usb powered stuff
you are running off pc power as well. The motherboard does deliver some power to
GPU, All to CPU, ram and USB devices as well as supplying sound(pci/e or onboard) and
lan(same). oh, and the chipset(mostly usb and drive controllers anymore).
 

XYMan

Honorable
Jun 16, 2012
166
0
10,710





You're right about the OC thing, I read a thread here that said the max this CPU has to offer when it comes to OCing is getting from 2.33Ghz to 2.6Ghz which is utterly disappointing.

I do prefer the nVidia cards over the AMD ones because of their high CUDA cores, that helps a lot in 3D rendering. AMD cards are biased to being just gamer cards, not to mention hearing about much more bugs when it comes to gaming than the nVidia cardss.

What I want to do with my next PC is actually just game on 1 monitor and leave the other 2, I don't like gaming on the 3 because of the borders of the monitors being in the way, they bug me too much to have fun playing that wide. I just want the triple setup for graphics designing purposes only.

I just ran Battlefield 3 on Ultra preset and even then my CPU and RAM didnt pass the 90% load so I'm starting to really get into the idea of getting this card, it seems that its not gonna have a serious bottleneck afterall.

A new CPU cooler would still help anyways though.
 

jtenorj

Distinguished
considering the socket 2011 hexacore you are planning on the h100(works w/s775 too)
is a good choice but like you say don't know if it can do much with your C2Q8200. you
said you ran BF3 on ultra? using what card? what fps? at 1080p? if you are running it
on a lower end card at 1080p i am guessing your fps bites(at least if you plan to be
competitive in multiplayer, single player gameplay is a little more forgiving for the gpu
and apparently a lot more forgiving for the cpu. if you are getting low fps at high res
on a lower spec card, you may be in a situation where your card is taking so long to
render frames that the cpu is sitting there waiting for the gpu to get done and say
"please sir, may i have some more?" A faster card at the same res should get done
with those frames a lot faster and when it asks the same question of the cpu, it may
respond with "MORE!!!" implying it can't keep up with how fast the graphics card
wants to go. just a thought.

Also, did you read tom's review of the 660ti and look at and read about all the
compute benches of geforces versus radeons? Maybe it depends on what program
you are running whether one brand destroys the other or they are not far from
one another but combine the hd7000 series gcn architecture and the latest drivers
from amd and you have got a platform very potent for both games and compute.

also agree with you about single screen gaming versus multi. those bezels would
distract me to no end . there are some compound screens out there with mulitple
panels and no bezels between but they are uber expensive. plus if you get a good
enough card now it should be able to max games at 1080p for years to come.
one reason you may want to consider a cards amount of gddr5 on board. All those
high res textures eat up a lot of memory and if you run insane amounts of aa even
more so. another plus for radeon 7900s. there are a few 4GB 670/680 and a 3GB
660ti out there though. with the 660ti you may run into bandwidth or rop grunt
issues with high res textures (both) and aa(rops).
 
Solution