I5 750 Bottleneck for new Graphics Cards?

[nsouter853]

Hello! I am in the process of helping my friend upgrade his rig. It was originally built a few years ago with an i5 750 and two radeon hd 4850's in crossfire. He is now considering an upgrade, but will really only need to replace the graphics cards, and maybe the motherboard and processor.

Would his i5 750 processor bottleneck a modern graphics card such as the GTX 660 Ti or Radeon 7870? His motherboard has the required slots for these (PCI-E 2.0, but the 3.0 cards work fine in 2.0 slots I've been told, never tried it though) and his power supply is powerful enough. The shame would be if we threw in a nice new graphics card only to be bottlenecked by the 1st gen i5 750 processor.

What are your thoughts on this?

 

[drums101]

his i5 will be plenty for a 7870 or lower.....also same with the pcie 2.0 mobo there will be no performance loss there...if he wanted to put his mind at ease he could oc his cpu a little bit if he hasnt done so already....a good cooler for that which is cheap is the coolermaster hyper 212+ or the hyper 212 evo

 

[mocchan]

I know that an i3 2120 won't bottleneck a GTX660 Ti, so taking that into consideration... http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/109?vs=289

The i5 750 and i3 2120 perform almost the same, so I'm pretty sure he won't have any issues with anything up to a 660 Ti.

Also drums101 recommendation of OCing his chip is a GREAT recommendation. He could squeeze out more performance out of his chip

 

[nsouter853]

Thanks for both replies, I'm really not all that familiar with the Lynnfield architecture.

So I've decided to advise him to pick up a CM Hyper 212 evo first of all, and will OC his CPU a bit. That was a GREAT suggestion, thanks guys.

Second I'm gonna advise him to pick up a Radeon 7870. Not going for the 660 Ti because of the memory bus (is that it?). Either way, it will be a good improvement for him.

 

[mocchan]

Great choices! However, I would HIGHLY recommend waiting a week before purchasing the HD7870. AMD has just announced a $50 price cut on their 7970,7950,7870's so it will be worth the wait IMO.

 

[nsouter853]

Great choices! However, I would HIGHLY recommend waiting a week before purchasing the HD7870. AMD has just announced a $50 price cut on their 7970,7950,7870's so it will be worth the wait IMO.

Oh! Perfect! Thanks for the info, he's not in a total rush so waiting a week will be perfect. Thanks mate! Cheers!

 

[mocchan]

He couldn't have picked a better time to purchase a card! :lol:

You're very welcome and good luck to you and your buddy!

 

[drums101]

yea man good luck with the new card and oc and mocchan great idea waiting a week remember hearing that but didnt think of it...hopefully nvidia responds in a similar fashion

 

[mocchan]

Definitely...the 660Ti is very tempting at the moment :lol: still out of my budget, though

And even though I like both the Red and Green side, I would prefer Nvidia at the moment due to how well they perform for the $$$...

 

[drums101]

yea man I hear ya....life sucks lol I wish I could just splurge on computer parts whenever I want....now I gotta plan spending on my computer for months/years before it happens haha...I am STILL running 285's in SLI from 2009 lol been planning out a GPU upgrade since 2010 hasnt happened lol

 

[mocchan]

Man that must be tough with all the new shiny toys out now...lol

My brother recently stole my 560 Ti, and I miss it badly :lol: I planned to keep it for the next long while, but boy with me not having it now (doesn't look like he'll give it back either), an upgrade keeps looking better and better.

 

[drums101]

yea it is hard to refrain from getting some new pc parts but I got other *** to spend my money on too lol namely guns and my car.....that sucks about ur bro stealing it....you should do a covert raid and jack it back haha

 

[mocchan]

Haha yeah, our other hobbies/priorities sure do take up money :lol:

And oooh, I plan to do something very evil to him for this later on... -snickers-

 

[drums101]

haha nice thats good gotta get revenge for taking your card. working with a 6870 is not pretty trying to play bf3 on any res higher than 1680x1050

 

[mocchan]

Definitely...I can feel the performance hit @1080p... Made me depressed for awhile but I got used to it, haha.

 

[drums101]

yea it amazing what kind of crappy performance you get used to...I am used to like 50fps avg in bf3 with my setup....that doesnt sound bad but it has micro stutter up the ass big time....makes everything feel delayed...I noticed with my system I get micro stutter at any fps below like 95.

 

[mocchan]

Ah dang, 50 FPS really doesn't sound bad, but add stuttering into the equation and that's just a pain in the ***.

And anything below 95 FPS? that's even worse

 

[drums101]

yea man its weird...also add in the terrible driver support for old cards and SLI I have random BSOD's every now and then and for some reason Call of duty games (ones made by infinity ward) drop out SLI at random times. this is a known issue not just me it makes playing mw3 impossible (the game sucks anyways lol)

 

[mocchan]

lack of driver support FTL! Man I don't know how you cope with those cards, seems like you should be the one complaining about an upgrade more than me.

Anyways I'm going to bed now have fun, drums!

@ OP Good luck!