N0BOX said:
As I understand it, the 680 performs just slightly slower than the 580. It might be best to wait for the 780 if you are looking for a decent jump in CUDA processing for the amount of money you have to spend for the x80-series cards. Obviously, however, the GTX 690 totally and completely puts the 560Ti to shame.
Keep in mind that if you spend the money on an overpowered GPU, it is an investment that can follow you to a new system. As for CPUs being a 'bottleneck' to the processing power of a GPU, you have to consider what, exactly, the GPU is being used for. If you are doing huge amounts of processing on a small amount of data, then it doesn't matter if the PCIE bus is PCIE1.0 or 2.0 (or 3.0, now), because there isn't a lot of data being passed back and forth across the PCIE bus. If you are doing huge amounts of processing on large data sets, then you will see huge performance gains by upgrading your CPU/motherboard/RAM to catch up with the GPU.
For HD editing, I would imagine that there is quite a lot of data being transferred, so it would make sense to have a fast PCIE bus and the available CPU and RAM to feed it.
I'm not sure what you're really looking for here, though... Do you need a faster computer than you currently have? There's nothing I could tell you that could really serve to justify you waiting for new technology to surface, nor anything that I could tell you that would justify buying a new system now.
To be brutally honest, my current machine is a mess of compromise- it was intended as a short-term (1-1.5 years) stopgap machine. It's modified stock, the inside is cramped and has NO cable management whatsoever, the case hits 90 easily when i start opening the taps, it has one tiny 80mm case fan pushing air out, and the processor sucks six ways to hell- it's an OEM processor and outdated when i got it.
Because of this, i have to keep everything on the down-low, otherwise the machine becomes incredibly unstable- BSOD is the least of my worries. The mobo also sucks something awful, there aren't enough expansion slots, and i've maxxed out what this machine can do.
I was thinking about piecing this machine out and selling it- i've only got about 400 invested in it personally, and most of that is the 560ti, which i've got a buyer for already.
I'm about to take the next step in editing and work on some really heavy effects, and i really dont think that this machine could survive it, that's why i was asking.
However, if i just swap out the mobo, i could put this into my new case for now and OC the hell outta it. The thing i'm worried about is, again, the bottleneck, even with the OC, as this processor is from late '10. The 560ti is a solid card, dont get me wrong, but the jump in the number of CUDA cores from the 5xx to the 6xx series is something to behold.
I just don't want to shell out the 3000+ (liquid cooling hasn't been added into the price yet), and find out that Haswell kicks six kinds of arse to sunday and my Sandy Bridge E has been beaten by the new i5.
So that's my problem. Stuck between two generations, willing to shell out the cash, but hesitant, since Sandy Bridge is an aging process.
If you could spec me a machine for me to build today, i'll talk it over with my buddy (He's helping me with the H20 cooling), that would be nice. I found a 4G version of the 670 that looks pretty nice.
If you think it's worth waiting for Haswell and to just shell out $200 for a new mobo and OC it, tell me so.