Upgrading to Geforce 660ti: Need advice

[Potty391]

Hi everyone,

I've been looking to upgrade to the MSI GTX 660ti Power Edition OC. I have some questions regarding the potential upgrade, I'll firstly post my current specs:

Motherboard: MSI Intel G31M3 (MS-7528)
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 @ 3ghz
RAM: 4gb DDR2 800Mhz
GPU: MSI Nvidia Geforce 9800GT 512mb
PSU: 450W

I'm not sure about the brand of the power supply (haven't checked the label in ages), but I'm assuming it has to be of fairly high quality to be able to power as much as it is already.

Also, I should mention that the PC is primarily for gaming.

So, the questions that I have are as follows:
1. Will my current setup cause any bottlenecks?
2. Will the PCI-E x16 1.0 slot be enough for the card? What, if any, will the performance drop/hit be?
3. I know I need to upgrade the power supply: How much power will I need for my system with the new card?
4. How much of an increase in frames per second will I notice (percentage guesstimate)?

I was thinking I can buy the card now, if my current setup will allow it and then upgrade the motherboard, CPU and RAM at a later stage. Or would this not be adviseable?

Thanks in advance,
Charl

 

[envy14tpe]

1. Wow, that's an old CPU. Actually your whole system is way outdated.
2. 1.0? That's really low end. Yikes. Also, do you have room in the case? The power connectors, for the MSI 660, are on the side; which means they lead out to side wall. The 560Ti run towards front of case, much better for cable management.
3. The MSI recommendation is 500W minimum. I run 520W with no problems.
4. I got a huge jump from 560 Ti to 660 Ti, but I have 2500k and 8GB RAM.

You really need to upgrade the PSU and RAM. However, I think you are really better off upgrading everything. You could get a 560Ti, and use some money to upgrade MOBO and RAM.

 

[Potty391]

I realise it's old. Perhaps I should just upgrade it all in one go, I could probably afford it.

What would you recommend me upgrading to then? I obviously want a quad core and at least 8gb's of RAM. If this is too much of a deviation from the original question, must I make a new thread about this?

 

[bigcyco1]

Hate to half to agree with envy14pe but to a certain extent i do

 

[confish21]

its not that old, buy the gpu and have some fun. Upgrade the rest when u need to.

 

[Potty391]

OK, so now my question is:

How much would the performance difference be if I was to upgrade all the components (Mobo, RAM and CPU) compared to staying with what I have now?

 

[envy14tpe]

One way to find out. You could just buy the 660ti. Then check out how your fps and game performance. If you get much lower fps then benchmarks and it stutters a lot, then I think you know what you need to do. However, you would need a new PSU too.

Including MSI 660, I think you could build a great desktop (without monitor and Windows 7) for $1000.

 

[Potty391]

Best answer selected by Potty391.

 

[envy14tpe]

If you do buy the 660ti, please post your results. Use "Fraps" to measure fps, and use a time period of at least 3 minutes. I'm very curious as to how a $300 GPU performs on your system.

 

[bigcyco1]

If you do buy the 660ti, please post your results. Use "Fraps" to measure fps, and use a time period of at least 3 minutes. I'm very curious as to how a $300 GPU performs on your system.

+1 please...

 

[Potty391]

Will do. I'm now planning on building an entirely new PC from scratch, but I'll put the graphics card in my old PC to see what it would be like.

I figured I could just as well modernise my PC a little bit. The parts I'm looking at are:

Motherboard MSI Z77A-G43 LGA 1155 ATX Intel Z77 Desktop Motherboard (or better, not sure yet)
CPU Intel Core i5 -3570K 3.4ghz
RAM 8GB RAM (2x4gb) DDR3-1600
GPU MSI Geforce 660ti 2GB PCI-E 3.0
PSU Between 550-600W
Case ??

 

[envy14tpe]

You are buying the 3570K. That means you want to overclock it, so you need to buy a better cooler.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065
Everybody that overclocks their CPU uses a non stock cooler.

Just make sure you get a big enough case. You can't get decent ones for $50. Unless you need to move it I'd suggest a ATX-full case. I bought a ATX-mid, and I feel like everything is crammed. Also, I can't put cabling behind mobo so I have a big mess under my GPU at the bottom of the case.

Also, notice that the MSI 660ti has power connectors that come out the side of it, as opposed to opposite HDMI and DVI connectors. It makes the 2 power cords point toward casing wall. I think it's stupid.

http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/partlist/

 

[bigcyco1]

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[Potty391]

You are buying the 3570K. That means you want to overclock it, so you need to buy a better cooler.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065
Everybody that overclocks their CPU uses a non stock cooler.

Just make sure you get a big enough case. You can't get decent ones for $50. Unless you need to move it I'd suggest a ATX-full case. I bought a ATX-mid, and I feel like everything is crammed. Also, I can't put cabling behind mobo so I have a big mess under my GPU at the bottom of the case.

Also, notice that the MSI 660ti has power connectors that come out the side of it, as opposed to opposite HDMI and DVI connectors. It makes the 2 power cords point toward casing wall. I think it's stupid.

http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/partlist/

Yup, I want to overclock it to around 4.0ghz if I can. That should be more than powerful enough for me and should last me a good couple of years.

Thanks for all your advice so far