7970 on H77 mobo

[Petkevicius]

Hello, community.

I am planning to build a new machine for my friend. As most of you, he wants a quite and fast gaming PC. As a friend I am interested to save some money for him, but I am not sure if it would be rational in this case: H77 motherboard with i5-3450 and Vapor-X 7970 3GB. Theoretically, each of the components offers good/great performance. But now I have some doubts, does that i5-3450 match 7970? Since OC is probably out of question (silence ir very important), is there any point to invest ~140$ extra for Z77 and i5-3570K (aftermarket cooler counted in)?
So the main two questions are:
1. Is i5-3450 enough (is a match) for 7970 GHz 3GB?
2. Would Z77 provide any benefits for 7970 except OC?

Thanks in advance,
Paulius.

 

[ilysaml]

Basic gaming components, CPU+GPU to get the most performance possible, MOBO doesn't matter in the FPS world but a high end chipset offer additional features.

1- There's no problem going i5-3450 and HD 7970
2- No.

 

[apache_lives]

H77 + 7970 will work fine (same IMC, 16x PCIE etc)

7970 + i5 will work fine (i5 is esentially an i7 with no hyperthreading (depending on series/model) -- about the same performance)

just whatever you do here DO NOT skimp out on motherboard brand (only use Gigabyte or ASUS, i love ASUS) or PSU -- branded true wattage only -- ask on the forums for suggestions (Corsair is GREAT).