Looking to replace my GPU on an older motherboard Sabertooth x58

Malakor

Commendable
Nov 12, 2016
2
0
1,510
Hey guys and gals. First time poster, long time noob. So bear with me if I don't give all the information required to allow you all to help me. Currently I am looking to upgrade just my GPU and nothing else. I am hoping there is a decent GPU out there that is compatible with my motherboard. Thank you all for your time and input.

Sabertooth x58, PCI-E 2.0 x16
EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti ‑ 2 GB GDDR5
i7 960 @ 3.20GHz (8CPUs)
BIOS Ver: 08.00.15
12GB RAM
750W power supply
Windows 8.1 64 bit

I have been looking at cards like:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814137054&ignorebbr=1

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487291&ignorebbr=1

After some research I believe they would work, but I wanted to ask people who know for sure. So I am not wasting my time and money. Also I would love any suggestions you experts have on the right card for me. Again thank you for your time.



 

clutchc

Titan
Ambassador
Either of those cards should be fine with that motherboard. If it were me, I'd look at a slightly faster card than the 1050 ti if this is for gaming. The aging i7 quad core with HT can still keep up with maybe a 1060 3GB or an RX-480 4GB. Both are ~$200.
 

Malakor

Commendable
Nov 12, 2016
2
0
1,510


Thank you for the reply and advice. What is HT? And do you think by going with a faster card I would be asking too much of my CPU?

Edit: So I did some research and may have answered my own question. HT is Hyper-Threading which comes with my i7 960. Delivers two processing threads per physical core. Highly threaded applications can get more work done in parallel, completing tasks sooner.
 

clutchc

Titan
Ambassador


Exactly. HT is not quite as good as a real core. But usually adds ~10% performance boost over an identical non-HT processor when gaming. Occasionally much more depending on the task.

Your processor will be fine with any of those cards mentioned above. Many folks don't worry about cpu bottleneck and run much faster cards with weaker CPUs. Basically... if your gfx card can't run at 100% usage when needed, the CPU may be holding it back. If you never get 100% usage from your gfx card, you've wasted money.