upgrading/nividia 770 pce-i 2.0/3.0 questions

BlitzKrieg

*ok* right forum this time.

Well I've had a very good set up for over 3 years without a single problem *touch wood* and I think with how little the next gen consoles interest me that its time I start giving my computer little touch ups here and there. One thing was to pick up a new graphics card, problem is they are all advertising that they use the pce-i 3.0 slots and I have 2.0 Now I understand the nvidia 600 series advertised 3.0 slots needed but really they didnt. But what about the newest cards like:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2013/05/31/nvidia-geforce-gtx-770-2gb-review/1

I cant find any threads post 2012 asking this question via google so I'd like to doublecheck I am not going to make a mistake.



Also my complete specs (3+ year old machine remember) Any other areas people recommend I tweak up which wont have me reinstalling windows and starting over:

Processor (CPU) AMD PHENOM II X4 955 (3.20GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3) - BLACK EDITION
Motherboard ASUS® M4A87TD/USB3: DUAL DDR3,SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0
Memory (RAM) 4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card 1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - DX® 11, 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 500GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD5002AALX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 32MB CACHE (7200rpm)
Power Supply 600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£59)
Processor Cooling SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

riggsfitz

As far as i'm aware. Pci-e standard is backward compatible. So you should have no hassle with a 3.0 card in a 2 0 slot.

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=228201

Just be carefully with the lenght of the card that it will fit your case. And that your psu can handle it too.

Any one please feel free to correct me if this isnt correct

beno619

Yep PCI-E is backwards compatible and I dont think gaming at 1080p maxes out gen 2's bandwidth yet.

If you are upgrading I would look at a 7970, 7950 or 760 the 770 is a terrible value proposition just like the 680.

BlitzKrieg

beno would you feel I'd need to get a new psu if I upgrade my card to a 760?

BloodBath

No this gen of Nvidia cards is one of their most power efficient ever.

I think the Phenom will bottleneck that card though.

beno619

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

beno would you feel I'd need to get a new psu if I upgrade my card to a 760?

The 760 draws about the same amount of power as the 560ti so you should be good.

A quick Google of your PSU says its made by "FSP group" who ODM for Silverstone & Zalman ect Im not that clued in on PSU's so couldn't comment on weather you should think about upgrading.

BlitzKrieg

BloodBath wrote: »

No this gen of Nvidia cards is one of their most power efficient ever.

I think the Phenom will bottleneck that card though.

and upgrading CPU is one of those *new installation of windows* changes right?

I know if I changed my MOBO if I dont do a lot of driver changes prior then I will be forced to re-install.

Besides not sure my mobo can support a newer cpu...

BloodBath

Well you're pretty much at the stage where if you want to upgrade your card you should also be upgrading your cpu and/or board. There's no point getting a new card if the cpu is going to limit its potential.

marco_polo

Looking at some of those techspot CPU performance reviews the 980 BE still does a decent job in single player even paired with a single GTX680/HD7970, so a 955 BE if overclocked to 3.7+ shouldn't be too much of a hindrance to something like a GTX760 particularly in the the GPU heavy stuff like Crysis 3,Far Cry 3, Metro last light etc.

It will of course pinch performance a fair bit for the usual CPU intensive stuff like SC2 and more than likely as well in larger scale multiplayer maps like Planetside Side 2, BF3 Arma II etc as well, but I wouldn't discount the upgrade option competely.

BloodBath

Have you got a link to that article?

marco_polo

BloodBath wrote: »

Have you got a link to that article?

Heres a handful of recent games, they used to have an index page for these but can't find it.

Metro Last Light

Crysis 3

Hitman

Tomb Raider

Far Cry 3

Bioshock Infinate

BloodBath

The phenom is clearly bottlenecking the card in all benchmarks. These are gpu intensive games as well, not cpu intensive.

If you can overclock it's not too bad but it's still bottlenecking the performance of newer cards.

marco_polo

BloodBath wrote: »

The phenom is clearly bottlenecking the card in all benchmarks. These are gpu intensive games as well, not cpu intensive.

If you can overclock it's not too bad but it's still bottlenecking the performance of newer cards.

I though I was pretty clear on that point.

"so a 955 BE if overclocked to 3.7+ shouldn't be too much of a hindrance to something like a GTX760 particularly in the the GPU heavy stuff like Crysis 3,Far Cry 3, Metro last light etc".

Like I said there is may be fairly minor bottlenecking in some cases for the most part but outside of Hitman (which the €180 FX8350 doesn't do much better in) there's hardly enough of a gap to justify a new board and CPU if those are the sort of games he will be playing, but plenty to justify getting a GTX760.

If he primarly plays alot of multiplayer, say 64 player BF3 maps for example, then there is a certainly an argument for spending less on the GPU and getting something like a HD7870/GTX660 instead.

If he was only playing CPU bound games like Starcraft 2 then there would probably be no point getting a new card at all.

As of yet he hasn't mentioned finding another €300 for a new CPU and motherboard so i am working n the presumption that it isn't an option .

So lets see how the 560Ti compares against the 980 with a top GPU ....

Metro last Light (1920X1200 High Quality):
560Ti: 31FPS
980BE + GTX Titan: 58FPS

Crysis 3 (1920X1200 Medium):
560Ti: 40FPS
980BE + GTX 680: 54FPS

Hitman (1920X1200 High):
560Ti: 31 FPS
980BE + HD7970GHz: 44FPS

Tomb Raider (1920X1200 Ultra):
560Ti: 28 FPS
980BE + HD7970GHz: 78 FPS

Far Cry 3 (1920X1200 Very high):
560Ti: 34 FPS
980BE + HD7970GHz: 57 FPS

Bioshock Infinite (1920X1200 Ultra):
560Ti: 32 FPS
980BE + HD7970GHz: 63 FPS

BloodBath

You did make it clear. My point is those games clearly show the cpu, even though it's overclocked, is significantly limiting the performance of the gpu. Forget about cpu intensive games. It's not as bad as I thought it would be but it's still in the region of 20%. This would be higher on a stock speed phenom.

How much better is a 760gtx (670gtx) than a 560ti? Knock 30% off the performance of the 760 and ask yourself is it worth it?

BlitzKrieg

If he primarly plays alot of multiplayer, say 64 player BF3 maps for example, then there is a certainly an argument for spending less on the GPU and getting something like a HD7870/GTX660 instead.

battlefield 4 would be the primary motive for considering an upgrade.


I have no problems at the moment running starcraft 2 (and currently Company of heroes 2)

but games like rome 2 would be on the horizon for me aswell.

As of yet he hasn't mentioned finding another €300 for a new CPU and motherboard so i am working n the presumption that it isn't an option.

It is an option, but its more the immense hassle it will cause when coupled with having to reinstall windows 7 + all my other content (which I am not 100% if I have a cd key for or not, bought my pc on pc specialist.co.uk and it came with windows 7 installed and no cd)

BloodBath

All of those are pretty cpu intensive. Combine that with the cpu limiting the gpu and you would be getting significantly less frame rates. SC2 and Rome afaik only use 2 cores.

If you are happy with your current performance then you should stick with it until you have the money to upgrade the cpu and board as well imo.

marco_polo

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

battlefield 4 would be the primary motive for considering an upgrade.


I have no problems at the moment running starcraft 2 (and currently Company of heroes 2)

but games like rome 2 would be on the horizon for me aswell.



It is an option, but its more the immense hassle it will cause when coupled with having to reinstall windows 7 + all my other content (which I am not 100% if I have a cd key for or not, bought my pc on pc specialist.co.uk and it came with windows 7 installed and no cd)

Alright given that list of game then I'd certainly have to concede the old 955 mightn't be the best companion for GTX760 , so you might as well go for the full works if you can.

I know moving a Windows installation to different hardware can be done using the sysprep command, but having never done anything other than a full reinstall when making such a drastic change, I am not sure what the pros an cons are or how much risk is involved. It is worth looking into though.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/135077-windows-7-installation-transfer-new-computer.html

BlitzKrieg

Hey sorry to dig up and old thread but taking in advice from this thread etc I have one more question.

I've decided to upgrade bit by bit, rather then doing it one swoop, I'll do it step by step as I have the financial ability.

So my question is which I should do first?

cpu/mobo

or

graphics card

I know my cpu is a bottleneck but which will initially give me a better performance

a new cpu/mobo and keeping my old 560TI

or keeping the current cpu/mobo and upgrading to a 700 series card?

Since it'll be bitty upgrade I'll be spending a bit more on individual steps so I was looking at this combo if I decided to go cpu/mobo upgrade:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/msi-z87-g45-gaming-intel-z87-s-1150-ddr3-sata-iii-sata-raid-pcie-30-(x16)-d-sub-dvi-d-hdmi-atx

with

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel-core-i5-4670k-s-1150-haswell-quad-core-34ghz-38ghz-turbo-1200mhz-gpu-34x-ratio-retail-plus-fre


Would this be a good combo for future proofing for upgrading or will I find myself in a similar situation in 2-3 years being bottlenecked again forcing me to upgrade whole parts?


Also I know Intel win on pure power, but with AMD being the hardware of choice for next gen consoles, would it be better for me to go for a top end amd cpu (I'll admit the current one has served me well without a single issue) instead of mid range intel cpu?

BloodBath

They are good choices but I think a 3570k and an asrock extreme 3 or 4 board would be better value. That's £40 cheaper with free delivery. You could get a cm 212 evo to overclock as well. Haswell would need a better cooler to achieve similar overclocks.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Z77-Extreme4-Motherboard-Supports-CrossFireX/dp/B007KTY4A6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1372866737&sr=8-1&keywords=asrock+z77+extreme+3

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-Generation-i5-3570K-3-40GHz-Technology/dp/B007RUZKK6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1372866700&sr=8-1&keywords=3570k

As for amd it's hard to say how next gen console hardware will affect how games are programmed and perform. We can only guess but for the thousands of already available games the intels are better in most cases. I would say you are less likely to be bottlenecked by an overclocked intel.

BlitzKrieg

last question (honest) would it be better for me to hunt down another 560ti and SLI instead of getting a new card? I was surprised after looking around at how high up my card is still considered standards wise: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-graphics-card-review,review-32716-7.html

going by this hierarchy list (which recommends upgrading by at least 3 levels to see a genuine improvement) my 560 is still a solid 8 from the top. and the cards at 5 and above cost the same as buying both the new mobo and cpu.

So perhaps with the new mobo a 560ti sli would be a better fit?

BloodBath

Yeah probably if your psu is up to the task. You could get a second hand one pretty cheap.

BlitzKrieg

Seems it can hold up from what xtreme power supply calculator is saying.


Oh and is it possible to move this over to the new board or is it not compatible with the intel chip?

*SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER*

BloodBath

Have you got a link for that? If your going with the 3570k I would just get one of these anyway.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cooler-Master-Hyper-212-120mm/dp/B0068OI7T8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1372873146&sr=8-1&keywords=212+evo