New card for old system

grizzly

I'm thinking of beefing up my card for gaming with Rome Total War II out soon. This is my current setup;

CPU: i5-2500K (3.3GHz)
GPU: Nvidia 580 (single card)
RAM: 8GB
MOBO: Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD5-B3
Monitor Res: 2560 x 1440

I'd like to update to a newer Nvidia card, but don't want to buy something my computer can't handle.

I'm looking at this 770.

BloodBath

Hey. Rome 2 only uses 2 cpu cores so it's pretty cpu limited. What cooler do you have on your 2500k? Why isn't it overclocked? You have an overclocking chip and a high end motherboard. You would get big gains overclocking that 2500k to 4.5 - 5ghz.

Your board also supports sli. Why not grab a cheap second hand 580. You should really be running dual cards for 1440p.

grizzly

Thanks for the reply. I'm not crazy about going SLI - don't like patchy support for some games. I'd be into doing a little overclocking on my i5 if meant practical results.

As far as one card goes I'm thinking a 770. The 780 seems overkill for not that much improved results. Two questions;

Are they the same size (580/770)?

For anyone that has a 770, can you recommend a brand to go with?

BloodBath

SLI is as solid as a rock. The support is top notch. The scaling is top notch. Why pay extra for a top end sli board if you aren't going to use those features?

Getting a second 580 will cost you less than half the price of buying a 770 and will give you more performance.

What about overclocking the 2500k? What cooler have you got? You could easily get a 40% overclock on that with a decent cooler which will give massive gains in the likes of Rome 2.

What case are you using?

grizzly

My case is a Cooler Master HAF X, ATX. I've not got a cooler - I'm a bit intimidated with installing one. Would prefer having a lower to clock speed then having a chance of a faulty machine.

TerrorFirmer

If your PSU is decent enough to support Sli then a 2nd GTX580 is a solid bet. I have the GTX590, which is just two underclocked 580's on one board, and there's nothing I can't play maxed at 1080p. Performance would also be excellent at 1440p especially considering Dual 580's would actually be faster than the 590 as well. A good cooler can be gotten for very little and overclocking is essential on a K cpu! Not OC'ing is in essence throwing away both money and performance, given that they cost more and exist only to be overclocked. Between adding a 2nd GTX580 and aiming for a very achievable 1Ghz overclock with a decent cooler, you'd be looking at an absolutely huge performance increase for about 250 euro.

BloodBath

This is a great budget cooler. You should be able to get to at least 4.5ghz with it. I'd add some case fans if there are any spaces left for some as well. The 2 cards + an overclock will benefit from better case airflow.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cooler-Master-Hyper-212-120mm/dp/B0068OI7T8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375921544&sr=8-1&keywords=coolermaster+212+evo