GPU Upgrade

kmp1

Hi,

I have a gtx 260, I noticed my power supply allows for 2 8-pin graphics cards with 2 plugs each, I was going to upgrade my mobo from asus p6tse to a later one. I only have a 8 pin cpu power but not a 4 pin power cable to run a newer board. I am thinking of getting a gtx 980 evga classified graphics card. Will the motherboard or cpu limit it's gaming capabilities? My CPU is i7 920 @ 2.67 GHZ. Thanks

Gumbi

kmp1 wrote: »

Hi,

I have a gtx 260, I noticed my power supply allows for 2 8-pin graphics cards with 2 plugs each, I was going to upgrade my mobo from asus p6tse to a later one. I only have a 8 pin cpu power but not a 4 pin power cable to run a newer board. I am thinking of getting a gtx 980 evga classified graphics card. Will the motherboard or cpu limit it's gaming capabilities? My CPU is i7 920 @ 2.67 GHZ. Thanks

Aren't 8 pin CPU power connectors usually made up of two halves 4pin + 4pin? Check if your 8 pin connector splits in too.

Alright so as for your upgrade... Upgrading to a 980 is complete overkill given the rest of your system. I would first of all recommend looking into overclocking and getting that CPU to 3.4ghz maybe. If you can sort that out then upgrading to a 970 would be pretty nice. A 970 is much better value than a 980 for neaely the same performance.

I assume you game at 1080p? How much RAM do you have?

kmp1

My RAM is 6GB of DDR3 in 3-channel mode. I have checked to power, it is indeed an 8-pin only, besides if it did split, I would need another 8-pin cpu power cable to run a motherboard with an 8 pin power and a 4 pin power, so I don't think I can do it, if there was a safe adaper that changed 2 sata power into a 4 pin cpu power, that could be a solution, I would invest in a new PSU for a future upgrade.

I had a offer from a friend to buy for €250 a motherboard from MSI, same type of board function as my old motherboard, an amd processor with it at 4 ghz, the ram is DDR3 and is 8GB and an amd graphics card of R9 280, so a nice upgrade with the same cpu power on the motherboard, and includes a case, no power or hard drive, but I have that covered with my current PSU and 1tb drive.

Would this be a reasonable upgrade, I will then in a year or two upgrade to this card when I have saved more money up?

Gumbi

kmp1 wrote: »

My RAM is 6GB of DDR3 in 3-channel mode. I have checked to power, it is indeed an 8-pin only, besides if it did split, I would need another 8-pin cpu power cable to run a motherboard with an 8 pin power and a 4 pin power, so I don't think I can do it, if there was a safe adaper that changed 2 sata power into a 4 pin cpu power, that could be a solution, I would invest in a new PSU for a future upgrade.

I had a offer from a friend to buy for €250 a motherboard from MSI, same type of board function as my old motherboard, an amd processor with it at 4 ghz, the ram is DDR3 and is 8GB and an amd graphics card of R9 280, so a nice upgrade with the same cpu power on the motherboard, and includes a case, no power or hard drive, but I have that covered with my current PSU and 1tb drive.

Would this be a reasonable upgrade, I will then in a year or two upgrade to this card when I have saved more money up?

Spending 250 euro on a motherboard is a complete waste unless you plan on investing heavily in water/LN2 cooling.

70 - 120 euro is loads. In any case, your CPU has some life left in it if you overclock it. A 970 is a lot more powerful than a 280. Do you know what mdoel PSU you have? A 970 is efficient anyway and probably draws a lot less power than a 260.

It's hard to recommend upgrades because your system is somewhat old, and fairly well balanced. Putting a 970 into seems overkill unless you at least overclock your CPU a bitr (which won't cost you anything but some time and effort).

kmp1

PSU is a corsair 850watt, for 250 euros, I am getting an r9 280, motherboard, cpu at 4ghz and 8gb of ddr3 ram and a case, so Its all those things, I think is a good deal.

Gumbi

kmp1 wrote: »

PSU is a corsair 850watt, for 250 euros, I am getting an r9 280, motherboard, cpu at 4ghz and 8gb of ddr3 ram and a case, so Its all those things, I think is a good deal.

Tis not too bad. Your PSU is fine. AMD CPUs are not the greatest for gaming tbh, Intel is so much faster clock for clock, and your new AMD CPU won't be much faster than your current one to be honest (definitely not if you overclock your current CPU), but overall that's a handy upgrade to do for now, you could definitely do worse.

kmp1

Thanks, I was not sure about the CPU, I don't know much, just because its amd and is 4ghz, is that not much faster than a 2.67 ghz CPU like the one I have? Is that the only thing that matters in a cpu after the amount of processors in it?

Gumbi

kmp1 wrote: »

Thanks, I was not sure about the CPU, I don't know much, just because its amd and is 4ghz, is that not much faster than a 2.67 ghz CPU like the one I have? Is that the only thing that matters in a cpu after the amount of processors in it?

An Intel CPU core a 4 ghz is faster than an AMD CPU core at 4ghz. AMD chips generally have more cores i nthem, but many games don't take advantage of those extra cores (most use 2, some use 4, rarely use more than that, your new AMD will probably have 8).

Still what you're getting is a nice enough upgrade, but if it were me I'd overclock your current CPU a bit, grab a 280 and call it a day, saving 100 plus euro which you can save for a bigger upgrade down the line.

kmp1

Thanks, I'll do research on it and decide what I'm going to do, I have experience changing old computer upgrades I was given, but it's my first personal upgrade and the offer was from the brother of my mum's boyfriend and he'll meet me to help install it with me and show what I have, plus i'll have my old parts as a reserve in case something happens. Thanks for the advice.