A question about my OC'd FX-6300

[Connor9898]

So I just overclocked my FX-6300 to 4.0 Ghz (This is the first time I have ever overclocked) and do not want to go any further for now. Now my question is, I currently have a GTX 760 SC and want to upgrade (now that ill have a little bit of room without bottlenecking due to my original 3.5 Ghz I was limited to) to a new card. Any suggestions on which card, past the 760, that would not bottleneck with my 4.0 Ghz?

 

[blazorthon]

If you have good performance with your 760 in the games you play, then upgrading your card will not mean your CPU is an issue. Upgrading the graphics card to enable higher quality texture and AA settings will not affect CPU usage much at all. Some others might, but most won't. You can try experimenting with the settings if you run into an issue, but really, an FX-6300 at 4GHz is plenty for almost anything if you aren't going for higher end 120/144Hz gaming anyway.

So, what you can upgrade to depends on your budget. You'd need to spend like $300 going up to a GTX 970 or Radeon 290 to really notice much improvement, granted afterwards you could sell your 760 to reduce the effective cost of the upgrade.

If you don't want to spend that much right now, you could wait and consider overclocking a little to help hold you over if you haven't done it already.

 

[andreii707]

Depending on your budget, you could go for either an R9 390, R9 390X, R9 290X or GTX 970. I don't think it will hold anything past that, meaning a Fury X or a GTX980Ti, so those 4 cards would be your best bet. It will be a noticeable upgrade, but don't except a very huge jump in performance, but a decent one nonetheless.

 

[Connor9898]

@blazorthon so are you saying my 4.0 Ghz wont cause any bottlenecks with graphics cards past a 760? Because that's what i'm trying to figure out. I know there is a limit of course because, say with my original 3.5 Ghz, I would bottleneck and not be able to use a 970 as effectively because of my sluggish CPU.

 

[Brandon-]

This one will do you fine if you don't have a budget http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-Graphics-Backplate-06G-P4-4995-KR/dp/B00YDAYOK0/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1438815374&sr=1-1&keywords=gtx+980ti

If you have a budget, this one.
http://www.amazon.com/MSI-R9-390-GAMING-8G/dp/B00ZGF0UAE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1438815714&sr=8-1&keywords=msi+r9+390

 

[blazorthon]

Basically, yes, your CPU is more of a limiting factor than something like a good i5 would be. However, if it is not limiting your current performance so much that it bothers you or is even a noticeable problem, then upgrading your graphics card will not cause it to be more of a limiting factor assuming you are trying to get better picture quality, not higher FPS.

People blow this "you need CPU X for graphics card Y" thing way out of proportion. Ok, you have your CPU and it is at 4.0GHz. Does it feel sluggish when playing games? Upgrading the graphics card will not, and I can't stress this enough, NOT lower your performance.

If you have a Pentium G3280 at stock, 3.2GHz, with a GTX 750 Ti and you upgrade to GTX Titan X SLI, then performance will not drop. Some games might not get any more performance out of it because the CPU is holding that back, however, you will be able to go from 720p medium to high settings up to 1440p maxed out settings without hurting your performance much at all.

So let's say you have a GTX 750 Ti and a Pentium G3280 at stock. You play CS:GO at 720p with high settings and get around 45FPS (just pulling numbers around).

So, you upgrade to a GTX 970. Because of the CPU, your FPS didn't really increase much. Now it's 50FPS. However, now you can raise the settings to maxed out at 1080p and your FPS is now around 40FPS.

Let's say you have an i5-4670K overclocked all the way to 4.6GHz and a GTX 750 Ti. In the same medium settings and 720p, you get 60FPS. Upgrading to the GTX 970 and keeping those settings, you get a huge increase- Let's say it's not 100FPS. But, now you raise the settings to maxed out 1080p and get 45FPS.

In the first example, we see that the G3280 isn't really capable of more than 45FPS to 50FPS, but the i5-4670K is capable of much more when the graphics card is more powerful and you don't raise the settings. However, if you raise the settings, then your FPS will be limited most by the graphics card again and the i5 simply isn't being loaded up because the GPU is getting slammed.

Does this help?

Point is, if the performance you are getting on your FX-6300 at 4GHz is satisfactory, then you can upgrade the graphics card and raise the quality to get a better quality picture without making the CPU much more of a limiting factor.