AMD Athlon II X4 640 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 (not Ti)

[BuIlDaLiBlE]

I'm wondering if it'll bottleneck. I found a similiar thread about Radeon R9 380 and someone replied that it shouln't bottleneck much. Now that GTX 1050 is very similiar to that card I think it's fine but still wonder what others think. Plus I currently have a 350W PSU but it shouldn't be a problem according to GTX 1050 specifications that indicate 300W is recommended.

 

[Math Geek]

you'll see some but not enough to make it a waste of money.

it is an old cpu and it's not gonna all of a sudden run things it would not yesterday. but if the cpu can handle the game, then the gpu will also give you a nice addition to it. you should be able to get lower settings at 1080p and better ones at 900p if you're still using that resolution.

 

[BuIlDaLiBlE]

you'll see some but not enough to make it a waste of money.

it is an old cpu and it's not gonna all of a sudden run things it would not yesterday. but if the cpu can handle the game, then the gpu will also give you a nice addition to it. you should be able to get lower settings at 1080p and better ones at 900p if you're still using that resolution.

Yea it's old, and I had even worse CPU not that long ago (Athlon II X2 255) - glad I got some free upgrade from a friend. While I have the 1080p monitor, I still play games in windowed 1600x900 (900p) because I just like windowed mode better. Sometimes more demanding games force me to use 720p or even lower. My current GPU is Radeon HD 5670 which is really old, so I was wondering if GTX 1050 will make a great difference here with that old CPU.

 

[Math Geek]

usually the gpu will allow for better resolution and some eye candy, while the cpu tends to impact fps more. this is not always the case but in general it is a good formula. so the 1050 would let you use your windowed 900p a lot more than you can now. but games that won't even run on the cpu now, still won't run since the cpu is the main issue there.

it could be a good stop-gap until you can upgrade the main system but it is not going to allow you to magically game on it for a number of years to come.

 

[BuIlDaLiBlE]

usually the gpu will allow for better resolution and some eye candy, while the cpu tends to impact fps more. this is not always the case but in general it is a good formula. so the 1050 would let you use your windowed 900p a lot more than you can now. but games that won't even run on the cpu now, still won't run since the cpu is the main issue there.

it could be a good stop-gap until you can upgrade the main system but it is not going to allow you to magically game on it for a number of years to come.

Of course I'm not looking to playing at even medium settings with this CPU, I have plenty of games that run at 30 fps with my current system and more newer ones that run in less than 30 so that's the main goal here - gain more fps in games that already run well. Thanks for your replies anyway, will be looking to a day when I upgrade the whole system 😉

 

[Math Geek]

no problem. it can be very confusing since some games favor the cpu and some favor the gpu. can be very hard to tell what a change will do to a system. but in general, fps tends to be cpu related and resolution and the eye candy tends to be gpu related more than anything.

i'm sure the card will do wonders either way over the old gpu you're using and it's not a super expensive gpu. all in all i'd go for it and know it will last to the next upgrade down the line

 

[dontlistentome]

You should see some real gains with a 1050. The 5670 was decent but that was back in its day. In certain games you won't see major improvement but in many games it should be a night and day difference. The 380 was a 960 competitor, so it'd be equivalent to a 1050 Ti. A regular 1050 is therefore right in the sweet spot of what your system can use. Powerful enough, but you're not overpaying for power you can't use.