Question Best Video Card for my mother board

MakcuM

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Hi all, my pc is running Asrock z97 extreme motherboard. I would like to upgrade my video card as it is probably 6 years old now. Could someone recommend a few top choices I could run in my rig?

Thanks,
Max
 
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MakcuM

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May 23, 2015
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Some additional info about current system

Power supply: EVGA Supernova 750 G2 80 Plus Gold Fully Modular Power Supply
GPU: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4 GB GAMING Video Card
RAM: 16gb
CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Processor
 

DSzymborski

Titan
Moderator
A 1070 does seem like a good option and is well suited to the hardware. My main rig was similarly equipped (exact same motherboard and PSU with a 3770k with a 1070 until I upgraded to an 8700K in 2018). Though I think you have a Z97 board; Z77 is a different socket.
 

shahfaraz

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Sep 29, 2016
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Hi all, my pc is running Asrock z97 extreme motherboard. I would like to upgrade my video card as it is probably 6 years old now. Could someone recommend a few top choices I could run in my rig?

Thanks,
Max

Your CPU and motherboard are too old. So, you can't expect a very long life for them. Today, you can't buy the latest graphics card because your processor and RAM will be a bottleneck.

The best GPU you can get today is GTX 1660 or its Ti variant. It's cheaper than 1070 or 1070 Ti. You can go for GTX 1070 if you find it cheaper than GTX1660.

Don't invest in an expensive graphics card with a CPU/motherboard which is about to die.
 
It also depends of the resolution of your screen,
If you use a relatively low resolution as FHD, the limiting factor will be your CPU. So stick with a 10xx or 16xx GPU.
But if your monitor has a much higher resolution, the limiting factor would be the GPU, even with your CPU. So even an AMD 6600 could make sense.
 

MakcuM

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It also depends of the resolution of your screen,
If you use a relatively low resolution as FHD, the limiting factor will be your CPU. So stick with a 10xx or 16xx GPU.
But if your monitor has a much higher resolution, the limiting factor would be the GPU, even with your CPU. So even an AMD 6600 could make sense.

1920x1080 is all I run
 
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Some additional info about the current system

Power supply: EVGA Supernova 750 G2 80 Plus Gold Fully Modular Power Supply
GPU: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4 GB GAMING Video Card
RAM: 16gb
CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Processor
PSU is fine, unfortunately the 4 core/4 thread CPU is going to hold back any of the new cards. They really are showing their age now in modern games. Some questions:

  1. What games do you want to play?
  2. What's your budget?
 
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MakcuM

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Your CPU and motherboard are too old. So, you can't expect a very long life for them. Today, you can't buy the latest graphics card because your processor and RAM will be a bottleneck.

The best GPU you can get today is GTX 1660 or its Ti variant. It's cheaper than 1070 or 1070 Ti. You can go for GTX 1070 if you find it cheaper than GTX1660.

Don't invest in an expensive graphics card with a CPU/motherboard which is about to die.

found gtx1660 decent price
https://smile.amazon.com/EVGA-GeFor...refix=gtx+1660,aps,103&sr=8-2#customerReviews

PSU is fine, unfortunately the 4 core/4 thread CPU is going to hold back any of the new cards. They really are showing their age now in modern games. Some questions:

  1. What games do you want to play?
  2. What's your budget?
counter strike and league of legends is all I play currently
 
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MakcuM

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I recently had to overclock my cpu just to run league of legends a bit better, wondering if cpu is my problem and GPU upgrade wont help with these games

I do notice fps drop to 60-80 depending how intense screen is, but could be cpu too
 
That is a decent price but I would be cautious about market place sellers. At face value your 970 should be able to do both of those just fine. Do you want really high frame rates or something? What sort of FPS are you getting now?
 

MakcuM

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That is a decent price but I would be cautious about market place sellers. At face value your 970 should be able to do both of those just fine. Do you want really high frame rates or something? What sort of FPS are you getting now?
I recently had to overclock my cpu just to run league of legends a bit better, wondering if cpu is my problem and GPU upgrade wont help with these games

I do notice fps drop to 60-80 depending how intense screen is, but could be cpu too
 
I recently had to overclock my cpu just to run league of legends a bit better, wondering if cpu is my problem and GPU upgrade wont help with these games

I do notice fps drop to 60-80 depending how intense screen is, but could be cpu too
What graphical settings are you playing on in CSGO and what refresh rate is your monitor? Do you have MSI Afterburner, if so it will tell you what your GPU usage is while your playing. if it's not at or near 100% when these drops are happening then that would point to the CPU being the problem.

From my experience sudden large frame drops are CPU related rather than GPU.
 

MakcuM

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I run mostly on low, my CPU tends to crank up during intense graphic fights in league, the overclocking of cpu has helped alot, might be my cpu pegging, I will keep an eye
 

Zerk2012

Titan
Ambassador
worth a try i have been setting it at 120
Your FPS is limited by your CPU first. The CPU can only process so many FPS in a given game.

Then it can also be lowered by the video card below the limit of the CPU.

Simple test lower all settings to off/low that should show you about the max FPS your CPU can do. From their raise the settings if the FPS goes down then you could uses a better video card if not then the CPU is holding you back.
 
so next question would be maybe i should upgrade CPU? what can i go up to>
It would depend on what budget you have available. For the games your playing I don't think an upgrade to a 4th gen i7 is going to make much difference as the primary benefit is Hyper Threading. You'd probably pay as much for the CPU as a new one too.

My advice would be to move to one of the latest platforms. An i3 12100 or i5 12400 on a B660 board would be what I would look at if you want another Intel system.