Bottleneck sli GTX 780 ti?

[diddle283]

Hi,

I've been offered a pair of 780tis pretty cheap and I'm going to buy them! I'm just worried my machine won't beavle to keep up with them, ca anyone shed some light on it for me please?

I5 2500k @ 4.2ghz
As Rock Extreme 3 gen 3
16gb 1600mhz g skill ripjaws
2 ssd
550w ocz psu (obviously will be replaced)

Thanks for your help

 

[Epsilon_0EVP]

The 2500K still holds up. It might start to show it's age, but it shouldn't be a huge concern. The motherboard will only support PCIe 2.0 with this CPU, but that should still be enough for the 780 Ti's.

I do think you'd need to upgrade the PSU, though. I usually like at least 700W for dual GPU machines. The 780 Ti's are also relatively power hungry compared to the newer Maxwell cards, so I'd definitely try to go for something closer to 800W.

 

[ahnilated]

Your power supply is WAY under powered for those 2 cards. The i5 might slow them down a bit also.

 

[diddle283]

I could swear as rock extreme 3 gen 3 has PCIe 3.0! Could be wrong though!

I'm going to pick up an 850w psu so that's not an issue! Will a bigger overclockers help a little if my processor will slow them down?

 

[hammerstrike]

I have a similar setup:

Dual EVGA GTX 780 ti SC (reference blowers) in SLI
i5-3570k @ 4.4Ghz
Asrock z77 extreme 4
16GB 1866 DDR3
500GB M500 SSD
1000w power supply
Win 8.1 Pro 64-bit

I have an iRun (Korean knock-off) 1440p IPS display and, while it varies game-to-game, can run Far Cry 4 and Crysis 3 at damn near max settings @ 60fps, and other titles, like BF4, maxes out at 60hz Vsync.

Sandy Bridge chips are still highly relevant, and when running at higher resolutions i5's are more then adequate to hit 60FPS in most games. Maybe with DX12 CPU's will be showcased more, but, IMO, if you could get dual 780 ti's for a good price I'd jump on it.

 

[Epsilon_0EVP]

I could swear as rock extreme 3 gen 3 has PCIe 3.0! Could be wrong though!

I'm going to pick up an 850w psu so that's not an issue! Will a bigger overclockers help a little if my processor will slow them down?

The motherboard does support PCIe 3.0, but only with Ivy-Bridge and later CPU's. I know the pain; I'm using a Sandy-Bridge 3820, and I also only get PCIe 2.0

If you can overclock the 2500K, that would be great. It's known for it's overclocking ability, so you should be able to get something decent out of it. I still doubt it would be much of a bottleneck even at stock settings, though, but every little bit can help.

 

[hammerstrike]

I could swear as rock extreme 3 gen 3 has PCIe 3.0! Could be wrong though!

I'm going to pick up an 850w psu so that's not an issue! Will a bigger overclockers help a little if my processor will slow them down?

The motherboard does support PCIe 3.0, but only with Ivy-Bridge and later CPU's. I know the pain; I'm using a Sandy-Bridge 3820, and I also only get PCIe 2.0

If you can overclock the 2500K, that would be great. It's known for it's overclocking ability, so you should be able to get something decent out of it. I still doubt it would be much of a bottleneck even at stock settings, though, but every little bit can help.

Stock on a i5-2500k is 3.3ghz (3.7 turbo), so a 4.2ghz clock is already overclocked. I know a lot of 2500k's hit 4.5-4.7 on air, so if you got another 7%-12% it won't hurt. That being said, from my experience 4.2 vs 4.5 is not going to make a noticeable difference at 1440p in most titles, so I wouldn't recommend going for a higher clock if it meant boasting the Vcore to such an extend that the thermals require a noticeably louder fan.