I have done a great deal of research into upgrading my gaming computer. I am on a tight budget so I am shaving off money where I can. I currently have a Phenom 2 X4 965 (Works great) and a GTX 650 gpu.
My goal was a GTX 970, but the computers I was building on the cheap were 600-700$ which I am trying to avoid. I found a site selling refurbished EVGA GeForce GTX 960 Superclocked ACX 2.0+ 1279MHZ 2GB cards with a three year warranty for 175$. People seemed happy with them in the reviews on various sites for refurbished EVGA cards.
The GTX 960 is around 70% slower than the GTX 970 (which I know is great card for great value but I am pretty poor and my system is struggling.) If I got a GTX 970 I would need a new CPU to prevent bottlenecking.
Does the 960 also need a new CPU to prevent bottlenecking?
The thing is, the new processors I was looking at, I5-4460 and the AMD FX 63xx and 83xx series are only between 20-40% faster (cross a broad spectrum of benchmarks, my research at the end of post). I know the I5 is the best choice but that means 170$ processor and a new mobo (40-100$). And I feel the AMD choices are... not significant improvements . My research tells me that the extra cores of the FXs are not really going to help me much in gaming, not as much as the I5's beefy cores.
I know I have an old (not even overclocked) processor but, for 1920x1080 (1080p) gaming, (aiming for ultra-high settings) will it bottleneck a GTX 960 noticeably? (or more than say 10-15%)
I considered a 750 ti, but they are only like 30$ less than a 960, which is roughly twice as powerful.
(some) Reseach links:
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Phenom-II-X4-965-vs-Intel-Core-i5-4460/606vs2310
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Phenom-II-X4-965-vs-AMD-FX-6300/606vs1555
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Phenom-II-X4-965-vs-AMD-FX-8350/606vs1489
http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-970-vs-Nvidia-GTX-960/2577vs3165
http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-960-vs-Nvidia-GTX-750-Ti/3165vs2187
My goal was a GTX 970, but the computers I was building on the cheap were 600-700$ which I am trying to avoid. I found a site selling refurbished EVGA GeForce GTX 960 Superclocked ACX 2.0+ 1279MHZ 2GB cards with a three year warranty for 175$. People seemed happy with them in the reviews on various sites for refurbished EVGA cards.
The GTX 960 is around 70% slower than the GTX 970 (which I know is great card for great value but I am pretty poor and my system is struggling.) If I got a GTX 970 I would need a new CPU to prevent bottlenecking.
Does the 960 also need a new CPU to prevent bottlenecking?
The thing is, the new processors I was looking at, I5-4460 and the AMD FX 63xx and 83xx series are only between 20-40% faster (cross a broad spectrum of benchmarks, my research at the end of post). I know the I5 is the best choice but that means 170$ processor and a new mobo (40-100$). And I feel the AMD choices are... not significant improvements . My research tells me that the extra cores of the FXs are not really going to help me much in gaming, not as much as the I5's beefy cores.
I know I have an old (not even overclocked) processor but, for 1920x1080 (1080p) gaming, (aiming for ultra-high settings) will it bottleneck a GTX 960 noticeably? (or more than say 10-15%)
I considered a 750 ti, but they are only like 30$ less than a 960, which is roughly twice as powerful.
(some) Reseach links:
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Phenom-II-X4-965-vs-Intel-Core-i5-4460/606vs2310
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Phenom-II-X4-965-vs-AMD-FX-6300/606vs1555
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Phenom-II-X4-965-vs-AMD-FX-8350/606vs1489
http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-970-vs-Nvidia-GTX-960/2577vs3165
http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-960-vs-Nvidia-GTX-750-Ti/3165vs2187