cant get tom's framerates

[bard243]

So I'm upgrading my graphics in my current rig. I'm going from 2 460's in sli to 970 . I'm having trouble duplicating the framerates reported in the graphics card reviews on this site.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-970-maxwell,3941-8.html
i'm only getting about 53 fps. they report 69. could my rig be bottlenecking?
what is the worst offender
I have an I5-750 with MSI P55-GD65 Mobo. 8 GB of DDR3 memory.
Solid state 250 samsung disk drive.

What do you think? Should I look at a new mobo and CPU? If so what will give me the most bang for the buck in gaming performance? If the CPU is ok, is there a mobo I could upgrade to to maximize card performance?

 

[nukemaster]

I would bet on the cpu for sure.

It is newer and has a faster base clock 2 more cores hyperthreadding for anything that can use it and a faster memory interface.

Please check your GPU usage, if it is lower then the cpu is holding you back. If the GPU usage was max, then the cpu is not holding you back. Each game uses the hardware a bit different. For instance Guild Wars 2 in large battles will eat that cpu(and many others).

 

[azathoth]

The GTX 970 they report as being 59 FPS, versus your 53 FPS.

The difference is simply due to them using a SIX-Core overclocked Sandy Bridge-E processor, eliminating all CPU limitations for their GPU benchmarks.

The slight 6 fps performance drop you're seeing, is likely simply because of your older processor. While your i5-750 is still a good quad core processor, to truly utilize a high end card such as a GTX 970 you will indeed require a newer generation processor. If you find your gameplay experience is suffering too much, then perhaps you may consider upgrading to say, an i5-4690k + Appropriate motherboard.

 

[Archaic59]

You are using a 6 year old CPU @ 2.6 Ghz and you wonder why you can't get those higher FPS? You are lucky to be getting anything around 50 FPS. Changing the motherboard will do nothing unless you get a new more powerful CPU. I would run what you have a while longer and save up for a good Z97 board and CPU and new memory which will set you back around $400-500 US.

 

[bard243]

how di check the gpu usage?
also the fps numbers i am comparing are average not lowest fps

 

[atomicWAR]

maybe some of it is your CPU/mobo combo is long in the tooth but need more specs for a more thorough answer...how fast is your ram? also when was the last time you did a fresh install of windows? Old installs slowly degrade performance. Also note that those benchmarks were done on a six core system not a quad core...games like BF4 use six cores and four core systems will not perform as well. My guess is it is a little bit of everything i mentioned.

Unless your willing to jump to a new CPU/mobo with 6 cores i would just keep what you have for now. check out toms hierarchy chart. your not that low on it

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-5.html

 

[nukemaster]

Something like afterburner will allow you to check gpu usage.
This example is right on the edge. Sometimes the cpu holds back, others the gpu. If you had constant low gpu usage, the cpu is holding back.

Fun fact. This image was taken with a system that has an i5 750.

You may want to check this. Just the second generation i series cpus improved performance in almost everything.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/20

I am 99% sure it is a cpu bottleneck. I mean I paired a 5770 with that cpu(650 ti now for lower power consumption and noise).