GeForce GTX 770 or 780 with Intel Core i7-960 Bloomfield?

[Diplocaulus]

I'm considering upgrading the GPU of my system (specs below) to a GeForce GTX 780 (getting rid of the current 560s SLI), but I've heard that my older Intel i7 may hamper the performance of the 780, that I might actually get better overall performance from a GeForce GTX 770 with my current rig. Is this true? Any thoughts? Thanks! Walt

Intel Core i7-960 Bloomfield 3.2GHz
ASUS P6X58-E WS Motherboard
2x GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB GPUs (SLI) driver v332.21
HP ZR24w 1920x1200 monitor
12GB (3 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64bit

 

[aevm]

There's no way you will get better performance from a GTX 770 than with a GTX 780, regardless of the CPU.

At worst, if the CPU is a serious bottleneck, you'd get the same performance and you've just wasted the extra money for the more expensive card.

I don't think the i7-960 will hold back a GTX 780. It is a really good CPU after all.

 

[Diplocaulus]

There's no way you will get better performance from a GTX 770 than with a GTX 780, regardless of the CPU.

Thanks aevm. That helps. I'm thinking even if there is a bottleneck, the 780 is something I can grow into as I upgrade the rest of my system down the line.

 

[aevm]

Absolutely.

Here's a comparison between the i7-965 (couldn't find the i7-960) and the i5-4670k.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/45?vs=837

The i5-4670k is better, but not by a massive amount IMO. And nobody says that the 4670k will bottleneck GPUs, we recommend it all the time.

Just set your image quality to max in every game, that would move more of the work to the GPU and balance things. Or get a monitor rated 2560x1440.

You can check CPU usage in Task Manager. I expect it will reach 100% in some games, but I doubt it will happen a lot.

 

[Kraszmyl]

I own a 3ghz lga1366 xeon system currently and have two gtx680s in it. You wont see a bottleneck at all , I have yet to see more than 60% use in a game.