GTX 1050 TI or GTX 1060

[Azndude263]

I have an old PC (the specs are below) collecting dust in my closet and am planning to give to my little brother as a light gaming PC. Some of the games he plays are Guild Wars 2, PUBG, CSGO, Dota 2, Overwatch and a few others that I don't remember. I used my old PC for very light gaming and mainly as a media center and web browsing. My brother plays more intensive games thus am planning to do a little upgrade before passing it along to him.

I am planning to upgrade the CPU and the GPU. Thinking about upgrading the CPU to the FX-8350. Yes I know, AM3+ is a dead path and old (Ryzen and the new coffeelake will be way better) but am just trying to give some life into this old rig. I don't want to be spending on new motherboard and ram on top of expensive CPU. Plus I found a used FX-8350 for $50 which I think is pretty reasonable. As for the GPU, I am thinking about either the 1050 TI or the 1060 but unsure.

Could you guys give me opinions? He just wants to play at 1080P for a couple years more if possible before forcing to upgrade to new CPU. Will these upgrades able to handle for a few more years?



CPU: Phenom II X4 965 3.4 Ghz
GPU: GTX 750 TI
Mobo: MSI 970 Gaming Pro Carbon
Ram: 8GB DDR3 1333
PSU: Thermaltake 750w

 

[clutchc]

VRAM vs FPS. The GTX 1060 is much faster and would be my choice. I have /had both. The GTX 1060 3GB never hampered me, but it will depend on the game. At 1080p, best to go with the 1060 IMO.

 

[MrN1ce9uy]

$50 for an FX8350 sounds like a great deal.

Whichever GPU you want to buy, the 1060 will be faster but will get held back in some games by the CPU. It would still be faster than the 1050 Ti though for the most part.

 

[Azndude263]

Oh, the 8350 will bottleneck the 1060? Is the difference between the 1050 TI and the 1060 huge? Am not planning to overclock the 8350 with this 970 board so I really so hope this 8350 will be able to last a couple more years before serving as a media center

 

[clutchc]

Oh, the 8350 will bottleneck the 1060? Is the difference between the 1050 TI and the 1060 huge? Am not planning to overclock the 8350 with this 970 board so I really so hope this 8350 will be able to last a couple more years before serving as a media center

Bottleneck will be minimal to non-existent. There is a noticeable fps difference, yes.

 

[TJ Hooker]

Is the difference between the 1050 TI and the 1060 huge?

1060 is like 50% faster than a 1050 Ti, so yeah it'd be a pretty noticeable difference. I believe most of the games you listed aren't very demanding, so a 1050 Ti may be enough for 1080p/60 fps at high settings anyway.

 

[Azndude263]

So the 1060 paired with 8350 will allow my brother to pretty much max out if not play any game at high settings? I have never owned AMD CPUs before other than the Phenon II 965 but I did hear lots of people are saying the 8350 or Piledriver isn't a great chip and is struggling quite a bit with the newer games. That just raises a little bit of a concern for me

 

[TJ Hooker]

An 8350 will likely struggle in newer, CPU-heavy games. Most graphics settings have little effect on CPU usage, so if an 8350 can't handle a given game you probably won't be able to get around it by turning down settings.

Most of the games you listed aren't very demanding, so you shouldn't have a problem hitting 60 fps with high to max settings with an 8350/1050 Ti. I've heard PUBG isn't very optimized and has some performance issues, looks like you may end up getting more like 30 fps in that one due to CPU.

I have no doubt a 1050 Ti will be able to handle every game at 1080p for the next couple years as long as you're willing to turn down settings. A 1060 would allow you to pretty much max out any current game at 1080p, and probably keep fairly high settings on future games. Although with a 3GB 1060 VRAM may start to become an increasing issue, although you should be able to work around that by tweaking the right settings.

 

[Azndude263]

So with a 6GB GTX 1060 I will be able to max out 1080P for the next couple years or so? You really think the 8350 should be able to hold its own for a while?

 

[RobCrezz]

Yeah should be fine. Get a good CPU cooler with the 8350, and overclock it to get the best out of it.

 

[Azndude263]

But with the MSI 970 motherboard, I don't think its suitable to overlock

 

[RobCrezz]

I dont see why not, its a good quality motherboard with a good 8 phase vrm.

 

[Azndude263]

I heard that you need 990 to overclock?

 

[RobCrezz]

I heard that you need 990 to overclock?

You heard wrong

 

[ohiou_grad_2006]

970 board will overclock just fine if the VRMs are set up right. I had an FX 8120 and 6300 overclocked on a Gigabyte 970 board for a while. You'll be fine. The 1050ti is basically about the same performance as an old 7950, so you should be ok for a little while if you go that route.

 

[Azndude263]

I haven't bought an aftermarket cooler yet because I didn't plan to overclock thinking the MSI 970 Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard I have isn't suited for it. I was planning to just use the stock wraith cooler that came with the 8350 I bought for $50. What cooler should I get and how much do you think I can overclock by with the board and PSU I have

 

[ohiou_grad_2006]

I would at least get a cooler master hyper 212 Evo and use a second fan to set up a push pull setup. Or go for water cooling.

 

[TJ Hooker]

I would at least get a cooler master hyper 212 Evo and use a second fan to set up a push pull setup. Or go for water cooling.

The whole point of the OP getting an 8350 is that it was quite cheap. If you're going to start dumping a bunch more money into it (i.e. water cooling), you're better off just getting a modern CPU that at stock would outperform an OCd 8350 anyway.

 

[Azndude263]

Well, that was my original plan...spend $50 on the 8350 or rather the 8370 that comes with the wraith cooler and upgrading the GPU to either 1050 TI or the 6GB 1060

 

[RobCrezz]

Just grab a cheap hyper 212 evo, can get good overclocks with that.

 

[ohiou_grad_2006]

Exactly. A hyper 212 should only run 20-30 dollars. A second fan what 5 or 10 for a push pull? I know some guys would want to get looked an h100 or something like that. But really, for a system that age, the evo makes sense to me.