i5 750 and gtx 970

[bregol]

I'm currently running with i5 750 @2.67, on a GA-P55-UD4P, with 8Gb ram and gtx 560 ti 448. I am looking to upgrade mainly for benefit to games. In particular, I am running things along the lines of Batman, BF4, and Skyrim. I'm thinking of modding Skyrim per SR:LE, if it can be handled by the system after any upgrade.

I'm not looking to do a big overhaul all at once... just spend a few hundred this year, then a few hundred in a year or two, and so on, spreading out upgrades over time. Question is will I get more benefit from doing gtx970 now, then the cpu/mobo in a couple years? Or should I be dealing with the cpu/mobo now, and graphics in a few years?

I do realize that the gtx 970 will probably be limited a bit by the i5 750, but my question is how severe will this be? Will I get a lot of benefit out of upping the graphics to gtx970 now, with a small benefit in a couple years when i change out the cpu/mobo? Or is it the CPU going to bottleneck enough that the gtx970 won't make a big difference now and i'm better off doing the cpu/mobo now?

Thank you in advance for any advice you can offer.

 

[TechCIDLC]

The i5-750 will not bottleneck the GTX 970 by any bit, not even the GTX 980. Since the 970 is alot faster than your current 560Ti, you will see a big difference in performance. Definitely go for it, but make sure your power supply can handle it properly.

 

[coozie7]

Just upgraded from a i5 750 (overclocked to 3.4GHz)/HD7950 rig. Had the motherboard not died on me (serves me right for overclocking on a cheap MB) I'd still be using that setup!
The bad news is that a GTX970 will be severely restricted by the current CPU, even if it's overclocked.
The good news is that when overclocked and with a card like the HD7950 (now the R9 280) or GTX760 you'll be able to play at high or even max settings on a single 1080 screen very well.
My suggestion: Go for either a R9 280 (or HD7950) and add a Hyper 212 Evo cooler into the mix and overclock the CPU to get the full benefit from the system and start saving up for a full, new rig this time next year...If it's needed that is.
I'm suggesting the R9 280/HD7950 because of their extra RAM BTW.

 

[bregol]

Just upgraded from a i5 750 (overclocked to 3.4GHz)/HD7950 rig. Had the motherboard not died on me (serves me right for overclocking on a cheap MB) I'd still be using that setup!
The bad news is that a GTX970 will be severely restricted by the current CPU, even if it's overclocked.
The good news is that when overclocked and with a card like the HD7950 (now the R9 280) or GTX760 you'll be able to play at high or even max settings on a single 1080 screen very well.
My suggestion: Go for either a R9 280 (or HD7950) and add a Hyper 212 Evo cooler into the mix and overclock the CPU to get the full benefit from the system and start saving up for a full, new rig this time next year...If it's needed that is.
I'm suggesting the R9 280/HD7950 because of their extra RAM BTW.

Extra RAM? The GTX970 is 4Gb, while you list 3Gb cards.

Why would I want to save up for a full new rig next year? All I'm looking to update is the graphics card and the CPU/mobo. One of those this year, one of those in a year or two afterwards. I don't need new PSU, don't need new RAM, SSD, etc. Rather than waiting a year or two and doing a new full rig, I thought it would make sense to do a 2-phase update of just those components in this rig that need it. The question is what order of the updates gives me the best short-term performance gain for gaming, knowing that in a year or two when I update the other component I should get even more performance. No need to wait on a new full rig when I can do a 2-phase update. It's not costing anything more.

Even if the GTX970 was restricted by the CPU (which so far there is a mix of opinions on), wouldn't it be better to get that card now, knowing there will be a better CPU to match in another year? That way I get _some_ (if not most) of the extra GPU performance now, and have a card that will still be great in a couple years when the CPU gets updated. I'm not sure why you are suggesting older cards as a transition, then a new rig later - I don't see what benefit that has over the phases I am proposing. It just seems like I would be buying more hardware to get an old card and a cooler at this point and then redo it all later.

Does that make sense to do in phases as I am proposing? How restricted will the GTX970 be if I update that first? None/very little, as TechCIDLC states, or severely as coozie7 says? Or would the CPU be the better first phase? Or do I use some intermediate step as coozie7 proposes (but that just seems like unnecessary cost to me)?

 

[coozie7]

Get the GTX970, pretty well every game out there will benefit immensely from it's extra power.
If you update the CPU/MB (and you'll be well advised to add faster memory unless the system is already running DDR3 1600 or faster) you'll see a much smaller improvement.
Another reason to hold off on the CPU/MB upgrade is that Intel will release their new Broadwell parts next year (I was hoping to hold off on my own upgrade for exactly that reason).
By 'new build' I did mean CPU/MB/RAM/graphics, using this graphics upgrade as a stop gap, although building an all new rig does at least mean you'll have the old one available either to sell as a going concern or pass on the a friend/family member.
I really mean it about the overclock, with the HD 7950 the previous i5 750 rig could run games like Metro LL. Metro 2033, Far Cry 3 and Tomb Raider at high or even max settings at a steady 40FPS or more, I've no idea how fast the system will be with a monster card like the GTX970 in it.

 

[cst1992]

If you ask me, I'd say get a Haswell i5 and a Z97 now, and a graphics upgrade later on, though I do prefer that you get a mid-tier card like the 270/280(depending on how much you want to spend) for now. Otherwise, the power of the Haswell would go waste. The 560Ti is quite an old card for today's gaming, but it all depends on you.
Reason I'm saying this is that the 980Ti and R9 380x are coming this year end/next year start, and they're beast cards, so much so that the 980Ti(or whatever it'll be called) will be the fastest NVIDIA has ever made, 50% faster than a 780Ti.
I'd make more sense to switch directly to a 980Ti when it's prices drop a little next year after launch, then you'll have a real rig. Getting a 970 now will allow you to get another for SLI later, but with the new cards' power efficiency, I'd say get the 980Ti directly.

 

[bregol]

Get the GTX970, pretty well every game out there will benefit immensely from it's extra power.
If you update the CPU/MB (and you'll be well advised to add faster memory unless the system is already running DDR3 1600 or faster) you'll see a much smaller improvement.
Another reason to hold off on the CPU/MB upgrade is that Intel will release their new Broadwell parts next year (I was hoping to hold off on my own upgrade for exactly that reason).
By 'new build' I did mean CPU/MB/RAM/graphics, not a whole new box, although building an all new rig does at least mean you'll have the old one available either to sell as a going concern or pass on the a friend/family member, but it's not what you intend.
I really mean it about the overclock, with the HD 7950 the previous i5 750 rig could run games like Metro LL. Metro 2033, Far Cry 3 and Tomb Raider at high or even max settings at a steady 40FPS or more, I've no idea how fast the system will be with a monster card like the GTX970 in it.

Thanks, coozie7! I wasn't even thinking about Broadwell coming up, but it does make a nice extra benefit to waiting on the CPU/MB. So even if the i5 750 does becoming a restricting factor (less so if overclocked) in some parts of some games (until I get around to that update), you're saying that in the meantime the GTX 970 will still give the games a major boost over the 560ti 448core?

This might be an impossible question or bad way of thinking about it, but if the maximum benefit for swapping the entire CPU/MB/RAM/GPU was 100 units of happy gaming, swapping just the GPU gets me what? Like 50 units of happy gaming (due to CPU limiting)? 75 units? 90 units? And then updating the rest later gets me the remaining units? If this is a valid metric, my hope is that the first phase (just graphics) gets me at least 50 units, that is to say more than half the benefit of swapping everything can be obtained by just swapping the graphics = games in general run much better, just some areas of some games have CPU limit issues

 

[cst1992]

By your metric, for my suggestion I'd say 33 for the i5/z97; 17 for the R9 270/280; and 50 for the 980Ti.

 

[bregol]

If you ask me, I'd say get a Haswell i5 and a Z97 now, and a graphics upgrade later on, though I do prefer that you get a mid-tier card like the 270/280(depending on how much you want to spend) for now. Otherwise, the power of the Haswell would go waste. The 560Ti is quite an old card for today's gaming, but it all depends on you.
Reason I'm saying this is that the 980Ti and R9 380x are coming this year end/next year start, and they're beast cards, so much so that the 980Ti(or whatever it'll be called) will be the fastest NVIDIA has ever made, 50% faster than a 780Ti.
I'd make more sense to switch directly to a 980Ti when it's prices drop a little next year after launch, then you'll have a real rig. Getting a 970 now will allow you to get another for SLI later, but with the new cards' power efficiency, I'd say get the 980Ti directly.

For my usage, 560Ti has served me well enough the past few years, but it's time to move on. For a new card, I tend more towards a balanced cost/benefit, rather than going as beefy as possible. So I probably wouldn't consider the 980Ti, or even 980... but for $200 less than the 980, the 970 seems to hit the sweet spot of that balance for me. I do tend more towards Nvidia, just out of old habit, so that's also why I tend towards the 970. I don't plan to run SLI either. My goal is not to create the ultimate beast, but to try and sit in hopefully the upper end of that cost/benefit sweet spot. I'm not trying to run 4k games or anything like that - sticking at 1080p to run on the TV. Just trying to update to be able to increase AA, run some hi-res graphics mods and maybe a decent ENB in Skyrim, stuff like that. So if 970 is that sweet spot, and I suspect it is, do I get enough benefit in those areas with just the graphics card update, so that I see major improvement in those areas despite hanging on to the older processor for a little while longer?

 

[cst1992]

If that's your decision, I don't see any sense in getting a midtier card.
Go for the 970 now, and you'll be limited by your CPU and motherboard. Then go for the CPU upgrade to get full benefit of the 970.
The 970 is a powerful card, and you should be fine at 1080p for a long time.

How restricted will the GTX970 be if I update that first? None/very little, as TechCIDLC states, or severely as coozie7 says?

Restricted or bottlenecked essentially means that the GPU won't be utilized to 100% even if the CPU is maxed out. If you want to go for the 970 now, it's your choice; since you'll anyway be upgrading to a new CPU later on in 2015. One thing is assured - bottlenecked or not, the 970 should be a good improvement over your existing card.

Mildly or severely depends on the game under consideration. If it's CPU bound, the bottleneck will be severe. Otherwise it'll be lower.

 

[WhiteSnake91]

I'd get the gtx 970 and then upgrade your cpu/motherboard when you can. If others have overclocked mildly on your motherboard you could try, a hyper 212 evo is only about 20-30 bucks.

Although older, the first gen i5 still packs a punch. I see many people still gaming fine with the old i7 920 and even old i5s.