i7-950 bottleneck in a new setup?

[ctobex]

Hello,
I was planning to upgrade my computer. I was thinking of buying MSI GTX 970 Gaming, EVGA 750W SuperNOVA 750 G2 and some RAM.

I also was planning on keeping my current Motherboard which is Asus rampage 3 extreme, and my cpu which is intel i7-950.

My question is, how much would the i7-950 bottleneck my new setup and if it doesn't, what kind of RAM could I buy for it?

 

[ctobex]

I have 4gb of slow speed kingston. Why DDR2? I'm confused 😀

 

[skit75]

The i7-950 uses DDR3. Can't imagine that CPU bottlencking a 970 and even if it did, you have some overhead with a small overclock on that motherboard to get to 3.4-3.6Ghz really easily. You would likely run into a system RAM limitation first... and probably already have with some games. My system uses more than 4GB of system RAM(total) with almost any game I run. New AAA titles get me over 5GB+. You have a triple channel system but you if you have 4GB now, I would suggest add another 4GB if you are going upgrade route and OC your CPU to a static 3.6GHz.

 

[lifespill]

No your cpu is still very good and with a mild overclock to 3,8ghz will be face to face with modern cpus.Check your motherboards website to see ram compability and also keep in mind that you will need triple channel ram.

 

[Rookie_MIB]

It's unlikely that your i7-950 would bottleneck anything. It's still an extremely capable processor. Geekbench for my system (Xeon X3470 oc'd to 4.2ghz, 8gb DDR3-1600) is about 10,500 or so, which is equivalent to an i5 based Haswell system.

A Haswell based i5 isn't really going to bottleneck anything either, so you're fine.

As for RAM, you can get pretty much anything from 2200mhz down and the motherboard will support it, so you could get a nice DDR3-1866 kit which would straddle the line nicely between speed and cost, but it seems that the biggest DIMMS you can get are 4GB - the Asus support site is down so I can't verify - so get a nice 4x4GB DDR3-1866 kit and you should be good.

These would work, $65.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820101008&cm_re=ddr3_1866-_-20-101-008-_-Product

 

[lakimens]

The CPU will not bottleneck, the ram speed is not very important in games.
So, all in all you have a pretty good build, it's a quad-core, eight-thread CPU, it will be good for another few years.

 

[grmnlxndr]

Take in consideration that i7 9xx has a triple-channel memory controller. You should get some triple channel kits in order to maximize performance.
The Asus Rampage 3 extreme supports up to 24GB (6 x 4GB) DDR3 2200OC.

Regards

 

[coozie7]

That MB can handle plenty of faster RAM: https://www.asus.com/ROG-Republic-Of-Gamers/RAMPAGE_III_EXTREME/specifications/ and the X58 chipset benefits from the triple channel setup, 3x4Gb although you could go for 3x2Gb, check prices carefully, though, Newegg has 12Gb kits for only a few dollars more than 6Gb ones!
A little OC goodness will help with the CPU, but bear in mind it's an older design with a fairly high heat output, don't try overclocking on the stock Intel cooler!

TBH, even at stock speeds, it's more than likely your display (I'm guessing it's a 60Hz 1080 monitor) will be the restriction, effectively holding the system to 60FPS regardless of settings or game.

 

[Eximo]

I have my i7-950 CPU and board on loan to a friend. His MSI 970 works quite well with it for 1080p. It was even still fairly capable with my older GTX580 (only ran into issues with VRAM intensive games)

 

[skit75]

I run the 6GB(3x2GB) Triple Channel setup and would suggest either staying with dual channel (going to 8GB) or go all the way to 12GB(3x4GB)... if you play new games.

 

[Rookie_MIB]

I still think you should sell what you have while it is still worth something and get a 6000 series.

That wasn't his question... If it was a C2Duo or C2Quad, then yes, upgrade it all, and I would agree. I'm running virtually the same type of setup though and it is plenty fast.

 

[skit75]

I still think you should sell what you have while it is still worth something and get a 6000 series.

That wasn't his question... If it was a C2Duo or C2Quad, then yes, upgrade it all, and I would agree. I'm running virtually the same type of setup though and it is plenty fast.

Same here.

Do I want to upgrade? Sure.
Is the ROI worth it? Nope. Not yet.

 

[Eximo]

I upgraded from my i7-950 to an i7-4770k. There was little to no performance difference in day to day tasks and gaming.

Sata II to SATAIII though on the Intel RAID controller, and that was a nice boost to SSD performance. (The marvell Sata III controller was great for a single drive, but that was it)
PCIe 2.0 -> 3.0, no real difference, but it is there.
My Rampage Formula III had USB 3.0, but a very early edition of it before everything was truly finalized, so it had a few issues. (Though the Z87 chipset I have also has some USB 3.0 issues with hibernating)

I think the only thing you have going for an upgrade is DDR4 with Haswell-E (Quad channel) and Skylake (Dual channel). M.2 slots and NVMe, maybe USB 3.1 if you care about that. If you are just gaming with it, I would hold off on the CPU/Motherboard/Ram. Could gain some power efficiency with Skylake and a Maxwell GPU.