intel i7-960, good enough for gtx 10xx series?

[christopheduron]

Hello everyone,

My brother recently asked me if i could build him a new gaming pc. He's a big fan of skyrim and now that the game is coming out with 64bit support he would like me to assemble him a new desktop pc so he can play it with hundreds of mods. Now i'm fairly new to pc building myself, and while assembling it isn't too hard, picking the parts are.

I won't go into much more detail on that matter, but i have some parts lying around i would like to re-use. I would definitely have to buy him a new graphics card. I was thinking about going for a gtx1060 or 1070 (should be more than enough for skyrim with a lot of graphics mods right?), but i'm not certain if this this cpu will handle this card, might be a massive bottleneck. (cpu: http://ark.intel.com/products/37151/Intel-Core-i7-960-Processor-8M-Cache-3_20-GHz-4_80-GTs-Intel-QPI)

I'm hoping youguys could give me some advice on the matter. Perhaps it would be best to buy a different cpu? Maybe even a newer intel i5 series would do the job? Buying a new i7 one is quite expensive and he's givven me a budget 😛.

Oh, and if this post is in the wrong location, please don't hesitate to move it! And thanks for reading!

 

[Supahos]

I think an i7 960 and a gtx 1060 would be a reasonable build for the foreseeable future at 1080p

 

[geofelt]

Since you already have the parts, why not try them?
You can always move the graphics card to a new motherboard/cpu if needed.
You will want to defer on activating windows in the event that your old parts are not satisfactory.
That way you can use the os on a new motherboard.
You can eliminate that problem if you do not use a oem version of windows.

 

[christopheduron]

Thanks for the quick answers guys.

After some research, it seems that skyrim is very cpu intensive. I'll definitely try the build using the cpu i have though, in case i need a better cpu, i'll come back and ask youguys for more info.

As far as gpus go, i'm still thinking about getting a gtx 1060 or 1070. I'll look up some benchmarks to see how it runs the game. 60 fps minimum is an absolute requirement honestly. Personally i wouldn't really go for the older models, i think it's better to invest a bit more money so you're 'secure' for the future no?

Thanks again for the info!

 

[Mercian]

My old I5 750 with a GTX 960 ran Skyrim on the highest settings (with a tweak here and there) at 59 fps 1080p so you should have no problems.

 

[christopheduron]

After looking up some benchmarks from the 1060, even at 4k resolution with a small ammount of modes it's able to run skyrim at 50-60 fps. My brother will use a 1080p screen, so that should be more than enough power for whatever he plans to do with it. Normally i'd use a higher refresh rate screen, but since skyrim is capped a 60fps (unles if you want to break the physics engine 😛) 60 will have to do.

 

[Decends]

Just remember folks, there is one scene in skyrim that can bring any PC's fps down. Looking down on whiterun from dragon's reach. xD

 

[christopheduron]

Just remember folks, there is one scene in skyrim that can bring any PC's fps down. Looking down on whiterun from dragon's reach. xD

Haha, well. If there is someone with a gtx 1060 that could quickly verify that for me it would be amazing

 

[Supahos]

I've seen people at 1080p with a 1080 cry about it hitting 45 fps on that part and they had a 6700k at 4.6ghz

 

[Decends]

I've seen people at 1080p with a 1080 cry about it hitting 45 fps on that part and they had a 6700k at 4.6ghz

That was probably trying to look down at white run from the top of dragon's reach steps. That spot is a real FPS killer at times.

 

[Supahos]

It was