[SOLVED] MSI Nightblade MI-2 GPU / CPU upgrade

[amilli]

Dear members!

I have a few questions with regards to a potential upgrade of my Nightblade MI-2 (i5-6400 on Intel B150, GTX 960 2GB, 16GB RAM (upgraded from 8GB), 1TB HDD, PSU 350w, Motherboard MSI MS-B090).

1. I want to install a Zotac Geforce 1650 Super 4GB - will it work without any additional adaptors etc?
2. What other GPU would you recommend as potential upgrade?
3. After the upgrade, feels like the CPU will become the bottleneck: any upgrade options here?

Many thanks for the help!

 

[hang-the-9]

The 1650 super is good for the price range, it competes with the RX 580 so either of those is good, but spending another $50 will get you the 1660 super which is about 60% faster than the 1650 super. I may go for that upgrade to make sure the card can run new games longer at decent quality. Another $50 spread out over the 3-4-5 years you can run the card is not much.

CPU should not bottleneck most video cards outside of the high end ones, and even then it all depends on the game. If the card will work properly depends on your power supply, 350 watt PSU is very low for a gaming setup, I would upgrade that to a 550 or so PSU of good quality, the new versions of the Corsair CX and CXM lines are good for the price. Put the money you were looking at spending on the CPU towards a good power supply.

 

[amilli]

The 1650 super is good for the price range, it competes with the RX 580 so either of those is good, but spending another $50 will get you the 1660 super which is about 60% faster than the 1650 super. I may go for that upgrade to make sure the card can run new games longer at decent quality. Another $50 spread out over the 3-4-5 years you can run the card is not much.

CPU should not bottleneck most video cards outside of the high end ones, and even then it all depends on the game. If the card will work properly depends on your power supply, 350 watt PSU is very low for a gaming setup, I would upgrade that to a 550 or so PSU of good quality, the new versions of the Corsair CX and CXM lines are good for the price. Put the money you were looking at spending on the CPU towards a good power supply.

Thanks for the reply! I mention this because I opportunistically got my hands on an unused Zotac 1650 Super for cents on a dollar. I ended up taking and and it works marvelously (60FPS on Ultra for Far Cry 5 / BFV).

The 1650S has a power requirement of 100W vs. my old GTX960 of 120W so this should relieve some pressure from the PSU.

Do you think with the current set up my 350W could create some problems to FPS while playing current games? If so why?

On the CPU side, I mentionned the bottleneck as I saw on the website below that it will bottleneck the 1650S/1660 quite significantly. Is this not true for gaming?

https://pc-builds.com/calculator/Core_i5-6400/GeForce_GTX_1660/0FA13wlu/16/

 

[hang-the-9]

Thanks for the reply! I mention this because I opportunistically got my hands on an unused Zotac 1650 Super for cents on a dollar. I ended up taking and and it works marvelously (60FPS on Ultra for Far Cry 5 / BFV).

The 1650S has a power requirement of 100W vs. my old GTX960 of 120W so this should relieve some pressure from the PSU.

Do you think with the current set up my 350W could create some problems to FPS while playing current games? If so why?

On the CPU side, I mentionned the bottleneck as I saw on the website below that it will bottleneck the 1650S/1660 quite significantly. Is this not true for gaming?

https://pc-builds.com/calculator/Core_i5-6400/GeForce_GTX_1660/0FA13wlu/16/

Power supply will not affect the speed the card runs, but if it's not enough it can cause crashes or shutdowns. Don't bother about bottlenecks, you have the card, use it.