Question What is the fastest GPU to pair with an Intel Q9650 CPU ?

[RendyIrawan]

I'm getting back into PC gaming and I'm trying to see what the best GPU for my old computer is. I just upgraded the CPU to an Intel Q9650 and 8GB of DDR3 memory. I'm looking to play games from 2007 - 2015 era in 1080p, and I also plan to have a separate drive to boot into Windows XP to play even older games. Which Nvidia 900 series GPU would be the fastest for my CPU? I'm talking about the point where I won't get any more FPS in GPU optimized games, so I'm okay with having the CPU pegged at 100% in more CPU intensive games, as long as I can push just a little bit more FPS in more GPU optimized games. I don't plan on overclocking.

I should note that I'm aware that Windows XP only officially has driver support for the GTX 960, and that a simple driver mod would enable GTX 970 / GTX 980 / GTX 980TI / GTX TITAN X drivers to work under Windows XP.

I'm considering the GTX 960 4GB, GTX 970, GTX 980, or GTX 980Ti. Where I live, prices are pretty much the same for those cards, somewhere along the US$ 50 - US$ 100, which is still in my budget. One listing has a GTX 970 for US$ 75, while another listing has a GTX 960 4GB for US$65, so I would consider the price differences to be insignificant.

From reading forum posts and benchmark videos, I could conclude that a GTX 960 4GB or GTX 970 would be as high as I should choose for the old CPU that I'm using. What I can't find out is whether I would get any more performance using a GTX 980 or GTX 980Ti for GPU optimized games.

Does anyone have any experience with rigs using a Q9650 or similar paired with an Nvidia GTX 900 series? Any input would be appreciated. Thanks, guys!

 

[Lutfij]

What is the make and model of your motherboard? Honestly, you should abandon dropping in a higher pedigree GPU onto that platform, since you're going to run into limitations with bandwidth, not top mention driver stability.

The issue is your platform(motherboard slot, processor and OS).

My 2 cents.

 

[Aeacus]

What I can't find out is whether I would get any more performance using a GTX 980 or GTX 980Ti for GPU optimized games.

If you exclude CPU limitation and only compare GPUs (which you should), then GTX 980 Ti has ~18% better performance on 1080p, compared to GTX 980. And Titan X surpasses GTX 980 Ti with ~3% on 1080p;

Direct link if image doesn't load: https://tpucdn.com/review/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-ti/images/perfrel_1920.gif
Source: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-ti/31.html

Note: both the GTX 980 Ti and Titan X require 650W PSU, while i, personally, would use 750W unit with those.

But if you also include the old and weak Core 2 Quad CPU into the mix, then i wouldn't look past GTX 950 for a nice balance between CPU and GPU. Maybe GTX 960, but CPU would limit that considerably.

 

[RendyIrawan]

What is the make and model of your motherboard? Honestly, you should abandon dropping in a higher pedigree GPU onto that platform, since you're going to run into limitations with bandwidth, not top mention driver stability.

The issue is your platform(motherboard slot, processor and OS).

My 2 cents.

It's a Gigabyte GA-P41T-D3P with an Intel G41 chipset and PCI Express 1.0. I would mostly be running Windows 10. Could you elaborate more on the potential issues with bandwith limitations and driver stability? Because AFAIK the GTX 900 series still has official Windows 10 drivers.

 

[Aeacus]

Could you elaborate more on the potential issues with bandwith limitations

GTX 900-series uses PCI-E 3.0 x16 bus interface.

PCI-E 3.0 x16 bandwidth: 16 GB/s
PCI-E 2.0 x16 bandwidth: 8 GB/s
PCI-E 1.0 x16 bandwidth: 4 GB/s - this is what your MoBo has.

and driver stability? Because AFAIK the GTX 900 series still has official Windows 10 drivers.

Win10 is completely another ballpark compared to WinXP. So, when drivers are made for Win10 (64-bit), these will not work on WinXP (32-bit).