Will my computer handle a better graphics card?

[Khaine]

Hello,

I've been having problems with my card (more details in this topic: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1936959/graphics-drivers-stopped-responding-amdkmdap-recovered.html) and I have to buy a new one.

After research, I picked GTX650 Ti Boost (looks very good in this particular price range).

This model, to be exact : http://us.msi.com/product/vga/N650Ti-2GD5-OC-BE.html#/?div=Specification

But the question is : will my computer (CPU, mainly) actually handle it?

Here it is :

MOTHERBOARD : Asus P5E
CPU : Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 overclocked to 3,84 GHz
PSU : Corsair TX750W
MEMORY : 4,00GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 425MHz
OS : VISTA 64-bit

 

[StarBG]

It is overclocked and should be able to provide enough power for the GPU.

 

[Beepbupbob]

yes as long as there's a pci slot it should work, however if your cpu is not as fast as the gpu your gpu will be held down by the cpu and wont give it max performance

 

[InvalidError]

While the C2D-E8400 was a nice CPU in its time, even a stock i5-4670 would be around 50% faster than your overclock due to architectural improvements (mainly the integrated memory controller which cuts the CPU's RAM access latency roughly in half) and platform updates even without accounting for the extra two cores.

You can always upgrade the GPU for now and upgrade the rest later if your CPU-RAM-MoBo fails to deliver the expected boost. That's what I usually do.

 

[Khaine]

Here's the screen from CPU-Z :
http://i.imgur.com/u1KNJnw.jpg

That's my worry - I'll buy a graphics card which will be bottlenecked by old processor, giving me only some portion of its power (I could buy a cheaper card if that's the case).

I'm thinking about buying an upgrade - but I've been considering getting a whole new computer, so that GTX650 would just be stop-gap solution.

Forgot to mention - I'm now using Radeon 5870 (but I think it's malfunctioning, hence considering a new card).

 

[Beepbupbob]

Here's the screen from CPU-Z :
http://i.imgur.com/u1KNJnw.jpg

That's my worry - I'll buy a graphics card which will be bottlenecked by old processor, giving me only some portion of its power (I could buy a cheaper card if that's the case).

I'm thinking about buying an upgrade - but I've been considering getting a whole new computer, so that GTX650 would just be stop-gap solution.

Forgot to mention - I'm now using Radeon 5870 (but I think it's malfunctioning, hence considering a new card).

yes im suggesting an upgrade if you use your computer for gaming and more, but if you're low on budget you should switch to an amd platform the r9 270 has great value for the price or you could go with an APU with a good gpu as well

 

[Khaine]

I definitely will! In about 5-6 months I'll buy a monster of a rig 😉

But my current graphics card (Radeon 5870) is malfunctioning and I need a stop-gap solution - hence the GTX650 Ti Boost. My only worry is that it'll be bottlenecked by my CPU.

 

[Beepbupbob]

I definitely will! In about 5-6 months I'll buy a monster of a rig 😉

But my current graphics card (Radeon 5870) is malfunctioning and I need a stop-gap solution - hence the GTX650 Ti Boost. My only worry is that it'll be bottlenecked by my CPU.

if you wont be gaming high games it should be fine tho ,but from my example, i used to run my 7870 with fx6100 and on bf4 it really sucks and get a lot of freeze then i change my motherboard and cpu to sabertooth and fx 8350, the result is amazing no more freeze and play games smoothly so its fine to use the 650 ti boost if you dont plan to upgrading the gpu in the future, but if you want to upgrade it you should go for a cheaper gpu to save money , so at least you can use your computer now for web browsing and play not so high end games and in the future you just need to upgrade your cpu and motherboard (if you have too)

 

[Khaine]

I think I'll buy the GTX650. Hope my CPU can handle it, at least at 90%

 

[hang-the-9]

Hello,

I've been having problems with my card (more details in this topic: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1936959/graphics-drivers-stopped-responding-amdkmdap-recovered.html) and I have to buy a new one.

After research, I picked GTX650 Ti Boost (looks very good in this particular price range).

This model, to be exact : http://us.msi.com/product/vga/N650Ti-2GD5-OC-BE.html#/?div=Specification

But the question is : will my computer (CPU, mainly) actually handle it?

Here it is :

MOTHERBOARD : Asus P5E
CPU : Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 overclocked to 3,84 GHz
PSU : Corsair TX750W
MEMORY : 4,00GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 425MHz
OS : VISTA 64-bit

I read your original post, you did not say you have the system overclocked in that post, which is a very important point when it comes to computer issues.

Is the video card also overclocked, or was it as some point? Have you tried simply to at least lower the overclock on the CPU and also re-install Windows?

 

[Khaine]

Yes, I just did a clean Windows install and even tried disabling the overclocking. Didn't help.

And I ran an overclocked CPU for over a year and never had any issues.

The card isn't OCed, I think I tried Overdrive briefly a year ago or so, but disabled it.

On another note - I don't get crashes when I don't play games, yesterday my computer ran for 6 hours without one (didn't play any games).

 

[zielritter]

I think a vital question here is what type of game are you going to be playing? Single player graphically intense games you shouldn't bottleneck your GPU to terribly, although it still won't be used to its max potential you still will most likely get playable frame rates. Games like BF4 MP though will bring your duo to its knees and bottleneck any GPU well before 60fps.

 

[Khaine]

Well, at worst it should still do a lot better than my old Radeon 5870, right?

 

[zielritter]

Well, at worst it should still do a lot better than my old Radeon 5870, right?

There's no doubt it's a better card than the 5870 but let's say hypothetically in multiplayer BF4 (or Starcraft if that's your poison) your cpu only has enough muscle to produce 30fps after handling all the in game physics, even at the lowest settings. If that's the case, no gpu will help increase performance to playable frame rates until you get rid of the cpu bottleneck.

Other games or single player only versions of shooters that don't burden the cpu as much will show an increased frame rate however.

You just need to ask yourself what type of game you want to play and choose your upgrade accordingly.

 

[StarBG]

Found this http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/512?vs=680 650 ti without boost vs your GPU benchmarked.

 

[Khaine]

Doesn't look like there's a whole lot of difference!

Frankly, was expecting more (could be the boost though).