Does my new GPU make my CPU a bottleneck now?

Pck21

Pck21

New Member
Hey all!

I'm finally getting around to upgrading my machine. I just bought a new EVGA GTX 670 FTW tonight, but I was wondering if I should upgrade my CPU next? I do a bit of gaming on it (Diablo III, WoW, Battlefield 3 in the future, MW3, etc) so I didn't know if I had a bottleneck somewhere that I'm not seeing. I also do some school work, VB, MS Project, etc. I think my ram, PSU, and CPU should be fine for the time being, but I don't know anymore! My desktop's details are in my sig below.
 
Your fine, I had an AMD Phenom 2 970 before I got this I7 950 with my GTX 670, the 970 was a bottleneck I noticed a lot of stuttering and other slow downs in games but with the I7 it cuts through everything like butter so we're both good in terms with cpu's for a long time. I had the I7 920 and it is still to this day a really good chip. Are you using the stock cooler for the CPU? If so then I would strongly recommend getting an aftermarket one.
 
JLuchinski said:
Your fine, I had an AMD Phenom 2 970 before I got this I7 950 with my GTX 670, the 970 was a bottleneck I noticed a lot of stuttering and other slow downs in games but with the I7 it cuts through everything like butter so we're both good in terms with cpu's for a long time. I had the I7 920 and it is still to this day a really good chip. Are you using the stock cooler for the CPU? If so then I would strongly recommend getting an aftermarket one.
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Thanks for the quick reply and the help! :)

No stock cooler for me. I have a Cooler Master V8 on it, and so far so good. Temps are damn reasonable for what I need. My GTX 670 is a replacing a pair of 9800 GTX+'s in SLI so I was in desperate need of an upgrade. Diablo III is running fine, but I know it can run so much better. I figured might as well go for a decent card this time around and save money for more ram and/or CPU the like in the future. The 920 has served me well so I didn't think it would be a huge problem...glad to hear that it's still a decent CPU!
 
nope, you should be fine with that CPU. It's by no means a slow chip, especially when overclocked. How's the 670?
 
Perkomate said:
nope, you should be fine with that CPU. It's by no means a slow chip, especially when overclocked. How's the 670?
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SmileMan said:
haha, great! what did you think xD
with that card you can play everything :P
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I'll let you know when it arrives! :P

From what I've read and seen online, it should do me pretty well for a year or so. At that point, I'll probably grab another and put them in SLI, but who knows? I grabbed the FTW Edition because the PCB is straight out of a GTX 680, and it's overclocked to basically match a stock 680 as well. The EVGA warranty made me pull the trigger.

I would consider myself a gamer, but I play on consoles more than I do PC. I know, I know, but my friends only play console games so I had to cave. Since getting Diablo III and re-upping my WoW account, I'm founding that I'll probably be using my PC more than before so it's a win-win.
 
Raz3rD said:
Nope there shouldn't be any bottleneck :D Like said before, but I thought another opinion may help too :)
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I appreciate the help! :D

Thanks to everyone, I'm pretty confident that my machine will be running games at near top peak performance. Sweet!

EDIT: Just thought of something...could I use one of my 9800GTX+'s as a dedicated Physx card for the heck of it? I should have enough power and all of that. I'd rather put one of them to good use!
 
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I just installed the new card...wow. I've played Diablo II, Dungeon Siege III, and MW3 all at ultra high settings and the card just sat there and laughed it off. It hasn't gone above 52 degrees even. Best purchase I've made in a long time! Unfortunately, I don't have a PCIe 3.0 board so I'm not getting the full benefit from the card, but I know my next board will have it so it's future proof. Thanks for the help!

P.S. I did install one of the 9800GTX+'s as a dedicated Physx card for no reason other than to say I have it lol.
 
No game has or will even benefit from 3.0 for a good while, the only thing that benefits from it are CAD and other professional 3D modeling and design applications that actually stress it to its max loads. Even BF3 which is the most demanding game out there (i think) doesn't use it as it's not passing that much information through the graphics card even though it is stressing it, it's weird to explain.
 
Pck21 said:
I just installed the new card...wow. I've played Diablo II, Dungeon Siege III, and MW3 all at ultra high settings and the card just sat there and laughed it off. It hasn't gone above 52 degrees even. Best purchase I've made in a long time! Unfortunately, I don't have a PCIe 3.0 board so I'm not getting the full benefit from the card, but I know my next board will have it so it's future proof. Thanks for the help!

P.S. I did install one of the 9800GTX+'s as a dedicated Physx card for no reason other than to say I have it lol.
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Yeah I'm also loving this card as well, the only games that have made the fan speed up a little are BF3, Crysis Warhead and Crysis 2. Other then that this card never gets above 50. The 9800 GTX is an old card and may be holding you back with Physx, I'm pretty sure the 670 does a better job handling it by itself. Do you have Mafia 2? If so then you should run the benchmark with and without the 9800 with Physx on max.
 
jonnyp11 said:
No game has or will even benefit from 3.0 for a good while, the only thing that benefits from it are CAD and other professional 3D modeling and design applications that actually stress it to its max loads. Even BF3 which is the most demanding game out there (i think) doesn't use it as it's not passing that much information through the graphics card even though it is stressing it, it's weird to explain.
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Actually, that sorta makes sense. It's like having a quad core CPU, but most applications only utilize 2 cores as it is kind of deal. Weird. Well, I'm glad I didn't have to upgrade my mobo and CPU because that would've set me back some coin.

JLuchinski said:
Yeah I'm also loving this card as well, the only games that have made the fan speed up a little are BF3, Crysis Warhead and Crysis 2. Other then that this card never gets above 50. The 9800 GTX is an old card and may be holding you back with Physx, I'm pretty sure the 670 does a better job handling it by itself. Do you have Mafia 2? If so then you should run the benchmark with and without the 9800 with Physx on max.
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No kidding? I don't think I have Mafia 2, but I'll see if I have any other Physx games. If it's holding me back then I'll pop that sucker out asap. Thanks!
 
Yeah I think I did the same thing with a GTX 570 I used a 8800 gt that I had lying around for Physx and it degraded performance.
 
rule of thumb is you need a card thats close to the performance of the primary card to see any benefit, otherwise your just pulling the other gpu down.
 
Ok, I pulled the 9800GTX out of my case because the last thing I need to be doing is limiting the GTX 670 lol. I'm going to play a few games and see where I'm at with it. Thanks again! :)
 
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