ASUS GTX760 DirectCU II - lowest recommended CPU?

[PGHammer]

I was looking over MicroCenter's current sale pricing on nVidia GPUs, and saw some rather surprisingly low pricing on some GTX760 based cards; the even bigger shock was the lowest-priced of the lot was the ASUS GTX760 DirectCU II - http://www.microcenter.com/product/...erclocked_2048MB_GDDR5_PCIe_30_x16_Video_Card

Yes; I noticed that this card is also an [H] Silver winner - that is why I was shocked to see it priced that low.

The question is should I wait until after upgrading the CPU and motherboard to replace the 550Ti with this card, or can I do the upgrade now (though I expect some hobblage)?

Unlike most GTX 700-series GPUs (and even most GTX760s - stock or otherwise), I only need a single 8-pin GPU power plug; I have one 6-pin (which my current card is using), and one 6+2-pin that is not in use. (Basically, so much for power issues with a single GPU.) Further, unlike my current GPU, the HDMI port is full-size - not something that requires an adapter/dongle. It has greater memory bandwidth (256-bit vs. 192-bit) and twice the onboard memory (2048 MB vs. 1024 MB). The ultimate question is, how much would a Q6600 (my current CPU) hobble it with non-next-gen games (Crysis 2, NFS Most Wanted, etc.)

 

[Araxie]

How much its overclocked that Q6600?.. with that answer depend most of your concerns.. if stock then it will perform crappy with most "modern" if you can call it. but also depend at what resolution will you be playing, the less resolution the more CPU demanding a game could be, the greater resolution the less important, at 1080P CPU its still important. sincerelly i would mind for a GTX 770 for 1080P and keep games maxed out. thats a power a 760 will not bring you and at the moment you are buying a 760, it will lack of power soon to keep demanding games at high settings. of course it will be a huge upgrade over your 550TI, but bearing in mind the long time have you using that 550TI you should take the most potent GPU you can afford right now and be a little more future proof it will help to keep your card longer..

about the minimum CPU. right know i would not buy anything lower than a i5 2500K in the intel side, or a FX8350 in the AMD side.

 

[PGHammer]

How much its overclocked that Q6600?.. with that answer depend most of your concerns.. if stock then it will perform crappy with most "modern" if you can call it. but also depend at what resolution will you be playing, the less resolution the more CPU demanding a game could be, the greater resolution the less important, at 1080P CPU its still important. sincerelly i would mind for a GTX 770 for 1080P and keep games maxed out. thats a power a 760 will not bring you and at the moment you are buying a 760, it will lack of power soon to keep demanding games at high settings. of course it will be a huge upgrade over your 550TI, but bearing in mind the long time have you using that 550TI you should take the most potent GPU you can afford right now and be a little more future proof it will help to keep your card longer..

about the minimum CPU. right know i would not buy anything lower than a i5 2500K in the intel side, or a FX8350 in the AMD side.

The reason that my Q6600 is bone-stock is due to the current motherboard's chipset - Intel's G41 is a corporate-stable/consumer-stable stumblebum - solid as cement, and about as overclockable (in other words, it isn't). I play non-modern games typically at 1920x1080 (my display's current ceiling) - my lowest settings for any game are for Crysis 3 currently: 1920x1080 with minimal AA (Very High settings otherwise). However, I'm looking at i5-4670K as the next stop for a CPU (along with the ASUS Z87-A) - which I am quite aware would be a better fit for the GTX760. I'm more hoping that for some of the older games that I'll be able to maybe crank up the AA (in some cases, finish cranking up the AA) or maybe gain frame rates in the games I have maxed (such as Starcraft II).

 

[PGHammer]

How much its overclocked that Q6600?.. with that answer depend most of your concerns.. if stock then it will perform crappy with most "modern" if you can call it. but also depend at what resolution will you be playing, the less resolution the more CPU demanding a game could be, the greater resolution the less important, at 1080P CPU its still important. sincerelly i would mind for a GTX 770 for 1080P and keep games maxed out. thats a power a 760 will not bring you and at the moment you are buying a 760, it will lack of power soon to keep demanding games at high settings. of course it will be a huge upgrade over your 550TI, but bearing in mind the long time have you using that 550TI you should take the most potent GPU you can afford right now and be a little more future proof it will help to keep your card longer..

about the minimum CPU. right know i would not buy anything lower than a i5 2500K in the intel side, or a FX8350 in the AMD side.

The GTX770 (next step up) has two strikes against it - increased power requirements over most GTX760s (and especially this one), and a price tag closer to $400, even at MicroCenter; throw in a PSU strong enough to power it and we're talking $500 (in a word - OUCH). Neither a larger display or SLI are in the plans (SLI is a budget-buster; even dual-760 SLI makes the budget go boom - also, I don't have enough DESK for a larger display); therefore, GTX770 would definitely be pushing it. (The only reason I'm considering this particular GTX760 is that it's in GTX660 turf price-wise and power-wise - and I've already called the GTX660 a steal.)