Video card upgrade, CPU bottleneck?

[thewhiteark]

Hello,

I'm an avid gamer and want to upgrade my GPU, the leading candidate being the GTX 760.
I am however worried about my CPU or another part bottlenecking the shiny new GPU. My spes are as follows:

AMD Phenom II x4 955
Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H
12GB of RAM, consisting or 2 2GB and 2 4GB (not of the same manufactorer)
Radeon HD 5850 1GB
SeaSonic 520W

Also, Is an internal 3GB RAM on the graphic card important, especially since it will be some time before the next upgrade? Or in other words: Buy a stronger 2GB or a weaker 3GB? (for example, GTX 760 2GB vs. Radeon HD 7950 3GB)

Many thanks!

 

[Michaelius]

Short version: yes
Long: it all depends on games - there are some titles where anything below overclocked i5 is not enough and there are some where Phenom II will be enough for 60 fps.

 

[MacLeod]

No, that Phenom will work fine especially if you overclock it. Get it up to 3.7 Ghz or more with a 2600 Mhz CPU/NB and you'd do even better. Now if you were running a pair of those 760's with 3 monitors then you would run out of CPU horsepower but for a single 760 at 1920x1080, you'll be fine.

 

[powruser]

I think that CPU will pair nicely with your GTX 760. If you have a 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 monitor then 2GB of VRAM will be sufficient. However, if you game at resolutions higher than that, I would recommend stepping up to a 4GB GTX 760, an AMD 7950 or perhaps even a GTX 770 or AMD 7970/7970 GHz edition.