Would a new video card help me or is my bottleneck elsewhere?

R

RAD

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 12, 2009
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489
Good Morning!

I am currently using a several year old GTX 580 GPU in my i7 920 system, this system is primarily used for gaming. Most of the time it does what I want but it is starting to show it's age as far as running newer games smoothly at good resolutions.

To improve my gaming hardware I have been eyeballing a GTX 1060 6gb or RX580 8gb (despite the inflation on them from miners) to try to update my current rig a bit. However, I know that my CPU is relatively ancient. Is the bottleneck for my rig so firmly at the CPU that upgrading my GPU would be a waste of money? Money is a bit tight ($350 wouldn't sting but $1,000+ would) so I don't really want to do a full build if I can squeeze a year or two more of acceptable performance out of what I have, but if I have to I guess it is time.

My current monitor on this set of hardware is a single Asus VG248QE, have also been thinking of adding a second monitor.
 
Here's my $0.02. Both GPU and CPU upgrade would help however,
  • CPU requires a platform upgrade which will che up your $350 super fast
  • GPU money spent is going to give you the most FPS per $
    • Current GPU prices are out of whack due to Ethereum mining and lots of used cards selling for new+ prices. Realistically with the remaining $275, you should be able to pick up a used 980ti/1070 in a few months or even a new 1060 once prices stabilize.
  • What resolution do you run at? What is the refresh rate 60hz or greater than 60hz? EDIT: your monitor suggests 1080p 144hz
    • What games do you play?
I think this would allow you to 'kill it' at 1080p144hz (or at least 60hz or 100hz) for a while, at least until the newer CPU/GPU's come out in a year or two which may even push you to buy a higher res monitor when you move on from 1080p

Let me know what you think, good luck! :)
 
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Yes, you'll see a significant boost by upgrading the GPU. If you can stretch, go for a GTX 1070. You should also overclock your 920 if you are not already so doing. A Xeon is a further cheap upgrade.
 
If you don't do any overclocking, then perhaps consider something like an i5-7400 or R5-1600/1600X platform upgrade, 8-16GB DDR4, and the cheapest 1060 or RX580 you can get your hands on.
 
This CPU is a C0 chip and was one of the "weak" first batch ones, unfortunately. It is happy enough at stock but overclocking has been a massive struggle. Air cooling with a big fat CM v8 cooler on it (Seriously, this thing is stupidly big but what can I say, 8 year ago me thought it looked cool). I have it at 3.0 100% stable but pushing it any harder than that lead to massive instability and some overheating. I actually built two of these systems when I built them way back in the day, one for me and one for someone else. The second one of these I ended up building for someone else was a d0 chip and literally runs 10-20 degrees cooler at all times. It overclocked like a dream, got to 3.6 fully stable on air cooling without any struggle or at all.

I generally play at 1080p / 144hz if the game allows it.

I play mostly blizzard games (hots, d3, sc2) or tactical games and RPGs with occasional FPS games. The first game to really slap me in the face with the age of my system recently was PUBG (Player Unknown's Battlegrounds). I know that game is notorious for it's poor optimization and my system straight up choked on it, had to get it steam refunded. The next games on deck for me to play through right now as far as graphics intensive gaming goes are Fallout 4, X-Com 2, Marvel vs Capcom Infinite, and Doom.

Thanks for the advice. I am hoping that we are on the downswing of the ethereum fad, it seems like prices on ethereum have fallen off a cliff in the last few weeks and if that keeps up hardware prices should normalize soon right? That is unless another cryptocurrency goes into fad mode in the meantime.
 
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Quartz-1 said:
Get yourself a Xeon 5650. One should be under $100.
Click to expand...

This times 100.

A 5650 (westmere 32nm and very overclockable and please, overclock it..) and a gpu upgrade will... I don't even have words.

Make sure to update to the latest bios though and do check for compatibility although it is a rare board that wont recognize the xeon.

Ahhh... Gigabyte UD4.... virtually guaranteed.
 
I will say at minimum this has re-activated my itch to fight with this chip and see if I can push it to 3.6. Started tinkering with the overclock, no joy yet but not giving up. Fingers crossed if I blow it up I don't cook the mobo and can buy one of those x5650s. Googling about the UD4P and the X5650 kicks up some forum chatter from overclockers complaining that this particular mobo/chip combo doesn't want to overclock very well, though.

In the meantime it is good to know that the CPU is not the bottleneck and a GPU upgrade will help, I will watch nowinstock for a nice retail priced GPU as more inventory gets to stores.
 
RAD said:
I will say at minimum this has re-activated my itch to fight with this chip and see if I can push it to 3.6. Started tinkering with the overclock, no joy yet but not giving up. Fingers crossed if I blow it up I don't cook the mobo and can buy one of those x5650s. Googling about the UD4P and the X5650 kicks up some forum chatter from overclockers complaining that this particular mobo/chip combo doesn't want to overclock very well, though.

In the meantime it is good to know that the CPU is not the bottleneck and a GPU upgrade will help, I will watch nowinstock for a nice retail priced GPU as more inventory gets to stores.
Click to expand...
Just remember to ask our own members as well, the [H] 1366 x58 Xeon Enthusiast overclocks club is active even now if you go that route (they converted me and we all help troubleshoot). Going from my i7-950 @ 4.2 to my X5670 @ 4.2 I felt a difference in even daily computing
 
Tinkering with my bios settings and looking at CPU-Z information in preparation to overclock led me to discover that my multiplier seems to be stuck at 12x. I posted a thread over in gen hardware for advice on that (https://hardforum.com/threads/i7-920-stuck-at-12x-multiplier.1939747/) .

I am very confused about what my computer is doing right now. I thought I should check here since a few of you seem to be working with similar hardware in case you had any advice.
 
Nowinstock is starting to show some of the small form factor single fan 6gb 1060s showing up at normal MSRP (like this one for $269: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B01IPVSLTC/ at least at the time of this post)

Is there any big reason to buy the double fan version rather than the single fan version of one of these cards?
 
One fan means having to spin at a higher RPM to push as much air as two fans at lower RPMs. That said I doubt it'll make any difference in desktop, and there's other noise to distract you during gaming.
 
Quartz-1 said:
Get yourself a Xeon 5650. One should be under $100.
Click to expand...

You're kidding?! I got one for 21 bucks a few months ago. Absolutely buy one of these and upgrade the GPU to 980ti or higher. You'll be happy. The only thing you'll be stuck without is high bandwidth SATA and USB 3.0+. Though some boards offered it, performance sucks compared to modern boards. That being said, it still is worth it.
 
You can tell if your cpu limited or gpu limited by the following:

Run a high end game with graphics about as notched up as realistic.

Using afterburner or the gigabyte app monitor the OSD in game.

What your looking for is this....

For cpu limit your gpu usage will be less than 100% loke 75 to 80 etc.. but the game appears to run no faster or stutters w low fps etc.... your cpu is unable to feed the gpu as fast as it can eat data from the cpu.

If your gpu limited then your fps will max at a certain point maybe low fps.like 40 50 60 etc...but your gpu usage will be at 99% typically.

This means the cpu is sufficiently feeding the gpu but the gpu cant process any more data.

A latest high end aaa title game will be a good test.

I'd say your biggest gain would be getti g a R5 1600 Ryzen. Then use the gtx580 a bit more until you have the money to get a newer GPU. An rx580 would be a good GPU to match to a R5 1600.

Or wait a bit. It looks like the r3 Ryzens are going to potentially stomp the i3s and i5s of modern iteration. But we have to see reviews. Yes I am openly being biased for AMD as they are absolutely the best bang for the buck at this time.
 
I cannot comment on other games, but be aware that most Blizzard games use the CPU more than the GPU.

As others have mentioned, look at your CPU and GPU load while playing and see which one is over 95% load and you have likely identified your bottleneck.
 
Considering that you keep your systems for 8+ years it may be time for a platform upgrade. Your X58 mobo should get you a little bit of cash. Put that towards an R5 1600 and 1060/580. I think you're fighting a losing battle with that 920.
 
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