Graphic Cards GTX 970 with a P45 and E8200 ?

R

raja_mastana

Adept
I want to play some of the latest games like GTA V, Witcher and Mortal Kombat X
I have a 4 yr old PC with Gigabyte P45 motherboard with Intel E8200 CPU, 4Gb RAM and Sapphire 4870.
The PSU is a Seasonic SS-650KM3.
My display is a 22" HD screen (1680 * 1050)

I was wondering if i could just buy a Zotac GTX 970 and be done with it?

Thanks in advance
 
Everything will be badly cpu limited. Pretty much everything these days runs 4 threads and needs 4 cores ideally. On an e8200, you would not see much difference in performance between a 750 ti and a 970. Buy the former and save money.
 
E8200 will be bottleneck here. As suggested in above post, get 750Ti if you not looking to upgrade rest of your config and save money. Also going by the specs most probably you would need to upgrade proccy + Mobo + Ram if you are thinking to upgrade just proccy which would set you back by another 20k approx.
 
Yes you can.
I have an e5700 (pentium dual core) and an r9 280x. i play at 1600x900 with everything at ultra. i don't get high frame rates but it doesn't drop below 30 frames even during intense fps fire-fights.
after-all the whole point of such high end hardware isn't to get 120+ frames but to get the max details while still maintaining playable frame rates.
anyway a gpu handles over 80% of the game's workload. you can upgrade the cpu later on.
get the 970 and enjoy the eye-candy :)

P.s. rest of my system - 4gb corsair value-select, seasonic s12 520, asus p5g41 mobo, and 2x2tb barracudas.
 
I gave my old rig to my brother, he recently upgraded hid GPU from a GTX 650Ti to R9 280x, his cpu is AMD Phenom IIx4 & almost all games runs like shit! GTX 650Ti played BF3 @FHD decently,& now R9 280x has very poor performance stuttering fps dip & what not! so a E8200 dual core will bottleneck!
 
hector19 said:
I gave my old rig to my brother, he recently upgraded hid GPU from a GTX 650Ti to R9 280x, his cpu is AMD Phenom IIx4 & almost all games runs like shit! GTX 650Ti played BF3 @FHD decently,& now R9 280x has very poor performance stuttering fps dip & what not! so a E8200 dual core will bottleneck!
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You mean that a cpu bottleneck becomes worse with a more powerful card?
as far as i know, a cpu will bottleneck at the limits of its performance - this shouldn't become lower with the addition of more gpu power.
stuttering can be caused by an unclean driver installation -have you tried turning off rag-doll/physics?

I never said the cpu won't be a bottleneck.
what i am saying is that op need not waste money on redoing his entire system now.
He's obviously not going to be buying a new gpu within the next 2 years and he doesn't have the budget to upgrade both gpu and cpu now. so might as well get a brilliant gpu that will do well even after an eventual cpu upgrade.
I went for the 280x and now i'm saving up for an i5. couldn't afford both so went with the gpu and will up the cpu later on.
either way i've been playing games at max res/details ever since i got the 280x.
at the end of the day he gets to play the games of his choice at the resolution of his choice with great image quality.
 
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Crapmypants said:
You mean that a cpu bottleneck becomes worse with a more powerful card?
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Yes... a powerful card will obviously bottleneck less powerful CPU!
let me put it this way...
I tested the R9 280x (omega drivers) on 2 system! My current rig a 2500k @ 4.4 & my bro's phenom II X4 @ 3.7!
COD AW/RYSE/BF3,4/FC4/ACU ran butter smooth on i5 2500k, & on PII X4 its a fps nightmare!
 
hector19 said:
Yes... a powerful card will obviously bottleneck less powerful CPU!
let me put it this way...
I tested the R9 280x (omega drivers) on 2 system! My current rig a 2500k @ 4.4 & my bro's phenom II X4 @ 3.7!
COD AW/RYSE/BF3,4/FC4/ACU ran butter smooth on i5 2500k, & on PII X4 its a fps nightmare!
Click to expand...

So basically you're saying that the performance of an r9 280x becomes worse than that of a 650ti while using the same cpu?
p.s. turn off v-sync
 
^ yup worse... equally performs same as what GTX 650Ti did,[ The GPU utilization is well below what itnormally should be]& yes buddy V-Sync turned down!
Cliffhanger.... a friend of mine owns a 280x as well with a different CPU (i3 3220) & it does wonders! (thanks to hyperthread maybe? )
So my conclusion is Phenom is pretty old tech which couldn't keep up with super fast cards! as for the Intel E8200, its a hit or miss, I couldn't really say.
 
i would suggest a complete overhaul,if you go ahead with only a gpu upgrade,be prepared to be thoroughly underwhelmed,i have been cpu bottlenecked for the past 3 years,the experience is just frustrating and enraging.i have a 280x and skyrim lags in a couple places,its stupid.same with far cry 3 and 4,ac unity,battlefield 4 etc etc point is,things get sttuttery real quick.
so for you this is what i would suggest: if a future cpu upgrade(keep in mind that would require 23-25k for an i5 rig or 12-13k for i3) is possible then pull the trigger on this just make sure its near future
if near future upgrades are not an option then i suggest you dump 12-13k in a i3 cpu+mobo and spend the rest (14-16k assuming you are getting a 970 for 26-28k) on a r9 270x or a r9 280(it might be possible to score one for this low if you buy from retail and live in say delhi)
i3s are pretty decent for gaming,i think a i3+270x/280 will probably give you a better experience than the alternative(note you will not be able to play dragon age inquisition with this rig though since it requires a quad core cpu) also sets you up nicely for upgrades.honestly its what i would have done instead i opted to splurge on the gpu,never quite had the chance to get off bulldozer and now my gpu is pretty much obsolete anyway,my rig sucks.think this through.
 
The excavator cores were never any good for gaming even at launch.
As for performance issues all the games pointed out as examples of stuttering or low fps are heavy cpu usage games i.e. any bf multiplayer, large open worlds of fc 3&4 and strategy games with large numbers of units (like the total war series).
oblivion works brilliantly with everything maxed out (i don't have skyrim).
witcher 2 is also fully playable with ssaa off.

hector19 said:
^ yup worse... equally performs same as what GTX 650Ti
Click to expand...
if you're getting lower frames with a 280x at the same res. and settings than a 650ti then i'm pretty sure you've not done a clean driver install. you're stating that a 650ti matches or beats a 280x when paired with an athlon x4 which makes no sense.

@op; don't get a 270x or a 280x they are both at the end of their product cycles.
yes, the cpu will be a bottleneck but plonking in an overly powerful gpu should not cause performance to drop from current levels.
all you need to do is take 2 mins to turn down cpu based settings of a game.
Your cpu is going to end up getting replaced anyway - if soon, then get a gpu to match the upgrade you're planning on.
If you're not going to be changing your cpu in the next 12 months then go with a gtx 960.
i bought my 280x with a plan to get an i5 at a later date.
Basically my experience has been that a fast gpu allows me to crank up the details at max res and if i face issues i just turn down the offending feature which is usually physics/rag-doll effects.
if i want more frames then i just put aa down a notch.
i've NEVER had to reduce my resolution to get playable frame rates.
a mid range gpu will restrict you to AT BEST average performance (~40fps) and quality settings which is the same performance i get - only difference is way better image quality. also when it's time to upgrade you'll have to spend on both cpu+gpu again. if i want to play dragon age today, i only need a cpu upgrade. had i opted for a more sensible i3+270x last year i would have spent more money to get the same performance at lower quality - and still require a complete overhaul of cpu+gpu if i wanted to play dragon age (or any recent aaa title).
 
Crapmypants said:
if you're getting lower frames with a 280x at the same res. and settings than a 650ti then i'm pretty sure you've not done a clean driver install. you're stating that a 650ti matches or beats a 280x when paired with an athlon x4 which makes no sense.
Click to expand...
Well tell me this then,Why does my GTX 970 do the same? with the x4? can't be a driver issue mate! tried all possible tweaks & troubleshoot,Fresh OS Install also! The GPU utilization is below what it usually should be!
 
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Thank you very much for the suggestions guys. I considered all the options - but somehow inclined towards the 970.
Its been almost 5 and half years since i upgraded my PC - I really don’t feel like going for a mid range GPU.
Suppose the games are unplayable after the upgrade, I will upgrade the cpu+mobo in the coming months.
Also since i am not playing at FHD resolution, hope i can survive long enough with just the GPU upgrade .
Will visit some stores tomorrow and see what i can get
 
raja_mastana said:
Thank you very much for the suggestions guys. I considered all the options - but somehow inclined towards the 970.
Its been almost 5 and half years since i upgraded my PC - I really don’t feel like going for a mid range GPU.
Suppose the games are unplayable after the upgrade, I will upgrade the cpu+mobo in the coming months.
Also since i am not playing at FHD resolution, hope i can survive long enough with just the GPU upgrade .
Will visit some stores tomorrow and see what i can get
Click to expand...

If you can upgrade the CPU/RAM as well, that is ideal. The 750 Ti I suggested is not a bad card. I use it in a PC with a X2 550BE unlocked to 4 cores and overclocked to 3.6GHz.

This is my secondary linux box. I can feel it is completely CPU limited even on this machine in some games even at 2560x1440. Its a sweet little card.

For a resolution lower than 1080p, it'll be completely adequate. The 970 will give you the exact same frame rates as the 750Ti with an E8200.

However if you plan to upgrade soon, get the 970.
 
i should warn you about the memory issue on the gtx 970 but it's a rare case scenario and most likely a problem for 4k or sli users. detailed info below;
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8935/geforce-gtx-970-correcting-the-specs-exploring-memory-allocation

Please do let me know how your experience post gpu upgrade is.
interested in it since your cpu is also a wolfdale like mine but faster.
i did try a 10% overclock of the cpu and noticed improvements in some games but not all. have you tried anything as such?
 
Thanks Chaos for your suggestion. I may need to upgrade in the near future - because of the CPU as you mentioned and also - the RAM. Newer games need 6GB minimum.
So I will start the upgrades with the GPU - just got a GTX 970 today and started Witcher 3. Will continue playing tomorrow and see how it goes.

Thanks crapmypants - I am not sure how the memory issue will effect me. But i will post my experience in a few days.
Regarding overclock - no, my CPU is running stock
 
If you are not going to upgrade rest of your system anytime soon (within next one year), then getting an GTX 970 will be an utter waste of money. Go for a less costlier GPU and save the cash for when you upgrade the system. Your CPU will massively limit the potential of GTX 970 and if you plan to upgrade it more than an year later, your GPU will also be outdated by that time and you will get a similar powered GPU for a lower cost.

As for the GTX970 memory issue being pointed out by Crapmypants, you don't need to bother about it even if you go for a GTX 970. That is about frame rate issues currently faced by some users running a game which utilizes more than 3.5 GB of VRAM. You need high resolutions like 4k and most of the quality features cranked up to get into that scenario. None of it is stuff that your current CPU will be anywhere close to able to handle and even if you upgrade more than an year later, the games by that time will see the GPU power itself as a first bottleneck.
 
Yeah Lord Nemesis, I was thinking I will upgrade rest of the system if required i.e. if i can't play the current generation games
But, I think i can manage a few months with just the GTX 970 upgrade.
I am able to play GTA V with very high to high settings.



Although i have up my page file to 12 GB for the game to playable other wise it would crash in like 5 - 10 mins - ERR_GFX_D3D_INIT
 
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Yes, the CPU/RAM bottleneck is clear from the video - however the game is playable
Regarding settings - do settings matter when running a benchmark? i though benchmarks run at a standard parameter so we can measure the performance across different test setups.
 
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