Upgrading my graphics card - need some compatibility advice

[Ziley]

Hi computer savvy people of dMw!

I'm considering upgrading to the nVidia GTX 770, but I want to be a 100% sure it's compatible with the rest of my setup.

My setup looks like this:

Power supply: Corsair CX V2 600W PSU

CPU: Intel® Core i7-2600 Processor

Motherboard: ASUS P8Z68-V LX, Socket-1155

RAM: Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz 8GB CL9

Graphics Card (the one that I'm planning to replace): Gainward GeForce GTX 560 1GB PhysX

SSD: Corsair SSD Force Series 3, 60GB 2.5"

HDD: A very old internal 250gb hdd that I don't know the name of. I'm also using a 1TB external HDD that's almost always plugged in.

I've done some searching and I think it'd work, but I'm honestly not very well informed when it comes to pc building, so I'd appreciate if some of you could help me out!

Thanks a lot,
Ziley

[Tutonic]

Yep, should be fine - will directly replace your existing card.

[Ziley]

Thanks Tutonic

It's ordered, so now I'm looking forward to plugging in it and seeing what it can do. :yahoo:

I've got a small extra question, if you don't mind.. Do you think anything else on my setup needs upgrading? I'm not looking for top of the line, but is something particularly far out of date?

Cheers

[Bazer_Punk]

Get ssd drives as gamedisks, think that's what you will notice the most. Cpu is fine, just search for 'core unlock', gave me 5-10fps in bf4 (got the same cpu and chipset you have)

Sent fra mobilen

[Ziley]

I'm a little reluctant to mess around with overclocking and the likes since I don't know what I'm doing in that regard and I'm pretty scared I'll ruin the CPU for good.

But thanks for the tip, I might look into it if I feel like I need better performance in some games!

[Bazer_Punk]

It's not overclocking, just disabling the core shut off as a power saving feature, also, go into Windows power setting and change from dynamic to performance

Sent fra mobilen

[TeaLeaf]

I'd not bother with the overclock if you're at all worried by it.   The 770 will do you good and your next upgrade will be a CPU/mobo/RAM combo to Haswell, so save your cash and hold on until you can push the combo upgrade from the wish list to reality.    

With your current CPU and the 770 installed you will be heavily CPU-limited in terms of performance (your favourite game is heavily CPU dependant for example), so it makes no sense to push your current setup into other upgrades imo.   You could blow cash on a CPU upgrade, but personally I'd wait to do a CPU/mobo/RAM upgrade in one go.   Your current mobo cpu support list is here.  

One thing to watch for if you do consider the Haswell upgrade is if your current PSU is Haswell compatible, currently Corsair lists it as "Likely compatible â€" currently validating".

Hope this helps.

[Ziley]

It's not overclocking, just disabling the core shut off as a power saving feature, also, go into Windows power setting and change from dynamic to performance

Sent fra mobilen

I didn't actually know that you could change power settings on a desktop. :O The more you know..


Thanks for the help as well TL, I'm actually a little surprised that my cpu would be what was holding me back the most, since I thought it was a really good one when I bought it, but then again that was almost 2 years ago so a lot has probably changed during that time.

[TeaLeaf]

It's certainly not a 'bad' cpu by any means, but top end CPUs are now 30-50% faster (non-overclocked) than the i7-2600 (according to benchmark comparisons).   The GTX770 is basically twice as fast as your GTX560 so it will increase your gfx headroom considerably, so unless you are running really high resolutions then you'll not really be taxing it too much, so that puts the onus back on your cpu to deliver performance upgrades, hence my comments.   You could still go for a top end Socket 1155 CPU, it would improve things for you, but I'd hold off (precisely because the 2600 is not horrendous) to wait for a Haswell upgrade!

[Bazer_Punk]

The cpu should hold up, I also have a i7-2600k at stock speed, never seen it above 55% in a game, tried playing with it overclocked to 4.3GHz, only gave me 3-5fps, so I run it at stock speeds so the temperature is low as possible, my 6970 though is at 90%+ of max oc and sounds like a fully loaded C-130 under takeoff :-D  thinking of getting a R9-280

Sent fra mobilen

[Ziley]

I don't have the k-model though, Bazer. I'm not sure if that's a huge deal, probably isn't, but I think I read somewhere that there was something about the K-model that made it favourable.

[T-Bag]

Thanks for the help as well TL, I'm actually a little surprised that my cpu would be what was holding me back the most, since I thought it was a really good one when I bought it, but then again that was almost 2 years ago so a lot has probably changed during that time.

The CPU will definitely be the weak link post upgrade. The GTX 770 is several years newer tech than the CPU, but as TL said, it's not worth upgrading on its own. Your performance should be pretty good for the time being, in a year, 2 or even 3 you can grab a bundle of all the parts (if the price of another GTX 770 is cheap, a second one would give GPU performance a boost if the 770 isn't up to date then).

PCs are a continuous battle of trying to keep everything performing as well as possible without spending too much. If it's 2-3 years old there's money that could be spent, but that doesn't mean it's a priority there and then, just like your CPU situation.

[Bazer_Punk]

The only difference between K-models and regular cpu is that K has unlocked multiplyer so it's easier to oc, don't know how prices are in UK, but here in Norway nVidia cards costs about 40-50% more than equal performing Ati cards, never seen anyone recommend Ati to those on budgets

Sent fra mobilen

[TeaLeaf]

I don't think the card differential is anything like that much in the UK market, AMD & nVidia are broadly similar at the major price points as far as I can tell.  

The K is always a recommended option as it is almost an identical price, there's £10 difference between having the option to overclock and not, so people tend to err towards a K processor when there's the option especially as the screening will have pre-selected a better bit of silicon which should also run better at stock speeds.

[T-Bag]

I don't think the card differential is anything like that much in the UK market, AMD & nVidia are broadly similar at the major price points as far as I can tell.  

The K is always a recommended option as it is almost an identical price, there's £10 difference between having the option to overclock and not, so people tend to err towards a K processor when there's the option especially as the screening will have pre-selected a better bit of silicon which should also run better at stock speeds.

AMD 290X is around £430 and gets around 7000 points in benchmarks, a GTX 780 is around £420 and gets around 8000 in the benchmarks. So at the high end price point, there's not much in the way of competition. On the lower rungs it the picture is better for AMD, but they have been struggling to keep up in recent years.

As for unlocked CPU, I buy pre-overclocked ones for exactly that reason. They put them on a bench and stress test the CPU. If it's unstable when overclocked it goes into another machine and they keep going till they find one that works. I'm sure the majority of CPUs work, but the price difference is so low compared to the amount I spend of the whole system that I doubt I'd go back to buying off the shelf and crossing my fingers.