Upgrade advice - video card vs GPU and power setup

[ZeeSalahuddin]

Hi everyone,

Apologies in advance for what must seem like a very basic question to a lot of you, but I am at a bit of a loss.

About a year ago, I got a new PC made. I did not want the extreme high end machine, mostly due to financial constraints. However, a year later, I find that most of what I want to play on the PC, I have to tone down the setting significantly to get playable frame-rates. And that is obviously not fun at all.

The latest example of this Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Having bought the game and running it through Steam, I had to turn down every graphical option down to the lowest possible setting, and turn of most post-processing. Even then, the game stutters and my frame-rates dip well below 30.

The following is my set-up:

• Intel Motherboard 87MC
• i5-4670 CPU @ 360GHz, 3201 MHz, 4 Cores
• GeForce GTX 650 DDR3 (upgraded to driver version 352.86, released May 18, 2015)
• Corsair 8 GB RAM DDR3 1600MHz
• 64-bit Windows 7
• Cooler Master Elite Chassis 371 with 420W power supply

I have so many questions.

1. My hardware guy says that the best thing to upgrade is the video card, and that I should upgrade to GeForce 970. This will effectively alleviate all my gaming woes. That seems circumspect to me, advice?
2. He also says that this video card will take a lot more power, so the power supply will need to be upgraded to about 750W. Advice?
3. Is my motherboard and GPU good enough to tackle next-gen games, starting at Witcher 3: Wild Hunt?
4. Any other advice on if I am doing anything wrong, performance tweaks, upgrade advice? I have a decent budget, but it is not massive by any means.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

 

[sakete]

Your CPU is fine. Indeed a GPU upgrade will give you the most bang for your buck. Go for a GTX970 or R9 290/290X. I'm not familiar with that particular PSU, but 420W should be enough for the GTX970. Not 100% sure about the R9 290/290X as that's a more power hungry supply.

 

[futurefields]

He's right, the main bottleneck for gaming on your system is the GPU.

The GTX 970 is several orders of magnitude more powerful than your current card.

Your CPU is more than up to the challenge of playing any game.

Your current GPU is just too small too draw the frames fast enough.

His recommendation for a 750w power supply is a bit overkill.

All you need is something 450w or higher, but make sure it has an 80+ rating (preferable Gold), this would be fine:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139048

 

[Shmee]

I would upgrade the PSU before getting a 290 series card. It may be cutting it close with the 970 as well. A good quality 500-600W PSU should be sufficient. As for any other performance tweaks, I would get an SSD if not already using one.

 

[happy medium]

Your Coolermaster 420 watt ,80% efficient psu has a 32 amp rail (384 watts) and 2 6+2 pin connectors. That should be the one that comes with your case . With a stock clocked 4670 cpu (80watts) , it should be enough for a gtx 970 (150 watts) That's the fastest card you can buy without needing a new power supply.

i5 4670 + gtx970+motherboard/ram/hd = 300 watts at most=25 amps. And that's if everything is pulling full power all at the same time.


gtx970 ftw

 

[Joepublic2]

Can you link your PSU make/model and how old it is (did you reuse it from your old computer)? 420W in and of itself doesn't tell us much of anything about whether or not it can support a 970/980. It's definitely not enough for a 290/290X. Whats more important is how many watts it can provides on the 12V rail(s) and if it's made by a know disreputable manufacturer. It's usually listed on the label like "12V - 30A" "12V1 - 18A 12V2 - 18A" or "maximum combined wattage 12V - 400W" etc. Also how many fans/drives you have and what kinds (120mm, hard drive, ssd).

edit: read 420W as 480W

 

[happy medium]

Can you link your PSU make/model and how old it is (did you reuse it from your old computer)? 420W in and of itself doesn't tell us much of anything about whether or not it can support a 970/290 class card. Whats more important is how many watts it can provides on the 12V rail(s) and if it's made by a know disreputable manufacturer. It's usually listed on the label like "12V - 30A" "12V1 - 18A 12V2 - 18A" or "maximum combined wattage 12V - 400W" etc. Also how many fans/drives you have and what kinds (120mm, hard drive, ssd).

see my post above yours.:thumbsup:


Zee, here is a gtx970 with a 28$ promo code, 20$ rebate, triple fan design for 301$AR and promo, oh and 2 free games, you can sell the witcher 3:thumbsup:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125685&cm_re=gtx_970-_-14-125-685-_-Product

The gtx 970 does well with the Witcher 3.

 

[ZeeSalahuddin]

First, let me thank you all for the incredible responses in such a short amount of time. I am very grateful. This seems like an awesome community!

Second, to answer some questions:

1. futurefields and JoePublic2, The chassis is RC-370-KKR. Here is a link: http://www.coolermaster.com/case/mid-tower/elite-370/
2. Schmee, I already have an SSD, and whichever game I am playing at the moment, is installed on the SSD. SSDs are quite fantastic, I agree!
3. happy medium, thank you, I will most certainly look into that.
4. JoePublic2, also, I have an 128GB SSD and a normal 1TB HD.

Over at Tom's Hardware, a user was quick to point out that the motherboard, the 87MC, may not be able to slot the 970 GPU (and point out that for a PC guy I was pretty foolish - but that is neither here nor there). Is this true?

 

[Denithor]

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/motherboards/desktop-motherboards/desktop-board-dh87mc.html

I believe that is your motherboard?

This board does have a full-size PCIe 2.0 slot to physically hold a GTX 970, however it only runs at x4 speed which will likely hold back a card like the 970 somewhat.

As shown in this article: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5458/the-radeon-hd-7970-reprise-pcie-bandwidth-overclocking-and-msaa

Your PCIe 2.0 x4 provides the same bandwidth as a PCIe 3.0 x2 slot, which really holds back the 7970 tested (which is, itself, considerably less of a card than the GTX 970 you're considering).

In short, your motherboard was not designed with gaming video cards in mind.

 

[96Firebird]

You sure about that Denithor? From the product specs PDF, it says (page 11):

PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot

 

[Stuka87]

You sure about that Denithor? From the product specs PDF, it says (page 11):

PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot

Intel's spec (not PDF but site posted above) shows it is a 4x 2.0 slot. Which will hurt performance, but would function.

I would not stick with a 420W PSU though. You would be running it up close to the 80% load mark.

 

[96Firebird]

I don't think the main page is mentioning the PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot for whatever reason... If you click on Specifications on the right-hand side, it shows this:

 

[smithkt]

Take another look at the PDF. There are two x16 slots. Only the black slot is x4 electrically. The blue one is x16.

He should have no problem using a 970 in there.

 

[LTC8K6]

You can find people using GTX970 cards in that board without a problem.

 

[Denithor]

Yep, I didn't look at the PDF, just read the main page I linked above. Where they describe the PCIe 2.0 x4 slot and do not mention a PCIe 3.0 slot at all. But, looking at the board, two full length slots...so, yeah...

 

[lehtv]

I wouldn't trust a 420W Cooler Master with a GTX 970. GTX 970 is capable of drawing around 170-180W under heavy load - especially true of a Gigabyte card that sports better than standard power delivery. If you're going to pay hundreds of dollars for a graphics card, making sure the PSU is up to the task isn't asking a lot. CX600 is just $37 AR AP, or S12II 520W for a little better construction quality and warranty.

 

[ZeeSalahuddin]

I wouldn't trust a 420W Cooler Master with a GTX 970. GTX 970 is capable of drawing around 170-180W under heavy load - especially true of a Gigabyte card that sports better than standard power delivery. If you're going to pay hundreds of dollars for a graphics card, making sure the PSU is up to the task isn't asking a lot. CX600 is just $37 AR AP, or S12II 520W for a little better construction quality and warranty.

Wonderful, thank you so much! The CX600 sounds lovely, I think I will just purchase that as well to manage the power usage.

And thank you everyone else for the incredible help and support. I am very grateful to this lovely community!

 

[aaksheytalwar]

That power supply will need to be changed even for a 960. Leave alone 970. You'll find it hard to get 200-250 watts from that psu.

 

[Headfoot]

You're going to need to change your power supply to something in the 600-750 watt range preferrably.

The two best value mid-high end cards are AMD R9 290 (best value) and nVidia GTX 970 (very good value if you want the game bundle). Since you already have TW3 the bundle isn't as persuasive. Either card is going to work well for you.

 

[ZeeSalahuddin]

You're going to need to change your power supply to something in the 600-750 watt range preferrably.

The two best value mid-high end cards are AMD R9 290 (best value) and nVidia GTX 970 (very good value if you want the game bundle). Since you already have TW3 the bundle isn't as persuasive. Either card is going to work well for you.

That power supply will need to be changed even for a 960. Leave alone 970. You'll find it hard to get 200-250 watts from that psu.

Gentlemen, do you mean the original 420W PSU will need to be changed? Or the CX600 that was suggested later in the thread?

 

[riversend]

The original Cooler Master 420W. The CX600 is fine.

 

[Headfoot]

The original Cooler Master 420W. The CX600 is fine.

Yeah, this.

 

[ZeeSalahuddin]

Hi everyone, just wanted to let you know that I upgraded to the 970 OC model, and used the CX600 PSU. It seems to have worked out great.

As for Witcher 3, it runs at all settings set to ultra, at a 1680x1050 resolution at a smooth 55+ FPS.

I just wanted to thank everyone for their time and generosity, I am very grateful to this wonderful community!

 

[riversend]

Glad that it worked out. Lots of good folks in this forum.