- CostlyAxis
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- Intrepid Mythic Member
Posted by: VaultDweller178
Posted by: CostlyAxis
Posted by: VaultDweller178
Currently, I have an i7 950 and an AMD 6870. I just want better gaming performance. I think I should opt for the GTX 680. My question is this: Would my i7 950 bottleneck the new card or reduce performance significantly compared to the newer Intel CPUs?
The GPU should still improve your performance, but if the CPU can't keep up, it just can't keep up. Also, the CPU does determine the PCI-e version that will be used where Ivy Bridge uses PCI-e 3.0 while Sandy Bridge uses PCI-e 2.0 in most cases. Would the CPU keep me from maxing out nearly all games for awhile? I know some games are more CPU intensive, but the GPU plays a larger role. How much of a performance increase would I see if I upgraded to the new Ivy Bridge? Also, what issues arise with overclocking the CPU, assuming the heat is under control?
In case my previous edit was overlooked.
It would really depend on the game and how it utilizes the computer hardware. However, maxing out games usually takes at least a moderately decent processor even when backed by a nice GPU. Look at some of the games you're interested in and see what kind of processors they require for recommended configurations to get a general idea.
The Ivy Bridge apparently doubles the bandwidth that PCI-e can use over Sandy Bridge (if the motherboard supports it) so you'd get half the latency in the best scenarios if my understanding of that is correct.
When overclocking a CPU, the temperature is indeed a big factor, but so is electric pull and how much it's going to need at a consistent rate. Make sure you can also supply its higher power needs or else it will break very easily. It's also not very advisable to overclock the CPU to its absolute maximum ability.