jabbahut Posted October 16, 2017 Share Posted October 16, 2017 (edited) Hey guys, I have a question. Long story short, I had a 2GB Radeon R9 270X video card that went dead a few months ago. I sent it back to the manufacturer (MSI), who then told me they were unable to replace it & offered me a refund. Right now I have a 1 GB Radeon 6570 in the PC now, & I would like to get an upgrade. So, I went over to Tom's Hardware to ask them what I could get for the amount that MSI was refunding me ($135). One guy mentioned that I could get a GTX 1050 Ti as it is relatively cheap and should work with my system (listed below). He also mentioned that I could get a 3GB GTX 1060 for a bit more, too. However, when I checked the specs of GTA V with my rig & the new video card I would like to get over at game-debate.com, their system requirements tool mentioned that the card will cause a bottleneck for my CPU. Same thing for the GTX 1060. I asked about this over at Tom's Hardware 2 weeks ago, but so far no one has given me an answer.Is this true or is game-debate just erring on the side of caution? If it does cause a bottleneck, how much does this hinder the gaming experience? What other 4GB card can I get that won't cause a bottleneck for the same relative price? I could upgrade the CPU, but I do not have the money to do so. System Specs:Case: Cooler Master Elite 431 Plus Power Supply: XFX TS Edition PRO650W 650 Watts: Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P (rev. 2.0(?)) CPU: AMD FX-8320 RAM: 8 GBOS: Windows 10 Home 64-bit Edited October 16, 2017 by jabbahut Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D T Posted October 16, 2017 Share Posted October 16, 2017 I'd go for the GTX 1060 and upgrade the CPU later on. In my experience, this game is far more GPU dependent. Been using an ancient i7 from 2009 and it doesn't seem to bottleneck my GTX 970 too much. Almost everything is on ultra settings and still get around 50 fps. I do experience lots of stuttering when playing Online, but it might just be my hard drive failing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MechanicMammal Posted October 16, 2017 Share Posted October 16, 2017 (edited) Yeah get the 1060, if it is not much more expensive. a bottle neck is a bottle neck but a better card will still provide a better experience. GTA is very well optimized. I have the opposite problem (and this is on a laptop! so I can not do anything about it) my CPU is better than my GPU (A 2 GB mobile card) and I can play at 1080 with a mix of med and high settings. Better than next gen (PS4) quality and performance I looked at the specs of your CPU and it is capable of playing the game at a high ish level more so than my old i7 laptop card which does not break a sweat on this game. http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-3630QM-vs-AMD-FX-8320. The one cheap upgrade I would suggest and what I believe is the bottle neck would be having more RAM 8 GB IMO is minimum you need to play. The only thing you would need to check is the power consumption, you have a 650 watt power supply and the 1060 uses 400 watts of that, I am not going to do the maths but you need to make sure the rest of the rig (this includes every component including stuff you put in USB) uses a bit less than 200 watts or you will need to upgrade the power supply and possibly the cooling. Edited October 16, 2017 by MechanicMammal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dryspace Posted October 18, 2017 Share Posted October 18, 2017 (edited) If you are on a budget, what you want to do is research the relative performance of the currently available cards, along with the best deals thus far for those cards, and use that data to determine the card with the best price/performance ratio. For example, Card A may be 30% more expensive than Card B, but also 80% more powerful. Card A would provide much more power for every dollar spent. I haven't researched cards lately as I have no need of upgrading soon, but there is generally a sweet spot for price/performance: Both the least expensive and the most expensive cards are going to provide the worst power per dollar. The GPU is an extremely important component in a gaming PC, and it doesn't pay to skimp. Consider this: Your GPU is going to last 2 years, perhaps longer. $300 over 24 months is $12.50 per month. Despite what some people say, anyone in the U.S. can afford $12.50/mo (Unless already heavily in debt, in which case a person needs more advice than I can give). P.S. The GTX 1060 does NOT draw 400 watts. It draws 120 watts. The recommended PSU is 400 watts. Edited October 18, 2017 by Dryspace smurfynz and AboveAndBeyoncé 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jabbahut Posted October 21, 2017 Author Share Posted October 21, 2017 ...P.S. The GTX 1060 does NOT draw 400 watts. It draws 120 watts. The recommended PSU is 400 watts. I still need to plug in the card to the PSU though, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dryspace Posted October 21, 2017 Share Posted October 21, 2017 @jabbahut I believe the GTX 1060 requires one 6-pin power connector. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AboveAndBeyoncé Posted October 24, 2017 Share Posted October 24, 2017 If you are on a budget, what you want to do is research the relative performance of the currently available cards, along with the best deals thus far for those cards, and use that data to determine the card with the best price/performance ratio. For example, Card A may be 30% more expensive than Card B, but also 80% more powerful. Card A would provide much more power for every dollar spent. I haven't researched cards lately as I have no need of upgrading soon, but there is generally a sweet spot for price/performance: Both the least expensive and the most expensive cards are going to provide the worst power per dollar. The GPU is an extremely important component in a gaming PC, and it doesn't pay to skimp. Consider this: Your GPU is going to last 2 years, perhaps longer. $300 over 24 months is $12.50 per month. Despite what some people say, anyone in the U.S. can afford $12.50/mo (Unless already heavily in debt, in which case a person needs more advice than I can give). P.S. The GTX 1060 does NOT draw 400 watts. It draws 120 watts. The recommended PSU is 400 watts. Ok so that brings me to my question... So I would be better upgrading my gpu first (I have a GTX 1050Ti) or upgrading my CPU first? (I have a Pentium G4560 3.5 Ghz) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dryspace Posted October 25, 2017 Share Posted October 25, 2017 @AboveAndBeyonce I don't have much time to reply right now, but for one, it depends on what kind of resolutions and framerates you want to target. First, compare single-threaded and multithreaded performance between your CPU and a 4 core CPU like a 4770K. This is what I have, and no game has ever come close to saturating it. Single-threaded is more important for older games, where raw speed matters most. If your CPU doesn't fall far behind in either, I would just upgrade the GPU for now. But keep in mind your CPU determines your motherboard and thus other things such as PCI-E slots, M.2, etc. Remember to find benchmarks for the cards though, and compare raw GPU performance. Then divide the score by the price to get performance per dollar. The higher the better, as long as you can afford the actual price. AboveAndBeyoncé 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AboveAndBeyoncé Posted October 25, 2017 Share Posted October 25, 2017 Thank you dry space I'm saving up for a 1070 I just don't want to overkill with a 1070 paired with my current CPU but I'll get the 1070 and install it once I save up for the i5 (possibly i7) that I want Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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