Will my CPU bottleneck me much if I upgrade GPU?

[Lmah2x]

Well I planned on waiting for the new nVidia line of GPUs, but the wait has been way longer than I expected, I've been waiting about a year, I was expecting them to be released like 6-12 months after the GTX5xx series so I planned on skipping it. But now it's still unknown when they will be released so I've just about thrown in the towel.

Anyways I'm tired of waiting and was thinking of going out and buying 2 GTX580s this weekend and I was wondering if my CPU will hold me back from getting my money worth of performance. Currently I have my 930 clocked at 4.2ghz and really don't plan on upgrading CPU until Ivy Bridge extremes are out and I have no idea when that will be. Will upgrading to 2 GTX 580s be a good purchase with my current CPU, or should I just continue waiting. I'm the type of person that wants every game maxed out and right now this is driving me nuts on Skyrim not being able to get the best graphical mods running on my current setup with a decent framerate. I plan to get the 3gb versions of the cards if I do just to have more vram.

[CrazyNutz]

i7 @ 4.2ghz Your good! That will rock the SLI 580s just fine for now.

[zanzabar]

u should be fine, and i would stongly suggest not get 2x580, they suck alot of power and cost alot.

and im not sure how u are not maxing skyrim, i can do it with the updated texture pac and lots of mods an a 4890, do u have the default fxaa on or maxed out radial blur (both negatives to graphics quality)

[davidkozat]

I used to have a 950 @ 4,2ghz with 2 480GTX these were watercooled so they didnt get that hot, But they do require a LOT of power, had to use a 1250 W PSU you might be better and cheaper to get a pair of 6970 in Xfire?? probably about the same performances and much cheaper...

[Lmah2x]

Well I decided to return my GTX580's today (last day I could is tomorrow) since I hear that GTX 680s might be released within the next 2-3 weeks. The classifieds were a huge upgrade from the GTX470, I had a constant 120fps in Skyrim at max settings and plenty of mods including some 8k texture mods. I just I hope I don't regret returning them, but my friends pressured me into it, saying it is best to get the 680s. I do hope they're right. Skyrim was using between 1400mb and 2000mb of vRam so I feel comfortable getting the 2gb 680's I just hope their performance is worth it. I was actually surprised I got a full refund for the cards, they usually knock 15% off opened items. So that made me feel a little better :P

[davidkozat]

Well Done! Skyrim does take a LOT of video ram.... not sure what the next Nvidia card Kepler is gonna be numbered... the specs are still unreleased to me...

[antiacid]

out of curiosity, what's your screen resolution?

[Lmah2x]

1920x1080 at the moment. I'm really considering picking up 2 more monitors this year though after seeing my friends 3d surround setup. But then I'll have to upgrade mobo and get 3way I believe since mine only supports 2way. I'm trying to hold out until Ivy Bridge. I'm actually only gonna pick up 1 GTX680 at first and see how it works, because I'm probably gonna upgrade when gk110 comes out.

My psu actually blew a capacitor and I needed to send it back, so I'm on a TX750 that I had laying around so I can't run SLi until I get my PSU back anyways.

[3lfk1ng]

@davidkozat
Please make your signature smaller. That thing is ridiculous.

@Lmah2x
The new Kepler cards can run three displays from one card. No need to upgrade your motherboard. One thing worth noting is that they are kind of cheating though. The monitors on the left and right of the main display will run at lower frames per second since the user is supposed to remain focused on the center display. This is to prevent the card from working so hard on screens that are only supposed to be in the users peripheral vision.

I personally do not like that idea but for people who desire three monitors without having to purchase two+ video cards, it certainly offers better bang for the buck.

[Funkwagen]

i7 @ 4.2ghz Your good! That will rock the SLI 580s just fine for now.

As someone with an i7 930 overclocked to 4.2ghz as well, and SLI 580s I can confirm this.

[Lmah2x]

I got my 680 today, probably gonna pick up a 2nd one on monday when they get in stock at frys :P
For a reference card the 680 is a beast and hasn't went over 76c yet with the default fan profile and I ran 3dmark11, metro2033 frontline and heaven3.0.

[coldcase]

Congrats! I'm in the evga step up program queue so I need to be patient....can't wait to get mine!

[Mungri]

Its definitely the best reference card I've even seen, even my reference 5770s ran hotter and noisier than this thing does.

Grats on your purchase. I really want one, bit a single one isn't really much improvement over what I currently have, and a pair cost way too much, so I'm still pondering whether to hold on to my 560s for another year, or buy a 680 in a few weeks / months after the prices come down a bit.

[davidkozat]

Thanks God nvidia has finally decided to only use 1 card to use Nvidia surround making to only necessarily to have 1 card with 3 monitors!! about time!

[Lmah2x]

http://3dmark.com/3dm11/3046305

I ran this at 85% fan speed
Powertarget : 132%
GPU Offset: +185
Mem Offset: +425

Temperature was 55c at full load.

This is by far the sickest reference card I've owned. I wish I could get my Mem Offset higher but it seems I'm one of the few who can't get +500.

Hopefully we eventually get a Powertarget uncapper and unlocked fan speed.

Now I can't wait to get another one and an Ivy Bridge.

[MaynardX]

Guys
I have the same exact question, as the author of this thread. Although my rig is a little ancient... You can see it in the signature
How do you thing, will my Q9450 3.69GHz bottleneck GTX680? With R5870 i get 99% utilization of graphics card during 3D.
I'm asking because I'd rather wait for Ivy Bridge so to upgrade my whole rig.

[davidkozat]

I recon you should wait for the Ivy Bridge I used to have a Q9650 oced to 4.2GHz with one single 480GTX and upgrading to a core i7 950 it improve the GPU performances to at least 40%...

[MaynardX]

Davidkozat

40% improvement? That is a lot indeed. Thanks for your apply.

[Leeghoofd]

40% more GPU performance with that CPU upgrade ? I hope you don't mean in games, but synthetic benchmarks

... you have some hard data to back that up ?...

[davidkozat]

Oh boy I do mean games mate spcially on my setup running AA and AF @ Max...