Thinking of getting the GTX 970 ( advise please? )

I currently have A 660TI and I am thinking of upgrading to the 970.

The question I have is will this be a significant upgrade from what I currently have? And will my processor hold me back? I have an i5 2300 ( 2.8GHz ) or do I need to upgrade that as well?

Advise would be appreciated!

Well you might find in some games a light bottleneck but not really anything special.

You have a quad core sandybridge and with its superior performance per core it should not have problems in most games.

As for the magnitude of this upgrade... We are talking about almost double performance... (around 85-90% to be honest...)

40-50% more FPS.

Thanks guys.....for $330.00 and no need for a new CPU, I am going for it.

If you could manage to OC that i5 as close as you can to 4Ghz you'd be all set to go, about the 970 definitely take it.

What's your MOBO module? you might save couple of bucks, you might even own a Z mobo and you're not aware of it.

I bought this refurbished Gateway back in '11 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883113189 and moved everything to a new case and upgraded the GPU to the 660ti....so I am not sure about the MOBO, I will have to get the specs on that when I'm home.

I checked and it's probably having H67 chipset, but just to be 100% I need the exact module so I could check for more details if it supports the K version CPUs, if so all you'll need to do is buy a brand new CPU without spending more money on the MOBO, something like the i5 3570K

I will check that out when I get home for sure.

It will be around double the performance, so go for it.

There's no bottleneck that you would actually notice.

Here is my MOBO

http://www.findlaptopdriver.com/acer-ipisb-vr-rev-1-01/

@PfizersaurusRex: @Postmortem123: lol I'm going for it....ordering this weekend!

Think the superclocked 970 would be worth the extra $10?

Is the ACX2.0?

@Coseniath: The email from EVGA just says GTX 970 Supercocked ACX for $339.99

Edit: Oops, wrong topic.

Definitely go for it. :D

Oh. Well it might not be ACX 2.0 but its at least an ACX not the EVGA's reference crap. Go for it.

As I understood you can OC the CPU but you can't OC the RAM - so that's not a problem.

Definitely upgrade your CPU to 5370K if you have the money for it, if you have another 25$ you could pick 4670 with a MOBO, but if you have extra 60$ you could even pick 4690K with a Z mobo, so yeah it's all about the budget.

:O. Broadwell i3 with unlocked multiplier? haha :D

He can overclock even his current CPU but I am not sure if the mobo will allow it.

All Intel CPUs can be overclocked even those without -K in the end cause they have unlocked multiplier if they have turbo.

His CPU has a 28x Multiplier that can go as far as his turbo allows it and when his turbo is 3,1Ghz, his multiplier can go up to 31x.

So he can o/c his CPU to 3,1Ghz without problems and this will be just 200MHz slower than stock 2500K.

I am going to have to read up on overclocking a CPU....never done it lol

Nowadays is so easy... For such a small upgrade you might not even need to touch the voltage, just change the Multiplier to 31x...

But better check a few videos and or articles about overclokcing a sandybridge CPU.

I mean i5 3570K - my bad XD

Go for it, you'll be surprised with performance boost.

wait for the upcoming 8GB versions

The i5 2300 has a maximum multiplier of 35x... So he can get the CPU to 3.5Ghz with a 3.8Ghz Boost clock and that will be more than enough for a entry level cooler to handle in terms of temps and will smooth out the slight bottleneck he may get.

Also I would like to add that the 970 is the best bang for buck GPU I have seen since the 8800GT.

I just ordered the 970 Phantom because my 780 Ti decided to die.

Now that you are saying yeah it has 35x Multiplier. I can't remember the formula, it might be turbo + 400Mhz...

When in the gamespot comments on the GTX970 review said the same about the best banf for buck like 8800GT, people didn't understand it xD.

Well a stock 2300 is 2.8 and the boost is 3.1... So I assume it's a 300Mhz turbo.

The comments section on GameSpot is basically system wars on steroids so its not surprising no one got it.

haha, indeed.

No, I wasn't talking about the turbo. The turbo is obviously 300MHz. I was talking of the multiplier formula of each non-K CPU. It had to do with turbo +400Mhz if I remember correctly (like i5 2300 is 2800 normal + 300 turbo + 400 (=3500) in order to find the maximum multiplier)...

Found it!

So its base frequency +400Mhz and turbo when needed...

Ahhh... Yeah its 400Mhz on top of the turbo.

The i5 2500 is 3.3Ghz and Turbo's at 3.7Ghz and its maximum multiplier is 41x.... which is 400Mhz.

They had to cut it off at some point otherwise it would make the variations pointless... If they made the i5 2300 with a unlocked multiplier no one would spend the extra £50/$70 on a i5 2500K since they are essentially the same CPU minus the IGP difference and overclockablitiy.

Not sure how dated your card is but I can vouch for the GTX 970. It is a beast.

I can vouch that 2 GTX 970 is even more beast.

Only games that I absolutely needed 2 GTX 970s instead of one was The Witcher 2 and Metro Last Light.

The Witcher 2 for 1440p with ubersampling and unlimited vegetation draw distance mod.

Metro Last Light for 1440p max with SSAA x4 and Physx enabled.

Just got my Asus Strix today... My god... So awesome. Only 1 complaint, the fans are LOUD!

I got the core to 1,477 MHz and I am hitting the 120% power limit. I didn't even touch the voltage yet.

Thing OC's like a beast. If I was man enough, I would water cool it. 76C on auto fan with my OC. Would have been nice if they made a triple slot cooler version.

Only about 8-10 FPS less then my GTX 690.

There's no point in a triple cooler version, heat limitations are a thing of the past, now its just feeding the card enough juice.

@GTR12: at 61% fan at auto it sounds just as bad as a ref card.

Would love to have a bigger heat sink for less noise. Hell most mobo these days are well laid out to accommodate SLI triple heat skinks. They even got smart and put a 1 slot gap to give people room for liquid cooling.

@Truth_Hurts_U:

Might sound like a ref card but it gets the job done at only 76c as you said.

Maybe they'll introduce a quiet version with locked clocks for people that care abut noise.

@GTR12: Or maybe they could you know... Make a triple slot one and people who care about space and noise could buy a 2 slot cooler.