Want to upgrade to GTX 970. Bottleneck advice please?

CPU: Phenom II X4 925

Memory: 8gb DDR3

GPU: GTX 560 Ti

Display: 20 inch 1,680x1,050 monitor resolution

I want to upgrade to a GTX 970 and I was wondering if the rest of my system would bottleneck it too much. If so, what CPU would you suggest upgrading to? I'm looking for something just good and cheap enough to keep up with the GTX970, so ideally I'm looking for something with the same architecture. After the GTX 970, I'll likely upgrade my whole rig. Is it worth upgrading to the GTX970 without a CPU upgrade?

My goal is to upgrade enough to comfortably keep up with the current consoles (PS4/One). A GTX 970 does that, and I just want to make sure the rest of my rig can accommodate.

Many thanks for any advice. I used to know this stuff like the back of my hand but have been out of the game for some time.

The cheapest option would be FX-8320 if your motherboard supports it. If not, then I think a H97 motherboard and i5-4460 would be a good choice (or something in that range). What motherboard do you have exactly?

edit: if you want to change the whole rig then Intel is definitely a better choice, eather what I said or Z97 and 4670K, which is more expensive of course. You could use GTX 970 with Phenom II for a while, but you definitely need to upgrade it at some point.

As been said if your MOBO supports it I'd go with FX8320 or 8350, might be even 8370.

If your MOBO does not support it any i3 or i5 would do (1156, 1150 sockets)

BTW to save some money for the CPU, I'd be going with R9 290 for 250$ instead of GTX970 for 330$

i have fiend who has sli 970 @965 Black edition , as he says he does not have any problem , get 290 and try it out.

You know he's lying right?...... His cpu is bottlenecking one card enough to the point of not even allowing teh 970 to perform as a 970. And he's running SLI 970 good god what a waste of money on gpus if he's not planning on getting an modern intel cpu.

From personal experience coming from a 955@3.6 ghz with a GTX 560 to an overclocked GTX 760 only seen slight gains to moderate gains but switching over to an i5 4690k, seen in many games 50-100% increase in framerates with GTX 760.

Can confirm, my 955 @3.6ghz is bottlenecking my 670.

With the resolution of 1680x1050 its best to do an all around system upgrade then just spending all that money on a gpu upgrade. and bottleneck that 970, Phenom 2 X4's are the base line for cpu's to match the new consoles, so you want something with more processing power behind it. You will see more performance with a cpu upgrade with getting a weaker gpu then just grabbing a GTX 970.

You can reuse your DDR3, hard drive, case and psu etc.

Here are a few options

i3

H97 Motherboard

or AMD route

FX 8320

AM3+ 970 Motherboard

As for the gpu GTX 760, has nearly 2x the shader performance over that 560til. So its a safe choice not knowing your psu, since it uses same amount of power as well.

GTX 760

Really appreciate the advice guys. Going to upgrade to an i5. Not happy my am3 mobo can't handle am3+ cpus, so I guess it's Intel this time around. Not particulary strapped for cash, just want to be economically practical.

Get a 1080p monitor minimum while your at it (if you plan on getting the 970), the 970 will be half asleep playing games at 1680*1050.

@GTR12: Thanks. I've just been waiting for the next big jump in monitor technology to update my display but it just hasn't come yet. Monitors are simply just bigger now. I was hoping we would have retina display monitors or super thin OLED monitors as the norm by now. When you think how much computer parts have progressed, monitors have been lagging.

What lol? you have it backwards, PC hasn't really progressed, we still have quad-cores and RAM speed has just gotten a bit better, SSD's are just as fast as they started, maybe 10% faster in 6 years... GPU's are just becoming more power efficient, yeah they are faster but other than some mods for games (GTA 4 Enhancer, Skyrim ENB and Crysis, IMO) theres nothing that has "popped"

Look at the ROG Swift, or the iMac 5k as examples of how monitors have improved.

@GTR12: You have a good point. I guess my expectations were unrealistic. Last time I bought a PC, I was pretty geeked out about SSDs, so I was expecting to see more cool new things this time around. Unfortunately monitors are still "glossy vs matt" or "TN panel vs ISP", which were the same decisions you had to make 7 years ago. Out of all my PC parts, my monitor is the oldest thing I have, and there is still not a very big reason to upgrade when you compare it to a GTX 560 ti vs a GTX970 situation. But then again, monitors are a more expensive investment than PC parts.

@phan1081:

If apple were to only sell that 5k monitor for $1500 AUD (or $1000 USD) I'd happily buy that monitor, I don't replace monitors too often anyway.

If Sony would do the same thing for there OLED monitors I would be extremely happy! Or Eizio doing that for there 24" 240hz VA Panel I mean they released it even cheaper for $500 but quality control was crap. I wouldn't mind paying more for higher quality control but not the $5000 the original monitor cost!

My old phenom II was bottlenecking a mere 7850 at cpu bound games so expect huge bottlenecks in games such as battlefield.

A core i5 4460 and a Z97/H97 mobo should be around $250 and that CPU will have no problems driving even 2 gtx970's and the best part they will be compatible with upcoming broadwell cpu's in case you wanna upgrade later