Upgrading to a GTX1060

Hey duders,

I am planning on upgrading my Zotac gtx760 to a Gigabyte gtx1060 but since I'm not really that savvy when it comes to computer hardware I felt it would be better to ask you guys if my 4 year old system can take it (I don't really know if that is too old or not anymore). Here are my specs:

Intel I7-2600 3.40ghz 4 cores 8 threads

Asus P8Z77-M PRO

2x4gb Kingston DDR3 1333Mhz (already bought a new 8gb stick)

ZM700-GLX 700WATT power supply

I'll problably upgrade my motherboard and processor next year. This 760 is the second video card I've put on this computer after my first one got fried. So I'm imagining that the1060 is gonna last me at least 4 more years. Hopefully. Is there anything in this that wouldn't allow me to upgrade? Maybe the power supply?

Thanks in advance.

Is your 2600 overclocked?

Sandy Bridge CPUs are still fine and dandy. You may start to see CPU bound games soon though.

@hmoney001: It isn't, my motherboard loves giving me bluescreens when I overclock my cpu, so I don't bother with it. There are some games that make me wish for a new cpu. That's why I am already thinking about upgrading motherboard and cpu.

I mean, you're right on the edge of needing a new CPU, especially since you can't overclock it apparently. If it's in your budget to upgrade everything, you wouldn't be making a mistake or wasting money by doing so. Maybe keep an eye out during holiday sales for a deal you can't pass up?

But to answer your original question, you should be fine for now if you want to pick up just the 1060.

Not to say a 1060 is anything like as fast as an (old) Titan X but it's worth looking at EG/DF's quick piece on this era hardware.

I'm happy to say my i5-2500K is good to go and I'm at least waiting to see what AMD do with Zen (release date: like real early 2017, realistically for actual volume shipments - maybe we get some previews of final hardware before year-end but you're not going to be buying anything until after CES) and it can basically provide very little throttling to my OC GTX1070.

But I'm also running to so that even when all four cores are fully-loaded it runs at 4.4GHz and I've got 24GB of fast DDR3 in there. Both the OC and the fast RAM mean I'm not worried. It sounds like you're both using RAM clocked way below modern DDR4 systems (or even fast DDR3) and are stuck at 75% of the clock speed possible from OCing the CPU.

I think it's a bad time to upgrade your CPU because AMD might, for the first time in an age, actually give us a viable gaming alternative to Intel at the sharp end of CPU speeds (but without the Intel price premium for their high end or being forced to buy a chip that's 50% integrated graphics when we've got a GPU already). Zen may actually be basically everything they've promised (if not then AMD will basically tank their reputation and we can welcome a future where Intel is the only x86 manufacturer in town and maybe AMD spins off the ATi team as the only profitable bit of the company avoiding a hostile takeover from any of the other silicon companies who may want to buy up their x86 patents on the cheap*). At which point you'll be able to get a gaming CPU with 8 cores, 16 hardware threads for $400 or less which is equivalent to a modern Intel i5 for gaming but with the extra cores to mean it scales into the roof for everything else (and is future-proofed for when current game engines really go wild with multi-thread designs thanks to DX12 and Vulkan making that a lot easier and years of consoles with 8 small Jaguar x86 cores forcing a balanced design for all game engines as there is no single thread that can do the majority of the work).

If I was stuck with a stock-speed 2xxx CPU, I'd get the GPU upgrade now (1060 is a great choice) but keep an eye on my budget and be thinking that at some point in the next year I'll be looking for new RAM (DDR4), a new CPU, and mobo to drive the two. Transfer the rest of the system over but then have a great base for the next 5 years (like the last CPU has lasted you since 2011) which means you'll be able to put a new GPU in there in maybe 3 years without being CPU-limited.

* Intel paid nVidia $1.5bn as a "licensing fee" to end all patent disputes around x86 and agree to not develop their own x86 CPU in 2011. That deal has been pushing $66m to nVidia every quarter ever since. So that's how much Intel value not having nVidia with a x86 patents. The entire of AMD (x86 patents and all) has a market cap of about $5bn right now. You can see a point where someone wants to spin off the GPU side of the company and sell the rest for the patent portfolio.

@groposo: I've got pretty much the same CPU in my PC (2600K) and just upgraded to a 1060 from a 560 Ti. It's been pretty sublime so far. I've been able to max out every game at 1080p and the new card draws less power and is quieter than my old one.

@falconer: Yeah, my computer is telling me that aswell.

@shivoa: So, I should wait to upgrade cpu? I won't be able to upgrade before the end of last year anyway. I am thinking about getting some fast ddr3. Or maybe ddr4 after I upgrade my motherboard. But since I already got 8 gigs of 1333mhz and a friend of mine managed to get me 8 more gigs for dirt cheap I thought it wouldn't hurt to see if it made any difference.

@isomeri: That's awesome to hear. How much memory do you have, if you don't mind me asking? Also, I don't know if you own it but if you do, what is the situation of the new deus ex on your computer?

@groposo: Ye, I'd definitely give it at least the 4-6 months it'll take for everyone to benchmark the range of different AMD Zen CPUs coming out soon and see if there are any cheap and great models in the pack that make for an obvious upgrade out of the classic 4-cores consumer CPUs we've all been using since before the 2xxx series in 2011. Maybe see if Intel respond with aggressive pricing for their HEDT platform (Extreme Edition). Right now you're looking at getting a rather meagre CPU upgrade, at least when looking at gaming benchmarks (even with a high end GPU).

Grab the new GPU now, then just keep an eye out for the news when Zen releases. The GTX1060 may be running at 90% speed if the CPU is bottlenecking it for some games but that's still only going to mean you're losing a few potential frames per second. Also, you can always increase the eye candy settings that almost purely tax the GPU to push the bottleneck back to the GPU. No one is seriously making game engines that are horrific for CPU load (some are worse than others but they're all built to work with consoles which really don't have much CPU perf to offer and so generally can be mostly fed with even a low-end modern desktop i3) and changes like DirectX 12 and Vulkan are designed to reduce CPU load.

@groposo: 16 gigs of RAM. Haven't played the new Deus Ex.

Cool then. Thanks guys, this has been really helpful. Can't wait to be able to choose high settings in most games without having to accept my fate of getting 20 to 30 fps.

You have 2 4gb sticks and one 8gb stick of ram, or 4 sticks total?? I wouldn't put 2 different types of ram in there, i would keep them the exact same make. So either 2 8gb sticks or four 4gb sticks of the same ram. My guess is you have a non K version of your cpu which they disable overclocking, so thats probably a no go. Just make sure your psu has all the cables you need, and unless it's giving you issues 700wtt is way more than enough for a 1060, i run a 1080 off a 620wt that's also about 5 years old or so. My psu is actually missing a second 8pin for my card, but i don't think it would be an issue for a 1060.

I think a 1060 should give you a good performance boost even if you get a mild bottleneck.

@isomeri said:

not to be a jerk but you're also going from a 560ti to a 1060, you're bound to see a huge performance bump.

i'm of the mindset that the CPU is fine for now but OP will begin to see it and the ram bottlenecking that card until they upgrade. my 2 cents.

I will also be upgrading from my GTX 960 2GB to a GTX 1060 6GB in the future. Vram usage is where it's at these days, which is why its not wise to get the 3GB version of the card.

no you don't need to upgrade the CPU now. That GTX 1060 will be fantastic for you trust me, just be aware that you will eventually need to upgrade the CPU (at some point soon) but for immediate results the 1060 will absolutely get you that......