Looking to upgrade GPU, worried about CPU bottleneck

[ctlasley]

Hello all, I have been a lurker for about a half a year and am happy to now be an active member of a (usually) civil community!

I built myself a gaming PC last year and went with an i7-2600 and an MSI GeForce GTX 580 Lightning Xtreme for the system.

In retrospect, I realize the CPU was not the best choice. This leads me to my current question.

I am looking to upgrade my GPU in the future, either to one of the current flagships from Nvidia or AMD, or I might wait a little longer for the next crop from Nvidia to show up.

I want to state I have absolutely no preference as to which company I give my money too.

What I am worried about is CPU bottlenecking. I am pretty new to all this, as far as I know I might be bottlenecked already. The 580 is overclocked decently (960 core clock) and the 2600 is set at stock clocks (duh).

So- when I upgrade, let's say for sake of argument, to a 680, should I be worried about the CPU? I am all for creating the best possible setup so upgrading the CPU is definitely something I am open too.

Money is not really an issue, but I don't really want to spend 1k on a proc unless you all think it's justified.

If I have omitted any necessary specs or info I will be glad to post whatever is needed.

Thanks in advance! :thumbsup:

ctlasley

 

[Jocelyn84]

Grab the 680 and wait for Ivy Bridge to get a new K processor...

Edit: I didn't mean that your 2600 would bottleneck a 680, because I don't think it will. Just thought a new IB k proc would be the way to go if you feel like you needed to upgrade or even had the itch to upgrade. I'm in the same situation as you, only becaused I ran into a 2500 non k for ~$100, but I'll be upgrading as soon as IB is out

Sent from my Samsung Epic 4G Touch using Tapatalk

 

[Stayfr0sty]

Your worried about an i7?
Whats the clock speed on that?
Sorry im an AMD guy not to keen on sintels.

 

[BrightCandle]

Well the CPU is a top of the line Intel CPU, its a decent enough choice but harder to overclock as its not a k model. But a single 680 GTX bottleneck you will not.

 

[ctlasley]

What about a dual chip gpu, like a 590 (just an example)?

 

[ViRGE]

What about a dual chip gpu, like a 590 (just an example)?

Even then you still have the fastest consumer chip Intel sells. It's not a huge problem.

 

[BD231]

Considering turbo boost on that thing hits about 3.8ghz your fine for some time to come on cpu power. Plus you can always overclock the non k chips to about 4ghz using nothing but the multiplier and disabling turbo, super easy.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Turbo is only for single core stuff not 2 or more cores

 

[Mars999]

Ah no... 2600 isn't going to limit that 680.... not for a single one anyway...

 

[boxleitnerb]

If you choose the proper graphics settings, there is no such thing as a CPU bottleneck.

 

[BFG10K]

Turbo is only for single core stuff not 2 or more cores

That’s not true, the CPU will turbo at least 1 bin even with all cores loaded. It just turbos more when less cores are loaded.