Thinking about an upgrade

[Panopticon]

Hello anand it's been a while. I haven't done any PC gaming for about 2 years but life has me home a lot more lately and I'm thinking of getting back into it. Been out of it for so long I don't know what my hardware can really handle anymore and I'm looking for some advice. My rig is as follows:

i5 2500k no OC
GTX 760
Gigabyte UD3P mobo
16 GB DDR 1600
750W PS
Samsung 830 SSD for OS and game installs
1tb HDD for files and media

Basically I have two questions about the above rig. If I want to game at 1080p max settings on the majority of upcoming AAA titles for the next 2-3 years what should I upgrade. I'm leaning towards either staying a 1080p rig or going for a 1440p level unit just based on budget reasons. I strongly prefer gaming at 60fps at least.

I know the 2500k is like ancient at this point but I also remember it having alot of OC potential so with gaming so heavily taxing on the GPU I'm wondering is my cpu a bottleneck these days? Thanks for any help.

 

[Ken g6]

I know the 2500k is like ancient at this point but I also remember it having alot of OC potential so with gaming so heavily taxing on the GPU I'm wondering is my cpu a bottleneck these days?

Depends on your overclock. Un-overclocked, like you have it now, your CPU is similar to my i3.

If I want to game at 1080p max settings on the majority of upcoming AAA titles for the next 2-3 years what should I upgrade.

What's your budget? A GTX 1070 ($400) would be first on my list, along with some CPU cooler ($20-$100+). I see you have a CM Storm Sniper, which should fit most air coolers.

 

[Yuriman]

The difference between max settings and high settings is usually imperceptible, except for the massive weight it'll remove from your wallet. An RX 480 or GTX 1060 ($200-250) are both very capable of running modern games near maxed at 1080P smoothly. Sometimes even a GTX 1080 ($650) isn't enough to move that slider that last notch to the right.

 

[Panopticon]

Would my 2500k with an overclock be a bottleneck with an RX480 or GTX 1060? I have purchased both top tier and mid range cards in the past and always feel better about the value I get from a mid-range unit. If I can get one more GPU upgrade out of the platform I am running I will be ecstatic... the 2500k has been the best CPU purchase I've ever made. It stayed relevant for so long that getting a few more years out of it would be mind blowing. I can't say I miss the days of CPU upgrades every two years.

 

[lehtv]

In general, it would not be a bottleneck. Depends on how high framerates you want to get. If you play everything on max, no bottleneck; if you sacrifice image quality to reach higher fps numbers in games that are also demanding on the CPU, you may encounter some bottlenecking. Also, RX 480 will be more easily bottlenecked than GTX 1060 despite being a little slower, because NVIDIA's drivers (esp. for DX11) are more efficient. In any case, nothing major. You'll see a very nice performance boost compared to the GTX 760 2GB, especially in games where VRAM amount is holding things back.

It stayed relevant for so long that getting a few more years out of it would be mind blowing.

Agreed, it has aged fantastically well. But most of that is just due to a stagnating market rather than the 2500K itself. If graphics card sales had been rising instead of falling rapidly, and if AMD CPU's had been competitive in the post-Sandy Bridge era, the 2500K might be severely outdated already.

 

[nerp]

New GPU, if your PSU is of quality and you have a decent CPU cooler, mild OC, you've got a nice upgrade.