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Graphic card question

Max Arwood

By Max Arwood
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Max Arwood

Max Arwood

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I need a new computer, but just don't have the cash right now. I looked at my motherboard asustEK p8z68-v pro gen3.  I have almost the fastest CPU it will take (i7 2600K) . I can't tell if a 3770 is faster?? 

?Any helpful tips to overclock the i7 2600 CPU? I read they could be overclocked to 4.4? 

(This is an older Jim Roseberry computer)

Should the graphics card be upgraded? Would I get any cakewalk performance improvements going from a GTX 650 to a GTX-1070 or even a lower priced card?

This website says 495% better

https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-650-Ti-vs-Nvidia-GTX-1070/2189vs3609

Is there a dual output version with HDMI?

 

Current Motherboard options -

https://www.userbenchmark.com/System/Asus-P8Z68-V-PRO-GEN3/2498

What do you think, am I wasting my time?

 

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mettelus

mettelus

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If you have never installed it before, Passmark let's you run their benchmarking software free for 30 days IIRC. The reason I mention that is because the only thing that degraded in my old i7-2600K was the graphics card (580 originally and got hot, and I forget what I replaced it with now). Passmark's software will give you good insight on choke points and what is struggling. The graphics card won't help specifically with Cakewalk, but is good to check how things stand in your machine now.

The 8700K had a nice article about "finally getting the die hard 2600K users to upgrade" when it was released. That model is almost 6 years old now, but what I use. Be sure to consider the costs of options, and if you go with 2600K upgrades, that they will carry forward into a new machine later. Things with a few years under their belt are valid (and cheaper) options in some cases.

OCing the 2600K helps for mild adjustments, but if you go to extremes with it, it begins to throw page faults and actually performs worse.

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Starship Krupa

Starship Krupa

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On 8/17/2023 at 2:55 PM, Max Arwood said:

I have almost the fastest CPU it will take (i7 2600K) . I can't tell if a 3770 is faster??

You are not wasting your time. For under a hundy, you can get some more life out of that computer and be happier.

The 3770 is the fastest CPU with the most cores in that series, so yes, you would see a difference. It'll handle more plug-ins before it chokes.

As for the video card, it depends on what you're doing with the system. I just bought a used GTX 1070, and I think they're in the sweet spot now for price vs. performance in the bottom-feeder market. Mine has a total of 4 outputs. Two of those are DisplayPort, and DisplayPort to HDMI adaptors are a $5 item. I'm currently running 3 monitors on mine, and it's not getting near to breaking a sweat. With 8G of VRAM, it better not. The 1070 is a nice, quiet card for DAW work, too. It's smart enough to spin the fans down to zero when not under load.

If you're not playing any games on the system, the GTX 650 is definitely adequate. If you are, it will handle most indie games, really anything that's not the latest Esports or FPS. No Read Dead Redemption on ultra, but if that's of interest, pop for the 1070.

Make sure that everything runs from SSD's, and if you have an M.2 slot on the motherboard, an NVme for the OS and programs can speed things up a little too.

One caveat to CPU upgrades: I got tripped up by the motherboard supporting the newer processor, but only after a BIOS update. Fortunately the MB allowed that from a thumb driver or I would have been SOL. Do it before you take the old CPU out.

A 3770 should suit you fine for a couple more years. One of the Cakewalk developers has a 3770-based system in his studio. All the upgrades I suggested will drop just fine into a new system except for the CPU of course. So it's not money tossed away, when you finally do get a newer system and want to hand this one down you can put the 650 and your old boot drive back in.

Something that people forget to do that can really help performance is to take the computer out on the porch and blow all the dust off the fans and CPU cooler. The cooler a computer can run, the quieter and faster it can run.

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Jim Roseberry

Jim Roseberry

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Not trying to be argumentative, but a GTX video card isn't going to increase Cakewalk performance.

That's down to the CPU (unless you're using GPU Audio plugins (running on those Cuda cores).  ?

 

Max, it's been a minute... but I'm thinking the CPU was already running at 4.5GHz.

That's what I have in my electronic paper-work.   

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Jim Roseberry

Jim Roseberry

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21 hours ago, Max Arwood said:

Hey Jim - I am running at 3.4 Device Manage says Core i7 2500K @ 3.4GHz. Can This be upped?

Hi Max,

 

Download HW Monitor from here:

https://www.cpuid.com/downloads/hwmonitor/hwmonitor_1.52.zip

Unzip and run the 64Bit version.

 

HW Monitor will show you the exact frequency each core is running.

If you see 4500MHz... it's already over-clocked (don't want to push it further).

If it's showing 3400MHz, the BIOS has been reset.  We can go into the BIOS and re-apply the over-clock.

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mettelus

mettelus

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14 minutes ago, tiyaf said:

I have an old pc which works great. Currently I have a Nvidia GTX 570 PCI Express 2.0 card. I want to upgrade the GPU. Any suggestion for. PCI E 2.0 based latest cards Thanks

Do you know the motherboard in the machine? I would start with the manual for that motherboard and look at what it is capable of handling. Reason I say this is that you might not be limited (and probably are not) to a PCI Express 2.0 for your options. I had to check what I did with mine, but replaced the GTX 580 (PCIe 2.0) I had with an ASUS STRIX GTX 970 (PCIe 3.0).

Once you know what the MOBO can handle,  https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/ is a good site to check performance of various cards you run across. Bear in mind that NVidia owns the architecture, not the manufacture, so even cards with the same number may have differences in them. One of the GTX 970 brands was designed like a jet engine for cooling, so was a poor choice for a DAW machine (why I went with the STRIX design).

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Starship Krupa

Starship Krupa

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On 10/15/2023 at 6:14 PM, tiyaf said:

I have an old pc which works great. Currently I have a Nvidia GTX 570 PCI Express 2.0 card. I want to upgrade the GPU. Any suggestion for. PCI E 2.0 based latest cards Thanks

We need to know what other system components your system has. What CPU, how much RAM?

Also, what is your goal in wanting to upgrade the component? Do you only use it for DAW work or are there other things you want to speed up? DAW work doesn't put too many demands on system graphics.

Past the point of about GTX 550 or so, a newer video card isn't going to show you any performance gain for DAW use. For more recent CPU's than about Sandy Bridge or so, the internal graphics are plenty.

There should be no difference between any of the "latest cards" for DAW work.

Depending on your system's other specs, there could be things that would show you a performance gain if you updated them. Graphics, not likely, unless you want to do some gaming. The only reason I'm using the GTX 1070 instead of my passively-cooled GT 1030 is that I play games.

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Max Arwood

Max Arwood

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I just want to give a thanks to Jim Roseberry. The computers he has built for me have been great. The only problems I ever had were ones of my own making lol. I can’t believe how well this old over clocked i7 still runs. I think it was bought around 2012. I am definitely a plug-in junkie. Probably only topped by Bapu! It takes a bunch of plugins / soft synths to slow this thing down. 

Thanks Jim!

 

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Jim Roseberry

Jim Roseberry

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13 hours ago, Max Arwood said:

I just want to give a thanks to Jim Roseberry. The computers he has built for me have been great. The only problems I ever had were ones of my own making lol. I can’t believe how well this old over clocked i7 still runs. I think it was bought around 2012. I am definitely a plug-in junkie. Probably only topped by Bapu! It takes a bunch of plugins / soft synths to slow this thing down. 

Thanks Jim!

 

Glad the machine is working well for you, Max!  

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Starship Krupa

Starship Krupa

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7 hours ago, wiviv said:

Cpu: ryzen 5 2600

A quick Google search took me to AMD's page on the processor and they say it doesn't have onboard graphics, so your question is moot.

If it did have onboard graphics, no, there's no danger in running it with onboard graphics when you intend to install a GPU later on. Matter of fact, it can even be a good idea down the road, because Windows will have the driver for the onboard graphics ready to go in case you want to take your GPU card out for any reason.

As it is, though, you'll be waiting for that 1660.

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Starship Krupa

Starship Krupa

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On 1/16/2024 at 7:53 PM, kitekrazy said:

Video cards are the most overpriced component these days if you aren't going to use it for gaming.

To be fair, if you're doing video editing, a nice graphics card is a good investment, same for painting programs like Painter and Rebelle. I have Painter, and its complex brushes and Wacom support get smoother the better a GPU your system has.

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