Advice on upgrade: GTX 970

I’m helping a friend with some upgrades, but would appreciate any advice. His specs:

i5-3550 3.30GHz
geforce gtx 560 with 1024 mb gddr5
TX 650 PSU
8 GB RAM
CoolerMaster Silencio 550 case

We’re playing a lot of Dying Light coop and the GTX560 just isn’t cutting it. Everything that can be turned down or off is at its lowest setting or turned off.

I’m thinking that the GTX 970 card would be a nice upgrade, the EGVA model listed here. I’ve been doing some research and it seems that the GTX 970 and the i5 should work well together, but I would appreciate any input and still have a few questions that I would like to post here.

My concerns are:

1. The specs for the EGVA require at minimum a 500W Power Supply. Would we run into any problems with the TX 650 PSU that we have now?

2. Would the i5 work well with the GTX 970 or would it be a bottleneck? (For this question, I'm seeing that these two components should play well together and that the i5 will be good enough for a while to come.)

3. Would the EGVA fit in the CoolerMaster case?

Thanks

 

Your power should be fine, and your cpu is fine, I have no idea about that specific case though.

 

His case should be fine.
You're all set for the upgrade, alienowl's friend.

 

You're going to be fine.

GTX 970 is a fantastic card for the money. Gobs of performance. Low power draw, low heat.

Its really a perfect card for a mid-range system running a Core i5 CPU and a 650W power supply.

And it will fit just fine in the cooler master case.

 

You'll be fine. 550 supports GPUs up to 281 mm with HDD cage installed, and EVGA states that that particular 970 is 241 mm. PSU wattage will also suffice.
Your buddy should go for it

 

By the way... if your friend cares about noise levels, I'd recommend that he buys a custom-cooled GeForce GTX 970 instead. All of the major companies make some version of that (MSI, Gigabyte, EVGA, etc).

The model you linked for the GeForce GTX 970 is a blower-type cooler, which exhausts air out the back of the card. It's fine, but those types of coolers are generally louder and less efficient than an open air type cooler. An open-air cooler design for a GeForce GTX 970 will probably run about $30 more than a basic GTX 970, but will lower noise levels around -15dB or -20dB, and lower temperatures anywhere from 10C - 15C.

 

I would recommend EVGA with ACX cooler or you have the money ...and space inside the case ...Get the Gigabyte G1 Gaming edition version . It's the best one in my opinion .

 

Hi everyone! Thanks for the replies and all the advice. My friend went ahead and ordered the GTX 970, and based on kent1146's advice, got the open-air cooler design. As kent1146 said, it was $30.00 more, but a good investment. The card came in today, so I'm going over to put it in for my friend tonight. And then we'll be on to some Dying Light!

I told my friend that I was angry because now he'd have better performance than me. He said it doesn't really matter because he's always had better performance! Ha!

I'll post the results of tonight's installation soon.

 

Well, it took me forever to get back, but I finally made it. I installed the GTX 970 in my friend's rig. Put everything back together and....black screen on start up. Nothing. My friend was looking at me like I killed his cat or something. I ended up taking the card back out and putting it in again....same thing---black screen, nothing. Now I'm really getting nervous. I think, wait a minute, let's just check the HDMI cable. He grabs a cable from his TV and presto! Nvidia goodness.

My friend is not into running benchmarks or anything, but we fired up Dying Light, and he's getting awesome framerates, smooth gameplay at the highest settings. The game looks incredible. That is a really great card.

 

Glad to hear it worked out. And congrats (to your friend) on the GTX 970. It's really a fantastic card, especially for the amount of price-to-performance that you get from it.

 

kent1146, just to add, as you mentioned in your previous post, the GTX 970 runs cool and quiet. The tower is right under the desk and while gaming there is no noticeable noise at all. (noticeable noise? that sounds weird.) Anyway, if the fans are kicking in, we can't hear them at all.