Help with getting GFX card for PC

[Sp3edst3r]

Hey all,

The last and only time I "upgraded" my PC was 2015, where all I virtually did was get my GTX 660ti from my old PC and install it into a Mac Pro 5.1.

The card doesn't work on the Mac partition (have an internal card to suffice), but on Bootcamp it works 100% no issues. But as it's an ageing card and games are starting to require more than it can perform (looking at you FH3 and BF1), I'm looking to upgrade.

Now here's my problem.
I was originally going to SLI/Crossfire 2 660ti cards, but apparently the Mac Pro doesn't support it (something about the motherboard not being compatible) according to some people, whereas others say "nah nah mate she'll be right". Since there's no solid confirmation on wether or not it's possible, I've decided to avoid that risk, unless of course someone here knows the answer.

So now the only (current) other option is to get a completely new card, and as I don't wish to constantly upgrade my PC every year to meet minimum requirements, and I want to treat myself a bit, I'm looking at a 1080, or maybe a 1080ti if I think they're worth it. I won't be buying one for a few months, maybe not even until December, so I'm window shopping at the moment, but I need 100% confirmation that it can fit and run in my PC like my current 660ti.

Does anyone know if it's compatible? Does it need different pins or cables compared to my 660ti, or can I literally just swap the cards over? I only need it to work when Bootcamped, as mentioned before I have an internal card to support the Mac partition. I tried searching the internet for answers but I get vague and/or varied solutions and I can't work out how relevant they are to my question

And as I am window shopping, I'm open to any suggestions for cards, but must run FH3 and BF1 at 60+ FPS on High quality (minimum), and not be over $1000AUD if possible.

My current specs are as follows:

Spoiler: Spics and Specs

GRAPHICS CARD
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti (Windforce)
Vendor: Giga-Byte Technology Co. Ltd.
# of cards: 1
SLI / CrossFire: Off
Memory: 3,072 MB
Core clock: 1,228 MHz
Memory bus clock: 1,502 MHz
Driver version: 10.18.13.6510

PROCESSOR
Processor: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5650 @ 2.67GHz
Reported stock core clock: 2,793 MHz
Maximum turbo core clock: 2,925 MHz
Physical / logical processors: 2 / 24
# of cores: 6
PackageManufacturing process: 0 nm
TDP: 0 W

GENERAL
Operating system: 64-bit Windows 10 (10.0.10586)
Motherboard: Apple Inc. Mac-F221BEC8
Memory: 131,060 MB
Storage: 1TB SATA Disk (Mac Partition) 180GB SSD (Bootcamp) 2TB SATA Disk and 250GB SATA Disk (Storage)

Cheers

 

[Sanji Himura]

To be completely honest, anything from Nvidia's 10 series can serve you well for at least 5-10 years. Save some money and go with a GTX 1070. I am currently processing the potential costs for a PC overhaul myself, but I may wait until Nvidia releases their 11 series of cards for "future proofing" regarding graphics.

See my next post.

 

[Sp3edst3r]

i dont have a Hackintosh (that i know of :S) its an ex-work pc used by people at Foxtel which was given to me by my uncle who worked there. Dad helped me put bootcamp onto it and that's all i know

Yeah i was hoping for my next card lasting that long, at the rate Technology advances these days I wasnt expecting the 10 series to have a "relevance span" of 5-10 years, so thats good to know and yeah as said i was waiting until a later date, so i have available money and time and a solid decision on what i want to get

 

[Sanji Himura]

Strike what I said last post. It might be best to actually wait until the 20 series cards come out.

http://wccftech.com/nvidia-geforce-20-volta-graphics-card-q3-2017/

 

[Sp3edst3r]

That's pretty interesting, I might look more into them. Only thing I'd have to take into account when they come out how much they'll cost at launch, compared to how much BETTER they are than the 10 series, and how much (hopefully) said 10 series' price drops.

 

[huskeR32]

That's pretty interesting, I might look more into them. Only thing I'd have to take into account when they come out how much they'll cost at launch, compared to how much BETTER they are than the 10 series, and how much (hopefully) said 10 series' price drops.

Sorry to resurrect a bit of a dead thread, but the bit in bold is what I'd be looking at if I were you.

IMO, it comes down to your CPU. That Xeon is, what, 6-7 years old now? It has a relatively low clock speed, and IIRC, it didn't fare as well as its i5/7 cousins in single core benchmarks.

I just don't see that CPU being able to push useful fps above 1080p. At those resolutions, a 1070, or even a 980 if you can still find them cheap, is all the GPU you need.

I think money spent on a 20 series with that CPU would be mostly wasted.

 

[Pillo-san]

Just like Husker32 says a 1070 would be enough for now if you really want some more umph the aim at the 1080 or even 1080ti but the thing is, like HuskeR32 says the cpu is a bit old now, it does perform good especially overclocked but I doubt you can oc your Mac so if you want high fps at 1080p resolution the cpu will limit the fps with fast gpus. If you aim at 4k then the cpu does not matter that much as no gpu can output such high fps as at 1080p resolution. But forget getting 10 years out of a 1080/1080ti gpu. I have a 8800gtx and it is what 10-11 years old by now and it is not what I consider good experience playing games if they even can start that is. Five years, well then it would mean it would perform like your gtx660ti, but I doubt a top of the line gpu like 1080ti will even "play" games as good as your old 660ti does today as even 1080ti struggles with 4k games today, imagine games in 4 years. 1080p resolution was standard when my 8800gtx and gtx470 and gtx 670 where the hot piece of HW back then and it is a widely used res today too, but 1080ti is just at the begging when it comes to 4k gaming, so I think it will age faster than those before.

Here is a short clip from GamerNexus that test out what an x79 cpu is capable of today. Bear in mind that this is not an xenon part but the HEDT version for desktop use.

 

[Sp3edst3r]

Yeah i'm not gonna worry about 4k, i'm not really fazed by it, i just want my computer (1920x1200, hopefully upgrading to a 2560x1440) to run bf4 and fh3 60fps at high, since theyre the only games i have which i have to run medium-low graphics and still only get 30-45fps. If the 1070 does that perfectly fine then that's great since its cheaper, i'll look into it. If the 1080 becomes cheap enough, i might still get that because even though the cpu wont allow it to show any better results than what i would get with the 1070, when i do choose to upgrade my rig again, i dont have to go out and buy another gfx card (edit: for a bit longer than the 1070 anyway). But thats only if it becomes cheap enough.

To revert back to one of my original questions, does anyone know if it'll just plug straight into where my 660ti is? i dont see a problem at the moment but if anyone has first hand experience or knows from somewhere else i'd like a better opinion than my own guessing

Cheers for the help guys, appreciate it!

 

[huskeR32]

To revert back to one of my original questions, does anyone know if it'll just plug straight into where my 660ti is?

You shouldn't have any problems there, as both cards use the PCIe 3 interface; if your 660 is working fine, then a 10xx will as well.

A motherboard that old is likely PCIe 2, and the lower bandwidth there would theoretically bottleneck stuff a bit, but IIRC, tests of PCIe 2 and 3 boards with the same GPU usually saw losses of less than 5%. I doubt you'd even notice.

 

[Sp3edst3r]

Cheers man, glad to have confirmation didnt wanna buy it and then realise its incompatible