Yes, a 1i7 2600K and GTX 1050 Ti make a solid pairing for gaming.
Yes, a 1i7 2600K and GTX 1050 Ti make a solid pairing for gaming.
I don't believe my motherboard supports overclocking the CPU.
Consensus reached. Generally, a motherboard supporting Gen 2 PCIe should handle modern GPUs without issues, even high-end models like the 2080 Ti or RTX Titan. From a performance standpoint, it's largely a waste of money since games will bottleneck the CPU (i5-2400 or i7-2600K) before the GPU can reach its full potential. The GPU will still function, but efficiency drops. There’s an optimal balance where you get good performance without excessive CPU strain. I’m not sure exactly what that is, but extensive testing would be needed to pinpoint it. An RX 570 seems likely to be a practical choice in that range.
@dalekphalm The interpretation "Bottleneck" is a total crap, except if one part have 10 years+ difference to the other. 2 years ago, i was running an i5 3550 with a gtx 1080tI, a bunch of people would say it is a major bottleneck. The PC was running just fine!!!
People often misinterpret the term "bottleneck." It simply means one component could improve in certain conditions. It doesn't imply the whole system will fail or work poorly. For your i5-3550, which is a 4-core/4-thread 3.7GHz CPU, it's definitely limiting your 1080 Ti performance to some extent. The exact impact would need benchmark testing. Just because it isn’t running at its full theoretical speed doesn’t mean it’s doing badly—you might still achieve solid FPS and could benefit from a faster processor.