bottlenecking question

[supmahnugga]

HDD: Western Digital 1TB @ 7200 RPM
Memory: 8GB (2X4GB) DDR3 @ 1333 MHz
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K @ 3.30 GHz (4X)
GPU: 1 GB nVidia GeForce GTX 760 (MSI 2GB GDDR5)
PSU: BFG 650 W

^Ok so here are the relevant components of my rig.

I plan on purchasing another gtx 760 and which of course would require i upgrade my psu as well. Now here is my question. Should I be concerned about my memory or processor bottlenecking my system when i SLI my 760's? if so which should i upgrade first? Thanks!

 

[PP Mguire]

650w is actually fine for SLI 760 and a 2500k if you aren't overclocking. If the PSU is still in good shape it should be alright. I have one of those myself and it seems to be holding up well. If it's not doing so well, a TX650m would be perfect, or if you have a bit more cash to spare an HX750 although not necessary.

If you really wanted to upgrade anything I would get some 1600MHz RAM, otherwise you're fine.

 

[supmahnugga]

So my processor won't bottleneck my gpu (in terms of gaming)? and i actually am overclocking...

 

[PP Mguire]

What are you overclocking and why? 2 stock 760s are more than enough to push any game at 1080p.

No it won't. I'm basing this off of running 2 580s on a stock 3960x which is essentially the same CPU you have but with 2 extra cores. Didn't make a difference between running it stock and running it at 4.6 in games.

 

[supmahnugga]

running at 3.7 cuz i figured it could only help ya know? I haven't really benchmarked to see if its actually giving me any performance boosts.

 

[PP Mguire]

That's a very mild OC. You're not doing that on the stock cooler are you? If so, take it back down to stock. When I had my 2500k I ran it at 4.5 for a few months then due to noise and heat I put it back to stock. That moment is when I realized overclocking the CPU is worthless for games if you have a SB or above processor.
The most you'll ever get a positive benefit (as in worth it for the heat and power consumption or cost of cooling) is when you render or do other such actual CPU intensive applications. Benchmarking also shows the benefits of a faster processor in the form of scores, but I don't really consider that a positive benefit. Synthetic benchmarking doesn't really equate to actual performance benefits in something like gaming which is 90% GPU biased. OCing for games will only be relevant they actually start making use of cores. When that time comes, I'll post about it probably in my stickied thread.

So in that case, if you have aftermarket cooling the 3.7 clock is fine, but just remember that the turbo on the 2500k is to 3.9 making that slight OC a bit useless.

 

[supmahnugga]

yea i do still have stock cooling, so i'll definitely take it back down. reason OC'd to only 3.7 was because i read somewhere it was risky to go over that amount with an 2500k. I didn't realize gaming wasn't that processor intensive.

 

[PP Mguire]

There are some games that are, but usually they are limited to high end RTS games due to all the units being processed on the screen.

It's not risky to go over 3.7 if you have a good cooler. The stock cooler is only capable of dissipating the heat of the stock clocks because they are designed for that thermal envelope. More than likely you've been ok if you've only been gaming because it's not really taxing your CPU heavily.