Minimum CPU to not bottleneck a GTX 970?

[ForkIt]

I want to build a low budget gaming machine. I definitely want to go with a GTX 970, I already have a 500W 80+ bronze PSU and I won't ever upgrade the PC in the future. So I'm wondering which CPU (preferrably Intel) would be the absolute minimum to not bottleneck the 970.

And please don't tell me to buy an i7 to be on the safe side or something like this, I really just want to know what the minimum possible CPU would be.

[PokémonTrainerFour]

if you get a good overclocking Pentium G3258 you'll be fine for maybe 2 more years

[DigitalHermit]

cheapest quad core i5 (not the dual core hyperthreaded) i think...

 

Some might say Pentium G3258 overclocked to kingdom come...

 

Edit: @[member=PokémonTrainerFour] ninja'd me...

[Oshino Shinobu]

Pentium G3258 overclocked like crazy. 

[Demonking]

Here 

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/gpbdMp

[Unlikelyjoker]

If you dont mind a small bottleneck in games like bf4 i'd get a fx 8350 and overclock it like mad.

Or if you prefer intel i would get an i3 and if your on a very low budget a pentium g3258 and overclock that.

EDIT: if possible locked i5

[Sklo]

I have read about people not experiencing problems with lower Intel and AMD chips. i-3's and Fx6000's

[TheRunningOtaku]

I want to build a low budget gaming machine. I definitely want to go with a GTX 970, I already have a 500W 80+ bronze PSU and I won't ever upgrade the PC in the future. So I'm wondering which CPU (preferrably Intel) would be the absolute minimum to not bottleneck the 970.

And please don't tell me to buy an i7 to be on the safe side or something like this, I really just want to know what the minimum possible CPU would be.

If you get a pentium G3258, it'll be really cheap and give you good performance in games that aren't heavily multihreaded. Personally though if I wanted to OC I'd go with an Athlon X4 860K and OC it too.

However, if you want to play games that are more heavily multithreaded, you could always get a low-end i5 (i5 4440), and a cheap motherboard (H81) to save some cash.

Personally I'd prefer having 4 cores, since 1) when games use more than 2 cores the pentium doesn't perform as well as an i5, and 2) H81 boards are cheaper than Z97/Z87 boards.

 

AMD personally isn't good for this - you could go for an Athlon X4 860K and OC it, but an i5 would perform better. 

[Joshua Ondangan]

3.5-3.8ghz i5/i7 should be fine.

[Brandogg255]

I would go with a Quad core i5. Project Cars maxs out my i3 2120 OC to 3.43Ghz and my GTX 770 is at 90% utilization and running at 30FPS and don't get me started how much Star Citizen destroys my CPU. The pentium would perform the same with an OC as my i3 so I would go with a i5.

[Sintezza]

you cannot ansewr this question without knowing which games there are played.

[Sky Daddy]

Definitely get an I5 if you don't plan on upgrading. 

[JoshM]

I would get at minimum a locked i5/ 8350. Yes you might get away with something lower (like the G3268) but it won't perform well across a large variety of games and will cause a decent bottleneck. Get something fairly powerful from the start. 

[ForkIt]

I will pretty much only play Oculus Rift compatible games on that computer.

And since we have VorpeX the list is long.

[mackon]

I would go with a Quad core i5. Project Cars maxs out my i3 2120 OC to 3.43Ghz and my GTX 770 is at 90% utilization and running at 30FPS and don't get me started how much Star Citizen destroys my CPU. The pentium would perform the same with an OC as my i3 so I would go with a i5.

Dont play star citizen at all untill they tweek the damn engine that game in current state is capable of killing gpus like crisis was when it first came out killed thousands of cards anyways even fully realizing this is nechrophilia and OPs question was on oct.2014 he still might be looking for options and hers your cheapest variation of 100% gtx 790 cpu support i5 790 model if you can get it its quad hybrid betwin i5 and i7 and they are extreamly cheap this days and this hold their head up proudly even to newer i5 4k series

[vSyNd1c4t3]

I want to build a low budget gaming machine. I definitely want to go with a GTX 970, I already have a 500W 80+ bronze PSU and I won't ever upgrade the PC in the future. So I'm wondering which CPU (preferrably Intel) would be the absolute minimum to not bottleneck the 970.

And please don't tell me to buy an i7 to be on the safe side or something like this, I really just want to know what the minimum possible CPU would be.

 

I asked this question earlier today, and we got it figured out... I'll link the post just a sec for me to find it.

[vSyNd1c4t3]

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/340744-when-does-a-g3258-start-bottlenecking-gpus/

 

here is the post you can read for details, but long story short...

 

For the 970... i5-4440

[ForkIt]

Nice, the i5-4440 is what I went with (6 months ago!) anyways.

[itachipirate]

My FX-6300 doesn't bottleneck my GTX 970 9/10 times. Cpu bottlenecking is hard

[vSyNd1c4t3]

Nice, the i5-4440 is what I went with (6 months ago!) anyways.

 

LOL, wow didnt even notice. DERP.

[i_build_nanosuits]

I would personally consider a core i5-4590 with it's nice healthy boost of 3.7ghz a ''good match'' for a GPU such as a GTX 970 for 1080p gaming.

[NKings]

I have been asking a while about that for a while and lots of people say an i5 4460

[i_build_nanosuits]

I have been asking a while about that for a while and lots of people say an i5 4460

performance per dollar is pretty high on this little CPU and it can run anything fairly well. it's a good choice if you're on a budget for a gaming rig.

You've resurrected an old topic though

[Nena Trinity]

In most cases a FX-6300 at 4.5GHz or a i3-6100, but there is also the i5-4460?

[SkilledRebuilds]

If your doing this for VR your MINIMUM-FPS values are the MOST important.

Intel i5 or higher.