I5 Bottleneck with GTX 970

[toggleguy]

I'm helping my friend choose parts to build a computer.

 

For the CPU, we have chosen the intel core i5 4690, and for the GPU, we have chosen the NVidia gtx 970.

 

He has spoken to some of his other friends (that I dont know), and they told him that the CPU will bottleneck the GPU. I am not convinced.

 

So my question is: will the i5 4690 bottleneck the gtx 970?

[madscientist56]

no

[Laputacake]

No, It wouldnt bottleneck 3

[othertomperson]

Depends on what games you're going to play and what resolution you're gaming it. Anything will bottleneck anything else at a low enough resolution.

[Tedster]

Depends on what games you're going to play and what resolution you're gaming it. Anything will bottleneck anything else at a low enough resolution.

Agree, but with the gaming that most people will do there won't be any bottlenecking.

[Ripull]

no

[kameshss]

No, it won't!

[Imabigmac]

"Well, you know you need at least an i7 to play minecraft, and well even I heard Intels i9s are coming out so you would be better with one of those. The Intel extreme CPUs are the only ones that don't bottleneck."

Moral behind my troll, Don't believe everything you hear. Especially the above.

Edit: believe this, an i5 won't cause a bottleneck that will impact your gaming experience, as long as you are only gaming.

[othertomperson]

Agree, but with the gaming that most people will do there won't be any bottlenecking.

 

According to Tek Syndicate's figures a 5960X bottlenecks two GTX 980s at 1080p in Bioshock Infinite (albeit at 117 fps) so no I don't think it is an absurd thing to keep in mind.

[Tedster]

According to Tek Syndicate's figures a 5960X bottlenecks two GTX 980s at 1080p in Bioshock Infinite (albeit at 117 fps) so no I don't think it is an absurd thing to keep in mind.

Okay, but there are of course other factors that could be more limiting - such as a game's code, or RAM or RAM controllers, maybe storage...

I know that for most benchmarks the benchmarkers try to avoid most bottlenecks apart from the components they're testing but there are always different possibilities.

[Wildrovers]

No

[othertomperson]

Okay, but there are of course other factors that could be more limiting - such as a game's code, or RAM or RAM controllers, maybe storage...

I know that for most benchmarks the benchmarkers try to avoid most bottlenecks apart from the components they're testing but there are always different possibilities.

 

OK, but if an overclocked 5960X limits you, where do you go from there? If you're asking is x bottlenecked by y, then a synthetic benchmark is useless by design. It depends on what you're running, what resolution you're running at, and at what framerate. Will a 4690k bottleneck you at 1440p, unlikely. Will it bottleneck if you are running at no more than 60fps? No. At 1080p 144fps, there's a possibility.

 

Edit: That isn't even to say that an i7 will necessarily do any better.

[Yiz]

No offense but his friends must be pretty ill-informed about bottlenecking and overall CPU and GPU pairing. There will not be a bottleneck at all. Throw in another for SLI and you still won't have a bottleneck.

Edit: Technically there will always be some slight bottleneck. But especially at 1080p the bottleneck will be so insignificant or you will be getting so many frames already it won't matter.

[d3sl91]

Okay, but there are of course other factors that could be more limiting - such as a game's code, or RAM or RAM controllers, maybe storage...

I know that for most benchmarks the benchmarkers try to avoid most bottlenecks apart from the components they're testing but there are always different possibilities.

This, and the fact there will always be a "bottleneck" in every system. It will just take one badly made, or performance hungry-enough game to find it.

 

But a 970 and i5, at 1080p, will run the vast majority of games at 60FPS + on Ultra settings anyway, which will be fine. 

 

[Fate]

According to Tek Syndicate's figures a 5960X bottlenecks two GTX 980s at 1080p in Bioshock Infinite (albeit at 117 fps) so no I don't think it is an absurd thing to keep in mind.

Any other source on this that says, "A 5960x bottlenecks SLI 980s at 1080p"?

Tek Syndicate also says that an 8350 is the best option for a ~$800 (can't remember exact figure) gaming build and he pairs it with a 970/290 and a Kingston V300 - yea, what a joke.

He's [they're] not a credible source of information in my opinion.

[lani100]

No, I still don't know why people think that a i5 will bottleneck high end cards -___- even a first gen i5 with an oc should be fine.

[Briggsy]

there are a few games that are cpu heavy and even a K series i5 with a heavy overclock will hinder performance, but that has more to do with the game engine than the cpu itself. Crysis 2 is a classic cpu destroyer. Dragon Age inquisition is another one, but to be fair it's pushing the frostbite 3 engine to its limits in some areas, and I swear I heard my i5 weeping tears of agony a few times. If money was no object, I would upgrade to an i7 or even an i7-E to play that game again so I wasn't cpu bound.

 

short answer, not really. 

[SeanAngelo]

yes but no.

 

but the real answer is no.

 

[othertomperson]

Any other source on this that says, "A 5960x bottlenecks SLI 980s at 1080p"?

Tek Syndicate also says that an 8350 is the best option for a ~$800 (can't remember exact figure) gaming build and he pairs it with a 970/290 and a Kingston V300 - yea, what a joke.

He's [they're] not a credible source of information in my opinion.

 

That's because you think you're being critical about a source but actually you're just missing a whole load of points. First of all when you're looking only at price to performance AMD comes out better than Intel, and you're far better off allocating more of the budget to a good GPU than a CPU because it makes more of a difference. He's stopped recommending the Kingston SSD when he became aware of the bait-and-switch tactics Kingston employed. And finally you're using a disagreement of opinion for best gaming PC on a tight budget to discount actual data.

 

Your comment implies to me that you fundamentally don't understand what a bottleneck is and are instead just parroting things you've heard about AMD and "balance".

[i_build_nanosuits]

Assuming 1080p gaming on high/ultra settings with a decent amount of AA, the GPU will be your limiting factor more often than not.

[Fate]

That's because you think you're being critical about a source but actually you're just missing a whole load of points. First of all when you're looking only at price to performance AMD comes out better than Intel, and you're far better off allocating more of the budget to a good GPU than a CPU because it makes more of a difference. He's stopped recommending the Kingston SSD when he became aware of the bait-and-switch tactics Kingston employed. And finally you're using a disagreement of opinion for best gaming PC on a tight budget to discount actual data.

 

Your comment implies to me that you fundamentally don't understand what a bottleneck is and are instead just parroting things you've heard about AMD and "balance".

i5-4460 is by far the better option compared to an 8350 for gaming, at the same price point, period.

He didn't stop recommending it [V300], because the video I referenced came out December 2nd of this year (yea, two weeks ago). 

If you think I'm an Intel/Nvidia fanboy, take one look at my signature and look at all of my past posts on how I've defended AMD when people talk down on them for no reason. I would choose AMD over Intel any day if they were the better option for gaming and what I do, but they aren't (relating to CPU's of course, I obviously have a R9 270 because it's flat out better than the other options).

[othertomperson]

i5-4460 is by far the better option compared to an 8350 for gaming, at the same price point, period.

He didn't stop recommending it [V300], because the video I referenced came out December 2nd of this year (yea, two weeks ago). 

If you think I'm an Intel/Nvidia fanboy, take one look at my signature and look at all of my past posts on how I've defended AMD when people talk down on them for no reason. I would choose AMD over Intel any day if they were the better option for gaming and what I do, but they aren't (relating to CPU's of course, I obviously have a R9 270 because it's flat out better than the other options).

 

I didn't call you a fanboy, I said you're parroting things you've heard about AMD bottlenecking. And you are because you aren't taking into account the games being played, what resolution they are being played at, what frame rate the monitor being used is limited to. And these are all vital things to consider before just blindly claiming that x always bottlenecks y.

 

I stand by what I said that in some circumstances the 4690k will be a bottleneck. It won't in the vast majority of cases, but you should be honest about what those cases are and let people decide how likely those circumstances are to affect them.

[Fate]

I didn't call you a fanboy, I said you're parroting things you've heard about AMD bottlenecking. And you are because you aren't taking into account the games being played, what resolution they are being played at, what frame rate the monitor being used is limited to. And these are all vital things to consider before just blindly claiming that x always bottlenecks y.

 

I stand by what I said that in some circumstances the 4690k will be a bottleneck. It won't in the vast majority of cases, but you should be honest about what those cases are and let people decide how likely those circumstances are to affect them.

When did I mention anything about AMD bottlenecking? I said the i5-4460 is the better option, there's no argument. There's what, one game that performs better with the 8350 (Dragon Age: Inquisition)? 

If thing A beats thing B in 99.9% of scenarios (remember, we're talking about gaming), how is thing B remotely better for those scenarios (gaming)?

 

Anyways, the 8350 does not ALWAYS bottleneck high end configurations, of course not. 1440p and higher there's barely any difference between an i5 and a 8350, but we're talking about 1080p, which is what most gamers play on.

"what frame rate the monitor being used is limited to" Are you arguing that just because an 8350 can provide an average or minimum framerate above 60fps on a 60Hz monitor means there's no bottleneck going on? 

 

 

This is honestly a pointless, never ending argument that I've seen a thousand times on this forum; you can respond, and I'll read it, but I'm not going to reply anymore after this because, again, it's pointless and we're destroying this guy's thread.

[othertomperson]

When did I mention anything about AMD bottlenecking? I said the i5-4460 is the better option, there's no argument. There's what, one game that performs better with the 8350 (Dragon Age: Inquisition)? 

If thing A beats thing B in 99.9% of scenarios (remember, we're talking about gaming), how is thing B remotely better for those scenarios (gaming)?

 

Anyways, the 8350 does not ALWAYS bottleneck high end configurations, of course not. 1440p and higher there's barely any difference between an i5 and a 8350, but we're talking about 1080p, which is what most gamers play on.

"what frame rate the monitor being used is limited to" Are you arguing that just because an 8350 can provide an average or minimum framerate above 60fps on a 60Hz monitor means there's no bottleneck going on? 

 

 

This is honestly a pointless, never ending argument that I've seen a thousand times on this forum; you can respond, and I'll read it, but I'm not going to reply anymore after this because, again, it's pointless and we're destroying this guy's thread.

 

You discounted the data from a source just because you disagree with his recommendation for a budget gaming PC. Yeah I'm going to argue against you for letting a difference of opinion from allowing you to objectively look at what framerates he reported.

 

No we weren't talking about 1080p. I specifically said many times in this thread that your bottleneck will depend on what resolution and framerate you are trying to achieve. Obviously at 1440p the GPU becomes more important, and at 1080p CPU bottlenecks become more pronounced -- but with the caveat of framerates that are still faster than your monitor can display not being noticed. And yeah a lot of the hate this CPU gets comes from people arguing that the i5 gives them 90 fps and the FX gives them 65, like that makes a difference to someone not using a high refresh rate monitor.