Will my i5-3470 bottleneck a GTX 1060?

[AGGELOS_970]

Hello guys!

 

I'm thinking of upgrading my poor old 660ti with a 1060.

Also a little more info on my CPU here.

On most games I searched, my CPU isn't really a bottleneck as far as I know. Even The Division and The Rise of the Tomb Raider plays nice. Except GTA V which is a shame.

Also I'm not thinking of getting a nicer monitor any time soon. 1080p for now.

But I want to hear your thoughts on this as well! Is it worth it? Should I save for a new rig instead?

Thanks a lot!

[ARikozuM]

9 minutes ago, AGGELOS_970 said:

Hello guys!

 

I'm thinking of upgrading my poor old 660ti with a 1060.

Also a little more info on my CPU here.

On most games I searched, my CPU isn't really a bottleneck as far as I know. Even The Division and The Rise of the Tomb Raider plays nice. Except GTA V which is a shame.

Also I'm not thinking of getting a nicer monitor any time soon. 1080p for now.

But I want to hear your thoughts on this as well! Is it worth it? Should I save for a new rig instead?

Thanks a lot!

How soon would you upgrade your CPU? 1060 would be a solid choice now without upgrading soon.

[LAwLz]

Short answer: No

 

Slightly longer answer: For gaming it will not bottleneck you in most cases. There are some cases where it will happen, but the same could be said for a brand new i7 as well. You don't build your gaming PC around edge cases. You should not worry about it.

[AGGELOS_970]

3 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

How soon would you upgrade your CPU? 1060 would be a solid choice now without upgrading soon.

I dont plan to upgrade my rig any more than that. I dont think its worth it.

I was going to get a job for the summer so I could save up for a brand new rig with 1070 but it didnt work out sadly. 

So I'm hopping I could give some more life with the 1060. For 2 or 3 years more maybe.

[ARikozuM]

1 minute ago, AGGELOS_970 said:

I dont plan to upgrade my rig any more than that. I dont think its worth it.

I was going to get a job for the summer so I could save up for a brand new rig with 1070 but it didnt work out sadly. 

So I'm hopping I could give some more life with the 1060. For 2 or 3 years more maybe.

Unless you're ULTRA 1080 144HZ, you should be fine for longer than that with a 1060.

[AGGELOS_970]

4 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Short answer: No

 

Slightly longer answer: For gaming it will not bottleneck you in most cases. There are some cases where it will happen, but the same could be said for a brand new i7 as well. You don't build your gaming PC around edge cases. You should not worry about it.

Yes I know.

I'm hoping that there are not going to be a lot of those cases.

[ARikozuM]

Just now, AGGELOS_970 said:

Yes I know.

I'm hoping that there are not going to be a lot of those cases.

GTA V is AI heavy which tries to emulate randomness which isn't easy for GPU to do since their primary purpose is a similar function done many times a second.

[AGGELOS_970]

6 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

Unless you're ULTRA 1080 144HZ, you should be fine for longer than that with a 1060.

nah just a good old 1080p 60hz monitor. 

All I want is dem 60fps with graphics maxed out.

[ARikozuM]

1 minute ago, AGGELOS_970 said:

nah just a good old 1080p 60hz monitor. 

All I want is dem 60fps with graphics maxed out.

You should be good then with the 1060.

 

BTW, your sig says CPU at 3.6 Mhz.

[AGGELOS_970]

5 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

You should be good then with the 1060.

 

BTW, your sig says CPU at 3.6 Mhz.

Yes its up to 3.6 with turbo boost.

Stock is 3.2

[AGGELOS_970]

7 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

You should be good then with the 1060.

 

BTW, your sig says CPU at 3.6 Mhz.

Oh I see lol

[Energycore]

6 minutes ago, AGGELOS_970 said:

nah just a good old 1080p 60hz monitor. 

All I want is dem 60fps with graphics maxed out.

There are games out there that won't do 60fps because of your CPU. ARMA III, Cities: Skylines, TW Warhammer

 

On most games you will get 60 fps

[AGGELOS_970]

5 minutes ago, Energycore said:

There are games out there that won't do 60fps because of your CPU. ARMA III, Cities: Skylines, TW Warhammer

 

On most games you will get 60 fps

You will not get 60fps on ARMA 3 with anything lol

But yes I see what you mean. 

Good thing is that I dont play this kind of games which are mostly CPU bound.

[Energycore]

Just now, AGGELOS_970 said:

You will not get 60fps on ARMA 3 with anything lol

But yes I see what you mean. 

Good thing is that I dont play this kind of games which are mostly CPU bound.

For Witcher 3 it might tank in places like Novigrad City but combat should be fine

[ivan134]

24 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Short answer: No

 

Slightly longer answer: For gaming it will not bottleneck you in most cases. There are some cases where it will happen, but the same could be said for a brand new i7 as well. You don't build your gaming PC around edge cases. You should not worry about it.

Listen to this guy and others in this thread. It's makes me mad when some people on this forum tell people who don't know any better, i7 or bust, which keeps perpetuating this myth that pc gaming is expensive.

[AGGELOS_970]

6 minutes ago, Energycore said:

For Witcher 3 it might tank in places like Novigrad City but combat should be fine

I found this for the Witcher 3 which benchmarks my exact same CPU. And it doesn't have much of a difference than the top i7 for example. 

Although they have the settings on medium for some reason and they dont say at what area they tested this.

So... I dont know what to make out of it.

[ARikozuM]

1 minute ago, AGGELOS_970 said:

I found this for the Witcher 3 which benchmarks my exact same CPU. And it doesn't have much of a difference than the top i7 for example. 

Although they have the settings on medium for some reason and they dont say at what area they tested this.

So... I dont know what to make out of it.

You are going to have a few moments where you'll struggle but those will be few and far between. Witcher has a LOT of AI just like GTA V and that's the reason you'll see dips. Minimums are high for all the tests and those are with a 980 not a 1060 so you'll have about the same performance.

[AGGELOS_970]

14 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

You are going to have a few moments where you'll struggle but those will be few and far between. Witcher has a LOT of AI just like GTA V and that's the reason you'll see dips. Minimums are high for all the tests and those are with a 980 not a 1060 so you'll have about the same performance.

I can see that on GTA when i'm inside the city that my CPU maxes out and the GPU is like on 80%. And I got like 45-50 frames from time to time.

But if its rarely then its ok. Annoying af but I can live with it

Hope the new Deus Ex doesnt share the same story though. Cause I'm really looking forward on playing this game a lot. 

[ARikozuM]

Just now, AGGELOS_970 said:

I can see that on GTA when i'm inside the city that my CPU maxes out and the GPU is like on 80%. And I got like 45-50 frames from time to time.

But if its rarely then its ok. Annoying af but I can live with it

Hope the new Deus Ex doesnt share the same story though. Cause I'm really looking forward on playing this game a lot. 

Best way to alleviate that is to lower settings that tax the CPU. GTA V went a little overboard on the AI b/c they had to for immersion. Deus Ex probably won't have that issue.

[LAwLz]

17 minutes ago, AGGELOS_970 said:

I found this for the Witcher 3 which benchmarks my exact same CPU. And it doesn't have much of a difference than the top i7 for example. 

Although they have the settings on medium for some reason and they dont say at what area they tested this.

So... I dont know what to make out of it.

Turning graphical settings up taxes the GPU more than the CPU, so if there is not much of a difference between an i5 and i7 at medium, then there will probably be even less of a difference at high graphic settings.

 

Judging by the results, I'd guess that the benchmarks on TechSpot were not in a city with lots of NPCs. That's probably (I haven't played The Witcher 3 so take what I say with a shovel of salt) where you will be the most CPU bound. But yeah... In the vast majority of gaming cases you will be GPU bottlenecked, not CPU bottlenecked.

[AGGELOS_970]

13 hours ago, ARikozuM said:

Best way to alleviate that is to lower settings that tax the CPU. GTA V went a little overboard on the AI b/c they had to for immersion. Deus Ex probably won't have that issue.

 

13 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Turning graphical settings up taxes the GPU more than the CPU, so if there is not much of a difference between an i5 and i7 at medium, then there will probably be even less of a difference at high graphic settings.

 

Judging by the results, I'd guess that the benchmarks on TechSpot were not in a city with lots of NPCs. That's probably (I haven't played The Witcher 3 so take what I say with a shovel of salt) where you will be the most CPU bound. But yeah... In the vast majority of gaming cases you will be GPU bottlenecked, not CPU bottlenecked.

Ok then thanks for the info.

I'll wait this month to see more of these DX12 benchmarks against the 480 and then I'll make a choice.

The only clear winner here is Doom with the 480 using Vulkan but thats just only one game.