Would my CPU bottleneck a 1060?

[IAmAndre]

Hi,

 

I currently have a Haswell build with a core i3 4130 and a GTX 750 2GB. This is enough to play all the games I currently have, but I can see that I won't be able to run games like Rise of the Tomb Raider in the highest settings, so I'm considering getting a better GPU. However I'm not sure if my CPU would bottleneck the 1060 (which is for me the successor to the 750). I can see in YouTube videos that the Skylake i3's run at 100% in GTA V so I want to know if it's worth investing in a GPU at all.

On the other hand, my motherboard is dying so do you think I should wait a few months and buy a new one along with a new CPU, or just buy another Haswell motherboard then get a used Haswell core i5?

 

Thanks

[Kickflapper]

i would get the GPU first, but if your MOBO is is really crappy think of investing in SKYLAKE or used Haswell and trying to resell

 

[roylapoutre]

It will depend on the games to be honest. You'll be quite limited by your processor in CPU intensive games for sure, and you'll lose some performance even on less demanding games. Any i5/i7 from Haswell/Skylake would be a better choice. And if you can find cheaper Haswell CPUs, go for it, the difference with the Skylake line-up in gaming is really tiny

[dfg666]

How do you know your motherboard is "dying"? Also YouTube videos of these CPU benchmarks showing usage is incorrect as they're most likely using software to record their footage which adds CPU/GPU load.

 

And no your i3 is fine. People tend to exaggerate, overuse and become paranoid about bottlenecking that they might aswell get an enthusiast i7 to shut them the hell up.

 

 

 

 

[IAmAndre]

11 minutes ago, dfg666 said:

How do you know your motherboard is "dying"? Also YouTube videos of these CPU benchmarks showing usage is incorrect as they're most likely using software to record their footage which adds CPU/GPU load.

 

And no your i3 is fine. People tend to exaggerate, overuse and become paranoid about bottlenecking that they might aswell get an enthusiast i7 to shut them the hell up.

Thank you. I'll keep my i3 then. I know my motherboard is dying because the audio stopped working a year ago, then the PCI slot hosting my WiFi card seems to be damaged because I get a crappy WiFi no matter what WiFi card I use, and the speeds are a lot faster when I plug the card on the port hosting my GPU. I think more parts will fail if I keep using it.

[roylapoutre]

2 hours ago, dfg666 said:

 

And no your i3 is fine. People tend to exaggerate, overuse and become paranoid about bottlenecking that they might aswell get an enthusiast i7 to shut them the hell up.

 

It's not an exageration to say an i3 will cripple performance of some GPUs. I went from an i5 3570k @4.6GHz (a lot of people would say that it's more than enough and that an i7 wouldn't change anything) to an i7 4790k @4.6GHz (both with a 980 Ti) and believe me, I saw some CPU intensive games like Vermintide going from dips to the low 30s fps to stable 60 fps no matter what. Average fps don't tell the whole story, you might want to look at the fps dips with lower end CPUs. You can have a 60 fps average with awful stutter and those benchmarks won't report the terrible experience. Saying an i3 shouldn't be paired with a powerful card isn't an exageration because you will lose performance and that's a shame when buying a 300+$ GPU. The bare minimum to enjoy a 1060 is an i5, otherwise, some GPU performance might be wasted

[SpaceGhostC2C]

4 minutes ago, roylapoutre said:

. The bare minimum to enjoy a 1060 is an i5, otherwise, some GPU performance might be wasted

The only alternative to some GPU performance being wasted is some CPU performance being wasted. No point in obsessing over either.

 

2 hours ago, IAmAndre said:

Hi,

 

I currently have a Haswell build with a core i3 4130 and a GTX 750 2GB. This is enough to play all the games I currently have, but I can see that I won't be able to run games like Rise of the Tomb Raider in the highest settings, so I'm considering getting a better GPU. However I'm not sure if my CPU would bottleneck the 1060 (which is for me the successor to the 750). I can see in YouTube videos that the Skylake i3's run at 100% in GTA V so I want to know if it's worth investing in a GPU at all.

On the other hand, my motherboard is dying so do you think I should wait a few months and buy a new one along with a new CPU, or just buy another Haswell motherboard then get a used Haswell core i5?

 

Thanks

Probably these videos can help you think about it:

 

- Getting old hardware-wise, but conceptually relevant:

Spoiler

 

 

- More recent take on similar topic:

Spoiler

 

 

Bottom line: there's id definitely room for going beyond a GTX 750 with your CPU, you only need to figure out at which point it makes sense to either settle for a certain i3+GPU combination or do an allaround upgrade.

[Praesi]

If you want buy a new CPU, go for Skylake. The i5 6600k is exactly what you are looking for.