Will this bottleneck?

[Watney]

I'm looking to upgrade my rig, specifically my GPU. I'm want to replace my GTX 970 with a 2070, the thing is, I'm not sure of my I5 4670 non-k CPU will bottleneck the said GPU. I'm on a rather limited budget, so I want to see if I could get away with not buying a new CPU, though if needs must, i'll just have to bear with it. Any help is greatly appreciated. 

 

Rig specs:

i5 4670

GTX 970

samsung 1tb ssd

16gb ram

 

[GoldenLag]

Yes your CPU will be the limiting factor.

 

 

And since you are on a limited budget, take a look at the vega 64 nitro+ its just as fast while being cheaper.

 

Or drop down a tier to the 2070. The 2070 is the one GPU that is squished between cards to the point it isnt worth it

[dgsddfgdfhgs]

15 minutes ago, Watney said:

I'm not sure of my I5 4670 non-k CPU will bottleneck the said GPU

there is already a cpu bottleneck , if you run demanding games like watchdogs 2 etc

[Watney]

18 minutes ago, comander said:

Anything faster than a RIVA TNT will bottleneck... /s

 

In full seriousness though... I wouldn't worry about bottlenecking unless you have either a $30 CPU or GPU paired with a $500 part. 

 

Also the real question you SHOULD ask "is it worth it for my use case considering what I already have?"

 

I don't know what your use case is so I can't definitely answer that. If all you do is pay CSGO or StarCraft 2 you won't have a big benefit. If you're playing newer titles at a high resolution you'll likely get around 2x the frame rate (or be able to use much better settings). 

 

-------

 

I'm also of the opinion that if you're on a limited budget you should probably be focused more on income generation than gaming and/or consider better value parts (e.g. the 2060). 

Thanks for the reply. Perhaps I should've worded my question more carefully. I'm rather cheap, but I can afford to buy a cpu upgrade as well. I plan to play graphically demanding games like witcher. In fact, this upgrade is in preparation for CP2077. 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Watney said:

Thanks for the reply. Perhaps I should've worded my question more carefully. I'm rather cheap, but I can afford to buy a cpu upgrade as well. I plan to play graphically demanding games like witcher. In fact, this upgrade is in preparation for CP2077. 

Hell even i, as 1080p 60 hz fanatic is thinking of getting atleast a 2070, if only because it snors so nicely when barely under load

[Watney]

Just now, Christiaan21-03 said:

Hell even i, as 1080p 60 hz fanatic is thinking of getting atleast a 2070, if only because it snors so nicely when barely under load

What CPU are your rocking, good sir?

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Watney said:

What CPU are your rocking, good sir?

An ryzen 2600 mostly used in ranges between 1,7 and 3,9 ghz for daily use , without precision core boost at 3,4 ghz for small games and used at a whopping 3,6 ghz aorus OC stance for most demanding games.
I'm currently using a 1060 3gb and it just shows in the latest games that i can have what i want but if i want what i would truly want im better of with betting on the new navi cards

 

[GoldenLag]

56 minutes ago, comander said:

-snip-

In a vast majority of the games the CPU will be the limiting factor. Perhaps not at 4k, but most other. 

 

And non-ht CPU have showed that they are very poor when it comes to the 1% lows creating stuttering. 

 

(Edit: mostly a factor in 4 core, less so at 6 cores)

[kaiju_wars]

1 hour ago, comander said:

It depends on the title and settings. 

 

I can absolutely tell you that my change from a 970 to 2080 made a big difference at 3440x1440 (3x framerate roughly) in more graphically demanding titles(but it depends on the title) If my 1700 is not overclocked I don't feel much of an impact. For what it's worth, a change from an i5 to r7 didn't meaningfully change my gaming experience back with the 970. 

 

There are benefits to having a faster CPU, but VIDEO games are generally much more sensitive to VIDEO cards. This is part of the reason why a $50 refurbed PC from 2012 with a half decent video card added in is a solid option for many. 

 

This isn't 1997. Things like hardware T&L have been around for nearly 20 years. 

Older games sure, but newer games are starting to love more threads.  Average framerates might be good on an older i5, and that's fine.  But average framerates don't mean that much if 1% and .1% lows are way to low, creating a stuttery mess. 

 

This video explains it perfectly.

 

If someone is on that tight of a budget that they have to get a prebuilt with a 2nd or 3rd gen i5, that's understandable.  But if someone can upgrade, I wouldn't recommend anything under six threads/cores at least.   (Plus OP did state he could upgrade his CPU also) 

1 hour ago, Watney said:

Thanks for the reply. Perhaps I should've worded my question more carefully. I'm rather cheap, but I can afford to buy a cpu upgrade as well. I plan to play graphically demanding games like witcher. In fact, this upgrade is in preparation for CP2077. 

I would recommend, since you're already rocking a 4th gen i5, getting at least a 4770.  Those extra threads will help a lot in modern games.

[GoldenLag]

13 minutes ago, comander said:

-snip-

In other words: 1% lows.......

 

In most titles the CPU will be the limiting factor up to around 1440p. And it is a known issue with the non-ht CPUs that they have less consistant frametimes and the delta between average and 1% low framerate is large enough that the experience is unpleasant.

[Princess Luna]

8 hours ago, comander said:

a 970 to 2080 made a big difference

That is because a RTX 2080 is 9% faster than a Radeon 7 and only 2% slower than a 1080 Ti for gaming so it's a great card even if expensive.

 

The RTX 2070 on the other hand is nothing but an overpriced GTX 1080 thats merely 10% faster than a RTX 2060 at best for whoopping 200 bucks more, what he said is perfectly accurate, the 2070 is a terrible value card that will likely get taken out of the line up entirely next month with the RTX 2070 Super Edition refresh due to nVidia already knowing the new RX 5700 will rekt it in value.

 

The i5 4670 is dated by now, it's still fine if you're targeting 60fps with no multi-tasking alongside the game though, so there's that... would still recommend a R5 3600 as soon as it releases.

[GoldenLag]

1 minute ago, comander said:

That's part of it... except for the fact that you could have a 2 second lag spike that doesn't show up in 1% lows. 

And any reliable benchmarker like GN would show this in a frametime chart or mention it.

 

A single 2 sec lag spike would show up in 0,1% lows quite clearly.

 

3 minutes ago, comander said:

I'm a fan of "% of time below 60FPS rate" or 100FPS rate. It's similar to the 5% VAR metric used in financial risk assessment. 

Why not just regular framtime charts or 0,1 or 1% lows.they allready clearly show if there is a major issue

[GoldenLag]

6 minutes ago, comander said:

. A narrow slice of a game would be a "biased" metric, in the statistical sense (the reviewer could be doing an otherwise VERY good job at being objective).

 

They do controlled sections of certain games but mostly using the benchmark tool. If some specific hardware show flaws and other dont, then it would be quite straightforwards to assume something isnt right. 

 

 

If it only happens in 1 title, further testing is required and would be mentioned in the video of a respectable benchmarker like hardwareunboxed

[Mick Naughty]

Doubt any 4th gen cpu would handle that card.