Is a Ryzen 9 5950X a good match for the RTX 4080 or will it bottleneck?

[ItsPattyD]

Going to be upgrading my GPU soon and only recently learned about bottlenecking so bare with me. For my current build I have a GTX 1070 and a Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7GHz, but I am going to be upgrading to a RTX 4080 (Or RTX 4080 Super depending on prices).  I know the Ryzen 7 2700X will be a bottleneck for my new GPU but if I upgrade my CPU to a Ryzen 9 5950X will it still bottleneck my new RTX 4080?

 

(I am going to be playing and working at 4K if that makes a difference) 

(The max I can upgrade my CPU to at the moment is the Ryzen 9 5950X due to my motherboard)

 

Also another bonus question, my 2700X has a base clock of 3.7Ghz while the 5950X has a base clock of 3.4Ghz but can be overclocked to 4.9Ghz while the 2700X can only be overclocked to 4.3Ghz. What's up with that? Why does the newer better CPU have a lower base clock?

 

MY CURRENT BUILD: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/72PbdH

(Will any of my other PC parts bottleneck my new GPU?)

(I will be upgrading my PSU to a 1000w so don't worry about that)

 

 

 

[Bismut]

Bottlenecking is one of those terms that gets thrown around a lot, but is not really something to actually worry about too much. It depends on your workload, which depends on the programs you are running. You will need a powerful GPU for most AAA games, but a really powerful, single-threaded CPU for Minecraft. I would just look at your actual workloads and buy the part that is best for them.

[Eigenvektor]

12 minutes ago, ItsPattyD said:

(I am going to be playing and working at 4K if that makes a difference)

Yes. You typically don't need to worry about the CPU being the limiting factor at that resolution. Worry about the CPU if you want to play CS at 400fps with 720p and low details.

 

The 5950X is also overkill for gaming. Games generally don't need or can make use of this many cores at this point in time. Only get it if you need it for productivity tasks. If you want a gaming oriented CPU, get a 5800X3D.

 

And you may want to watch this:

 

12 minutes ago, ItsPattyD said:

Also another bonus question, my 2700X has a base clock of 3.7Ghz while the 5950X has a base clock of 3.4Ghz but can be overclocked to 4.9Ghz while the 2700X can only be overclocked to 4.3Ghz. What's up with that? Why does the newer better CPU have a lower base clock?

Base clock is largely irrelevant. The CPU will only run at that speed if it is idle or overheating. In some sense, lower is better, because it means less idle power consumption (offset by having many more cores).

 

As soon as there is work to do, your CPU will always boost to some degree. But keep in mind that maximum boost clock is only reachable under a single core load. As soon as more than one core has work to do, it'll be lower than this.

[ItsPattyD]

14 minutes ago, Bismut said:

Bottlenecking is one of those terms that gets thrown around a lot, but is not really something to actually worry about too much. It depends on your workload, which depends on the programs you are running. You will need a powerful GPU for most AAA games, but a really powerful, single-threaded CPU for Minecraft. I would just look at your actual workloads and buy the part that is best for them.

I wanna do gaming at 4k 60fps max settings and possibly every now and then record gameplay at 4k. Thanks for your response, what CPU do you recommend for all that I just said or does it still not matter that much?

[Bismut]

Just now, ItsPattyD said:

I wanna do gaming at 4k 60fps max settings and possibly every now and then record gameplay at 4k

I would probably go with the 5800X3D if you are gaming 90% of the time. There are supposed to be more X3D chips coming for AM4, but that one is king right now (also pricey, but what can you do). A 5950X is a fine chip too, and will do just fine in gaming, but the extra cache provided by the X3D chips helps more when it comes to performance.

[ItsPattyD]

22 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

Yes. You typically don't need to worry about the CPU being the limiting factor at that resolution. Worry about the CPU if you want to play CS at 400fps with 720p and low details.

 

The 5950X is also overkill for gaming. Games generally don't need or can make use of this many cores at this point in time. Only get it if you need it for productivity tasks. If you want a gaming oriented CPU, get a 5800X3D.

 

And you may want to watch this:

 

Base clock is largely irrelevant. The CPU will only run at that speed if it is idle or overheating. In some sense, lower is better, because it means less idle power consumption (offset by having many more cores).

 

As soon as there is work to do, your CPU will always boost to some degree. But keep in mind that maximum boost clock is only reachable under a single core load. As soon as more than one core has work to do, it'll be lower than this.

Ok gotcha! So bottlenecking isn’t that big of an issue at 4K basically? Yeah I was wondering about the Ghz clock thing thanks for clearing it up! I may be gaming, recording and editing on this pc so is the 5950X a better choice or still go for the 5800X3D? 

[ItsPattyD]

8 minutes ago, Bismut said:

I would probably go with the 5800X3D if you are gaming 90% of the time. There are supposed to be more X3D chips coming for AM4, but that one is king right now (also pricey, but what can you do). A 5950X is a fine chip too, and will do just fine in gaming, but the extra cache provided by the X3D chips helps more when it comes to performance.

Ok perfect thank you!

[Bismut]

Just now, ItsPattyD said:

Ok perfect thank you!

You are welcome!
Check wether your current CPU is lacking first though, no point in buying something you do not need.

[Eigenvektor]

6 minutes ago, ItsPattyD said:

Ok gotcha! So bottlenecking isn’t that big of an issue at 4K basically?

It's not something to worry about most of the time, unless you pair a very weak CPU with an extremely fast GPU. If you watch the video you can see that in most cases you'll get slightly lower maximum fps, but otherwise there's no serious impact on how the game performs.

 

Some component in your PC will always be the limiting factor, you generally want that to be the GPU. At 4K that is pretty much always the case, unless you're playing a very old game at high refresh rates on a 4090.

[191x7]

50 minutes ago, ItsPattyD said:

Ok gotcha! So bottlenecking isn’t that big of an issue at 4K basically? Yeah I was wondering about the Ghz clock thing thanks for clearing it up! I may be gaming, recording and editing on this pc so is the 5950X a better choice or still go for the 5800X3D? 

 

4K has 4 times the pixels of 1080p and 2.25 times the pixels of 1440p, so it strains the GPU way more than those.

There isn't a GPU available on the market that can boast a framerate high enough for a Zen3 not to be able to provide enough frames to keep the GPU utilized.

Ok, maybe with a 4090, eventually the 4080 Super if it closes the gap to a 4090...

 

But, and there is a huge but, the 5950X is two 5800X in a single processor with quite a latency between them. It does not perform significantly better than a 5700X/5800X in games. The 5900X is like two 5600X and worse than the 5700X/5800X for gaming, but not by a lot.

 

The thing with the X3D CPU-s (5700X3D, 5800X3D) is the smoothness they provide because of the large cache size. They are way better CPU-s for gaming.

 

Keep in mind, whichever of those you choose, you need a good cooler.

[Bagzie]

7 hours ago, 191x7 said:

 

4K has 4 times the pixels of 1080p and 2.25 times the pixels of 1440p, so it strains the GPU way more than those.

There isn't a GPU available on the market that can boast a framerate high enough for a Zen3 not to be able to provide enough frames to keep the GPU utilized.

Ok, maybe with a 4090, eventually the 4080 Super if it closes the gap to a 4090...

 

But, and there is a huge but, the 5950X is two 5800X in a single processor with quite a latency between them. It does not perform significantly better than a 5700X/5800X in games. The 5900X is like two 5600X and worse than the 5700X/5800X for gaming, but not by a lot.

 

The thing with the X3D CPU-s (5700X3D, 5800X3D) is the smoothness they provide because of the large cache size. They are way better CPU-s for gaming.

 

Keep in mind, whichever of those you choose, you need a good cooler.

I'll save you the trouble the 4080 super is going to be within margin of error of the 4080 while being cheaper on release than the 4080.

 

It won't get anywhere near to "closing the gap" on the 4090.

[xg32]

19 hours ago, ItsPattyD said:

.

as a 5950x owner, i'd recommend the 5800x3d over the 5950x as an upgrade for a 4080 super, even for 4k, unless you need the 16 cores for reasons other than raw gaming. if i had to put a number on it, it's about a 3-5% difference at 4k on 1% lows.

 

[-rascal-]

@ItsPattyD

 

Ryzen 2700X is a 8-core / 16-thread CPU, while the 5950X is 16-core / 32-thread.

There is more cores = more heat generated, so not surprising the 5950X will have a lower Base Clock, so it conforms to the "105W" spec.

 

For gaming purposes, and workloads / applications that can make use of the X3D V-Cache, the 5800X3D will outperform the 5950X. The 5950X has the 16-cores across two 8-core chiplets, so there is some performance loss due to communication between the two.

 

If you need the additional cores, sure, get the 5950X. Otherwise, the 5800X / 5800X3D / 5700X3D over the 5900X / 5950X.