7970 CPU bottleneck

[Billango]

What are the "lowest" CPU's that someone can recommend for using an Radeon HD 7970 without a bottleneck?

[Nexus]

Hard to answer accurately without testing. I would say get at least a sandybridge i5.

Obviously its going to be game dependant. For example in shogun 2 even an i7 3770k causes a bottleneck in larger battles.

[Parkway Drive]

I'd recommend a 3570K

[sk8ermanblue]

Billango,

The AMD FX-8320 is a reasonably priced processor that has 8 cores and has a base clock of 3.6Ghz. You can overclock the crap out of it as well and even without overclocks has plenty of juice. I would personally reccommend a 7850 though as it will run every game out today and in the near future about as good with a much more realistic price point. You could use the extra difference in price to get an AMD FX-8350 or Intel Core I5 3570k and a Corsair Hydro series cooler for good overclocks.

 

Very Respectfully,

 

Sk8ermanblue

[WoodenMarker]

The 3350p for intel and 6300 for AMD.

There will always be a bottleneck but these are where I'd call it okay.

Edit: It would also depend how cpu intensive your game is. An overclocked 6300 should work too.

[RainbowTylernol]

3570K is probably fine for any single GPU card that isn't a Titan. 

[everything count to life]

3570k

[WoodenMarker]

3570K is probably fine for any single GPU card that isn't a Titan. 

Even then!!! 3570k is the optimal choice.

[IPCharger]

Depends if the game is optimized for multiple cores. If it only uses 1-2 cores a lot of the first gen bulldozers would suck (I have a 6100 and it runs Battlefield 3 better than some single threaded games)