FX-8320 w/ GTX970 2-way SLI. Will there be bottlenecks?

[vern021]

GTX970 came out and made me thinking of buying two GTX970 instead of 780Ti since they're at the same price. I'm wondering if my 8320 will bottleneck the GPUs even when the 8320 will be overclocked to 4.5-4.7GHz?

[Katsu-K1L]

yes but not a lot but you would see fps drops

[DIV1D3]

No bottlenecking would occur at all, the FX-8320 OCed is basically the same as the 8350, and both are very good CPUs, I doubt you'd need to upgrade any time soon. 

[vern021]

yes

 

No bottlenecking would occur at all, the FX-8320 OCed is basically the same as the 8350, and both are very good CPUs, I doubt you'd need to upgrade any time soon. 

What's the real answer guys? Can you give some supporting reasons from a reliable source?

[nokturrduk84]

Yes, it will, bottlnecking badly. Get i7 instead.

[Fulgrim]

Regardless of your GPU setup, if you play something which cannot utilize all the cores, or utilize however many it uses well enough then yes there will be a bottleneck.

[vern021]

Yes, it will.

 

yes but not a lot but you would see fps drops

Let's say that I'll be using 3 24" monitors or a 21:9 1440p monitor, how significant is the performance decrease(in %)? Will it run at above 60fps at med-high or max settings?

[Archangel1994]

Yes, it will, bottlnecking badly. Get i7 instead.

You do not need an I7 at all to run 2-way SLI GTX 970

[Katsu-K1L]

Yes, it will, bottlnecking badly. Get i7 instead.

*I5

[vern021]

Yes, it will, bottlnecking badly. Get i7 instead.

You don't even need an i7 for gaming

 

You do not need an I7 at all to run 2-way SLI GTX 970

^this. can you give a comprehensive opinion?

[DIV1D3]

What's the real answer guys? Can you give some supporting reasons from a reliable source?

http://cpuboss.com/cpu/AMD-FX-8320

Provides a comparison between a FX-8320, 3770K and 3570K

 

http://www.futuremark.com/hardware/cpu/AMD+FX-8320/review

Futuremark scores, just showing that the 8320 is keeping up with any other high end CPU. 

 

Yes, it will, bottlnecking badly. Get i7 instead.

 

yes but not a lot but you would see fps drops

WHAT!??!?!?!

How do you guys think that an 8320 can bottleneck GTX 970s?!

[Katsu-K1L]

Let's say that I'll be using 3 24" monitors or a 21:9 1440p monitor, how significant is the performance decrease(in %)? Will it run at above 60fps at med-high or max settings?

You would probably be able to play on a 21:9 1440p monitor at High settings but 60fps i am not too sure about that since the Benchmarks for the 8320 Don't look too

good.

BUT of course you will be able to play games like a boss with no problems @1440p

[Oshino Shinobu]

It will depend on the game. With something like Arma 2/3 that doesn't utilise many cores, there will be bottlenecking. With things like BF4, you will be fine as it can use all the cores. 

 

Best solution is to switch to something like an i5 4690K if you can. Fewer, more powerful cores are a better option for games at the moment. 

 

EDIT: That being said, you'll be fine in most situations. It won't be a huge difference most of the time. 

[Archangel1994]

You don't even need an i7 for gaming

 

^this. can you give a comprehensive opinion?

A 4.5-4.7GHz 8320 running 2-way SLI GTX 970 is probably a case of borderline in a more CPU intensive environment. The bottleneck might cost you a few frames but whether there is a bottleneck or not you will still see a significant increase in FPS. If you get the GTX 970 SLI and find that GPU usage is not 100% when the CPU is nearing 100% then you could consider an upgrade to an I5 4690k or Xeon E3-1231v3.

[nokturrduk84]

http://cpuboss.com/cpu/AMD-FX-8320

Provides a comparison between a FX-8320, 3770K and 3570K

 

http://www.futuremark.com/hardware/cpu/AMD+FX-8320/review

Futuremark scores, just showing that the 8320 is keeping up with any other high end CPU. 

 

 

WHAT!??!?!?!

How do you guys think that an 8320 can bottleneck GTX 970s?!

Cause it got slow cores. Even haswell i3 can overkill it in some games. For GTX 970 it's terrible choice.

Get i5 if you're on budget, if not get i7, which is superior to i5 & any AMD CPU, & which gonna please you in everything starting from games finishing to renderings.

 

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i3-4340-4330-4130_5.html#sect0

[DIV1D3]

Cause it got slow cores. Even haswell i3 can overkill it in some games. For GTX 970 it's terrible choice.

Get i5 if you're on budget, if not get i7, which is superior to i5 any AMD CPU, which gonna please you in everything starting from games finishing to renderings.

You must be missing out on the fact that he said that he would OC the 8320 to 4.5-4.7GHz, 8 cores at 4.5GHz, I think that would be able to compete with 4690K.

[nokturrduk84]

You must be missing out on the fact that he said that he would OC the 8320 to 4.5-4.7GHz, 8 cores at 4.5GHz, I think that would be able to compete with 4690K.

Barely competing, but still gonna lose, cause you can OC 4690k too & it gonna eat that FX CPU in games.

[vern021]

Cause it got slow cores. Even haswell i3 can overkill it in some games. For GTX 970 it's terrible choice.

Get i5 if you're on budget, if not get i7, which is superior to i5 any AMD CPU, which gonna please you in everything starting from games finishing to renderings.

 

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i3-4340-4330-4130_5.html#sect0

I'm just upgrading and keeping the 8320. Going to buy a single 970 then maybe buy the other 970 if I've already save up some money for an i5. Sounds good?

 

A 4.5-4.7GHz 8320 running 2-way SLI GTX 970 is probably a case of borderline in a more CPU intensive environment. The bottleneck might cost you a few frames but whether there is a bottleneck or not you will still see a significant increase in FPS. If you get the GTX 970 SLI and find that GPU usage is not 100% when the CPU is nearing 100% then you could consider an upgrade to an I5 4690k or Xeon E3-1231v3.

That being said do you think even with only one 970, will it be bottlenecked?

[Archangel1994]

That being said do you think even with only one 970, will it be bottlenecked?

Not at all. A single card will be handled without issues.

[nokturrduk84]

I'm just upgrading and keeping the 8320. Going to buy a single 970 then maybe buy the other 970 if I've already save up some money for an i5. Sounds good?

 

That being said do you think even with only one 970, will it be bottlenecked?

Even with single 970 8320 still gonna bottleneck in some heavy CPU intensive games. I can show video where GTX 780 is being bottlnecked by 8350 in BF4 if you want. However if you gonna upgrade CPU to intel, then it will be okay.

[ALXAndy]

GTX970 came out and made me thinking of buying two GTX970 instead of 780Ti since they're at the same price. I'm wondering if my 8320 will bottleneck the GPUs even when the 8320 will be overclocked to 4.5-4.7GHz?

 

No not really. SLI works better on AMD 990 chipsets than it does on Intel ones, hilariously.

 

With that sort of overclock you're absolutely fine. Sure you'd see higher if you had a hex core Intel but they cost the earth and then some.

 

I ran GTX 670s in SLI on my 8320 @ 4.7-4.9 (I have profiles) and saw no ills. I now run a 7990 in there as it's smaller and easier to cool.

[Toddwjp]

basically one card it will be fine, with 2 cards you might only be getting 90% of the second, but i imagine it will be fine,

 

 

Even with single 970 8320 still gonna bottleneck in some heavy CPU intensive games. I can show video where GTX 780 is being bottlnecked by 8350 in BF4 if you want. However if you gonna upgrade CPU to intel, then it will be okay.

 

 

yes but thats the case with anything that is cpu heavy, in games that arent though it should be fine

[DIV1D3]

Barely competing, but still gonna lose, cause you can OC 4690k too & it gonna eat that FX CPU in games.

Okay, you're drifting off into 4690K vs 8320. The base still stands that an OCed 8320 will yield, little to no bottlenecking. I haven't heard of one such situation in which someone has complained about their 8320 being too slow for games. 

[nokturrduk84]

Okay, you're drifting off into 4690K vs 8320. The base still stands that an OCed 8320 will yield, little to no bottlenecking. I haven't heard of one such situation in which someone has complained about their 8320 being too slow for games. 

Here, post of @Faa clears everything very easily with those videos:

 

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/150288-fx-8320-or-i5-4570-help/page-4

[i_build_nanosuits]

Let's say that I'll be using 3 24" monitors or a 21:9 1440p monitor, how significant is the performance decrease(in %)? Will it run at above 60fps at med-high or max settings?

OP the FX would bottleneck the cards badly at 1080P but if you go with such a display setup NO they will be totaly maxed out so your CPU will be fine...970's SLI will give you good performance on a single 1440P around 60FPS in most games with your current CPU.. 1440P panels as twice the pixel count of a 1080P...