i3 Bottleneck Issues

[ProdigyzMined]

So my system is coming up on its 2 year anniversary, and its an understatement to say that I've had issues with it. Today I wanted to see your thoughts and opinions on the most recent issue I've had: my system appears to have a bottleneck.

 

System specs as follows:

i3 2100

2x Radeon 7770's in crossfire

8 Gb. (2x4) ripjaws X DDR3 @1866 Mhz, but running at 1333 because thats all the i3 supports

Asrock H77 Pro 4/MVP

 

Trust me, I realize that this system is far from anything special and i don't expect it to play games at very high settings. In fact, I can play a lot of games at high settings with no issues at all. BF4 has been the odd ball here, as its the only game that won't. In fact, its barely playable at 1080p on low, i can only get decent framerates (like, 35) at 720p low. Why is this?

This is the afterburner readout after the first level of BF4. On multiplayer, I find that the CPU is LOCKED at 100%. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of that for now. So why am I having this issue? Whats the Deal?

[othertomperson]

You're having this issue because you're trying to play BF4 on an i3. That game is notoriously CPU intensive and the sysreqs suggest at least an i5.

[Aniallation]

BF4 is one of the few games that uses all the cores it can get.. An i3 will struggle to keep up with two 7770s in BF4. Not a surprise.

[brownninja97]

Same issue with BF4 over here

 

i3 2120

8gb g skill ares @1333mhz due to motherboard issues.

XFX 7870 XT limited edition

h61 board

[XTankSlayerX]

I have an i3 3220 paired with a single 770, my BF4 runs fine.

 

My CPU as far as I know hovers around 80ish%

 

In battlefield 4 @ 1920 X 1200 I get around 70 FPS on high. Not sure what could be causing this.

 

Specs:

i3 3220

2 X 4Gb of RAM

Asus P8Z77-V Pro (Upgrading CPU soon, Leave me alone.)

EVGA 770 OC ACX (CPU doesn't bottleneck)

WD Blue 1TB

Corsair PSU

[xox]

Well, yeah, it could quite possibly be your processor, in fact, it is quite likely.

 

My recommendation would be a used 3570k or something, they are going for cheap everywhere these days.

 

However tbh, it's probably not worth it

[othertomperson]

Ugh again with the bottleneck bullshit.

 

This CPU would perform abysmally whatever GPU you pair it with because it is the GAME that it is ill matched for, NOT THE GPU.

[ProdigyzMined]

Well, yeah, it could quite possibly be your processor, in fact, it is quite likely.

 

My recommendation would be a used 3570k or something, they are going for cheap everywhere these days.

 

However tbh, it's probably not worth it

Hopefully, I'll have another build set up with much more impressive specs, as I'm almost 15 now while i was 12 when i built this system, so my budget is much higher as i can actually work.

 

Ugh again with the bottleneck bullshit.

 

This CPU would perform abysmally whatever GPU you pair it with because it is the GAME that it is ill matched for, NOT THE GPU.

I'd still consider that a bottleneck, even if it is only with one game. One component is holding the rest back in this scenario.

[ProdigyzMined]

BF4 is one of the few games that uses all the cores it can get.. An i3 will struggle to keep up with two 7770s in BF4. Not a surprise.

 

I have an i3 3220 paired with a single 770, my BF4 runs fine.

 

My CPU as far as I know hovers around 80ish%

 

In battlefield 4 @ 1920 X 1200 I get around 70 FPS on high. Not sure what could be causing this.

 

Specs:

i3 3220

2 X 4Gb of RAM

Asus P8Z77-V Pro (Upgrading CPU soon, Leave me alone.)

EVGA 770 OC ACX (CPU doesn't bottleneck)

WD Blue 1TB

Corsair PSU

Forgot to mention, performance has seemed to deteriorate over time. With one card, i could play on medium. Even with two i could for a while. Then i started noticing framerate drops, so I dragged the slider back a notch and decided it was no biggie. Then it happened again, but I was already at the lowest setting. Don't know if that changes anything.

[Aniallation]

I'd still consider that a bottleneck, even if it is only with one game. One component is holding the rest back in this scenario.

Not really a "bottleneck". More like "not meeting the system requirements".

[othertomperson]

Not really a "bottleneck". More like "not meeting the system requirements".

 

Precisely.

 

There's no such thing as a "bottleneck". It's really bad conventional pseudo-wisdom. Some games require certain CPU horsepower to run. If a CPU doesn't meet this the game will never run well, be damned what GPU you're trotting along with it.

 

Some games require very little from the CPU, but are potentially quite graphically demanding. For these an i3 might be appropriate. The CPU and GPU need to be balanced to the games you want to be playing, and not to eachother because it doesn't mean anything.