is this abottle neck

[saulet49]

Is a 4th gen Intel Core i5 4460 going to be a bottle neck in a system with a 500 watt psu and a ASUS Strix 980/970/960?

[Hieb]

Depends on the game, but in most cases it should not bottleneck a GTX 960. In some more demanding games it will probably slightly hold back a GTX 970 or 980 depending on the settings and framerates you're aiming for. If you just wanna max games out at 60 FPS then the i5-4460 will be plenty adequate, whereas if you're hoping to just get insanely high framerates then it may run into some issues.

[DarkBlade2117]

No

[Bob Jim]

Depends on the game, but in most cases it should not bottleneck a GTX 960. In some more demanding games it will probably slightly hold back a GTX 970 or 980 depending on the settings and framerates you're aiming for.

It won't hold back a 970 AT ALL, and a 980 might be just a TINY bit bottle necked. OP, you will be fine.

[Kyuubixchidori]

nope. will work just fine

[Sam Z Man]

That CPU can take on any gpu configuration on the market.

[Lolucoca]

That CPU can take on any gpu configuration on the market.

Quad-SLI GTX TITAN X? I don't think so...

[arronleeds]

Quad-SLI GTX TITAN X? I don't think so...

even the 5960x cant handle 3

[Sam Z Man]

Quad-SLI GTX TITAN X? I don't think so...

 

If you are using it for 5K like you should be with that gpu configuration no not a problem.

 

And get real who would do that anyway.

[don_svetlio]

the i5 CANNOt bottleneck a fucking Titan X, let alone a lowly 960.

[Hieb]

It won't hold back a 970 AT ALL, and a 980 might be just a TINY bit bottle necked. OP, you will be fine.

 

 

Depends on the game

 

depending on the settings and framerates you're aiming for

 

Whether something is a bottleneck is not determined by the inherent 'power' of the CPU or GPU. It's determined on the game (and how it's programmed), the in-game settings (some require more CPU involvement, such as shadows or effect quality) and the framerate (CPU has to prepare every single frame and tell the GPU what to draw and process its own effects [shadows, effects, etc.]).

 

Higher settings = slightly higher CPU usage

Higher framerate = significantly higher CPU usage (e.g. playing at 60 FPS will result in roughly twice the CPU usage as playing at 30 FPS)

 

The bottleneck occurs when it takes the CPU longer to prepare the frame than the GPU takes to render the frame, resulting in the GPU spending time idle waiting for the CPU to be done with the frame.

 

There are situations where a Pentium G3258 will not bottleneck even SLI Titan Xs, like playing Tomb Raider at 4K. And then there are situations where an overclocked 5960X can even bottleneck a GTX 750 Ti, such as in MMOs. Obviously for every realistic combination in between, bottlenecks are also possible given the right circumstances. I can make my i5-4690K bottleneck my GTX 760, so you can be damn well sure that in some cases an i5-4460 will hold back a GTX 970 or 980.

 

Like I said when I edited my previous post, an i5-4460 would do just fine for 60 fps gaming and maxing games out. But if he wanted to play at really high framerates to take advantage of a 120/144Hz monitor or something like that, that's where the i5-4460 would limit the performance of the GTX 970 and 980.

[FuzzyYellow]

no, it should be fine.