Questions about bottlenecking.

[Vozella]

1) Will a Pentium G3258 bottleneck a GTX 960? If so, what CPU should I get? 

 

2) What's the most expensive GPU I can get that won't be bottlenecked by the Penium G3258?

 

Edit: I think the most intense game I'll play on it is GTA V on High settings. (Also, 1080p.)

Edited August 22, 2015 by Vozella

[Zayzo]

What games are you playing?

[Atmos]

It depends heavily on the game you're playing.

 

If its a game like Arma 2/3, Then it will bottleneck as low as a 760/950/370

If its a decently well optimized game, then it will bottleneck a 970/390

If its a standard-ly optimized game, then somewhere around the 280X/960 region.

 

If you can afford the extra 30$, an i3 goes a LONG way.

[DarkBlade2117]

I'd go no higher then a r9 380 or gtx 960 honestly. Maybe a 970 if you overclock the balls out of it,

I'd personally send a little more on an i3 but that's me.

[Vozella]

What games are you playing?

Oh, sorry. I think the most intense game I'll play on it is GTA V on High settings. (Also, 1080p.)

 

Edit: Also, the games I usually play are like TF2.

[Zayzo]

Oh, sorry. I think the most intense game I'll play on it is GTA V on High settings. (Also, 1080p.)

I'd spring for an i3 then. The extra 2 threads will help a lot. You could go up to even a 970 with an i3 and still have pretty good performance.

[SteveGrabowski0]

An i3-4170 + GTX 960 is a great bang for your buck combo that's very well balanced and should perform well in most AAA games due to the i3's hyperthreading and high clockspeed.

[Vozella]

I'd spring for an i3 then. The extra 2 threads will help a lot. You could go up to even a 970 with an i3 and still have pretty good performance.

Hm. Okay. What if I got a GTX 950 instead? (Or a card that performs like that.)

[Zayzo]

Hm. Okay. What if I got a GTX 950 instead? (Or a card that performs like that.)

You'd be good. I mean you'll get the performance expected out of a $200 card. If anything, go with the 280x. Its the strongest card in that price range by a good amount.

[SteveGrabowski0]

Oh, sorry. I think the most intense game I'll play on it is GTA V on High settings. (Also, 1080p.)

 

Edit: Also, the games I usually play are like TF2.

 

GTA V benefits enormously from the hyperthreading in an i3. I tested this myself just screwing around one day by disabling two cores of my Xeon E3-1231v3 and playing with and without hyperthreading on. and the performance was night and day better with the simulated i3 than the simulated Pentium. It was smooth (i3) vs stutter (Pentium), and this was pushing a GTX 970.

[SteveGrabowski0]

You'd be good. I mean you'll get the performance expected out of a $200 card. If anything, go with the 280x. Its the strongest card in that price range by a good amount.

 

Having the GPU with the strongest hardware does no good if the DX11 drivers cripple it when combined with a low end CPU. If he was running an i5, no question the 280x beats the 960 by a pretty good amount. But on an i3 or Pentium that weaker 960 seems to do better. Eurogamer.net has been testing this for months and in COD AW they showed a lousy GTX 750 Ti outperforming a vastly more powerful R9 280 in combination with an i3-4130.

[SteveGrabowski0]

Hm. Okay. What if I got a GTX 950 instead? (Or a card that performs like that.)

 

You can get an EVGA GTX 960 SSC for $175 with a free copy of the new Metal Gear Solid if you can handle a $20 rebate.

 

http://www.ncixus.com/products/?usaffiliateid=1000031504&sku=105153&vpn=02G-P4-2966-KR&manufacture=eVGA&promoid=1336

 

That's a much better deal than any 950 you'll find.

[Zayzo]

Having the GPU with the strongest hardware does no good if the DX11 drivers cripple it when combined with a low end CPU. If he was running an i5, no question the 280x beats the 960 by a pretty good amount. But on an i3 or Pentium that weaker 960 seems to do better. Eurogamer.net has been testing this for months and in COD AW they showed a lousy GTX 750 Ti outperforming a vastly more powerful R9 280 in combination with an i3-4130.

Yeah, CoD is an nvidia title i'm pretty sure. In most games he'll still see a performance gain even with the i3. Also, where do you see a 750 ti out performing the 280x with an i3?Is that just for GTA V? If so it doesn't justify getting the weaker card.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-the-best-pc-hardware-for-grand-theft-auto-5

[SteveGrabowski0]

Yeah, CoD is an nvidia title i'm pretty sure. In most games he'll still see a performance gain even with the i3. Also, where do you see a 750 ti out performing the 280x with an i3?Is that just for GTA V? If so it doesn't justify getting the weaker card.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-the-best-pc-hardware-for-grand-theft-auto-5

 

Eurogamer has shown this in a lot of games and I saw another video by them this month showing it's still happening. AMD seems to be betting big on DX12 instead of fixing their DX11 implementation. Here's the clip of the GTX 750 Ti outperforming the R9 280. I don't recall COD AW being a gameworks game. COD Ghosts was, but COD AW was done by a whole other developer.

[Zayzo]

Eurogamer has shown this in a lot of games and I saw another video by them this month showing it's still happening. AMD seems to be betting big on DX12 instead of fixing their DX11 implementation. Here's the clip of the GTX 750 Ti outperforming the R9 280. I don't recall COD AW being a gameworks game. COD Ghosts was, but COD AW was done by a whole other developer.

Article was from last year. I'm pretty sure there have been enough driver updates and game patches so that AMD cards are performing as they're supposed to. The games optimization is still shit from what i've heard from others.

[Zayzo]

If you have the budget i'd recommend going for the i5.

It'll perform much better in GTA V and other AAA titles.

[SteveGrabowski0]

Article was from last year. I'm pretty sure their have been enough driver updates and game patches so that AMD cards are performing as they're supposed to. The games optimization is still shit from what i've heard from others.

 

And it's still an issue now. They talked about it in the Ashes of Singularity video that came out Monday. It hasn't been fixed, AMD is apparently betting the farm on DX12.

 

[Zayzo]

And it's still an issue now. They talked about it in the Ashes of Singularity video that came out Monday. It hasn't been fixed, AMD is apparently betting the farm on DX12.

Yeah, and all the AMD Fanboys are hopping on the bandwagon. People thinking their FX CPUs will magically start to perform better then intel variants and last another 5 years..... Ugh

[SteveGrabowski0]

Yeah, and all the AMD Fanboys are hopping on the bandwagon. People thinking their FX CPUs will magically start to perform better then intel variants and last another 5 years..... Ugh

 

I really hope we see strong DX12 adoption soon, not because of that, but so we can get dense environments like Unity without horrible performance like Unity. But I'm skeptical with how long it takes and how expensive it is to develop games.

[Zayzo]

I really hope we see strong DX12 adoption soon, not because of that, but so we can get dense environments like Unity without horrible performance like Unity. But I'm skeptical with how long it takes and how expensive it is to develop games.

Agreed.