Will My i3 Bottleneck?

[mseifert14]

Hey guys, I built a computer a few months ago and now I want to add a graphics card. My PC build is an intel core i3-4360, 8gb ram, 500gb ssd, Asus Z87 Plus motherboard, and a 500watt power supply. I want to go with a gtx 970 graphics card, but will my i3 processor bottleneck this card? 

 

P.S. (Im new to LinusTechTips, what a great community!!!) :)

 

[Godlygamer23]

In most games, I think you'll be totally fine.

[FruitBasketSilex]

Hey guys, I built a computer a few months ago and now I want to add a graphics card. My PC build is an intel core i3-4360, 8gb ram, 500gb ssd, Asus Z87 Plus motherboard, and a 500watt power supply. I want to go with a gtx 970 graphics card, but will my i3 processor bottleneck this card?

P.S. (Im new to LinusTechTips, what a great community!!!) :)

It will bottleneck a bit if I recall correctly, but it will still be a very large performance gain over integrated graphics. Overall, I'd say go ahead and get it.

[theereal]

Whalecum! ...I did It..... Im not proud..... Whats done Is done.....

 

Bottleneck? Yes.

You should be ok but the i3 wont be able to feed such a powerful card. Id get It anyways and upgrade your CPU down the road

[Dabombinable]

In most games, I think you'll be totally fine.

Since Haswell i3 are a lot faster than my Xeon X5450, which is around a Sandybridge i3 in performance and bottlenecks my GTX 970 by 19-21%, it should have at least 90% usage, at least. 

 

 

Aka, there should be no problems, though in some games you might need to turn off shadows and other CPU intensive settings.

[FruitBasketSilex]

Whalecum! ...I did It..... Im not proud..... Whats done Is done.....

What does that have to do with anything?

[theereal]

What does that have to do with anything?

"Whalecum" Instead of Welcome, hes new to the forums thats why I did It

[FruitBasketSilex]

"Whalecum" Instead of Welcome, hes new to the forums thats why I did It

Ah.

[Sir_Chicken]

Hey guys, I built a computer a few months ago and now I want to add a graphics card. My PC build is an intel core i3-4360, 8gb ram, 500gb ssd, Asus Z87 Plus motherboard, and a 500watt power supply. I want to go with a gtx 970 graphics card, but will my i3 processor bottleneck this card? 

 

P.S. (Im new to LinusTechTips, what a great community!!!) :)

Most games you will be perfectly fine, get your 970 (or consider buying r9 390) and get a better cpu in the near future 

[TheRandomness]

R9 390 > 970 (390 is usually cheaper, better performance in DX12 apparently)

[mseifert14]

Gosh I love this forum, never expected so many replies so quickly. Thanks!

 

I think I will buy the 970 and then upgrade my cpu later.

[NuclearPeace]

You aren't going to really see a bottleneck with just a 970.

 

It takes a lot of reviewers to use top tier cards like the Fury X or the Titan X on high resoutions and/or levels of MSAA to create any significant difference between an i5 and an i3, let alone to where the i3 setup is unplayable.

[SteveGrabowski0]

Hey guys, I built a computer a few months ago and now I want to add a graphics card. My PC build is an intel core i3-4360, 8gb ram, 500gb ssd, Asus Z87 Plus motherboard, and a 500watt power supply. I want to go with a gtx 970 graphics card, but will my i3 processor bottleneck this card? 

 

P.S. (Im new to LinusTechTips, what a great community!!!) :)

 

Youll definitely see a bottleneck in a lot of games. For instance, in GTA V I disabled two cores but left hyperthreading on for my Xeon E3-1231v3 to simulate a 3.8 GHz i3 (though with 8MB L3 cache instead of the 4MB your 4360 has) and my GPU load on my 970 was around 80% most of the time. With that said, the gameplay was pretty damn smooth and over 60 fps the majority of the time, with drops into the mid 50s. Not really jarring drops though like you'd get with say a Pentium. The i3 bottlenecks a 970 enough to where you're going to want to upgrade it to an i5, i7, or Xeon E3 eventually. But the performance will be good enough that it'll still be an enjoyable experience; I know I enjoyed playing GTA V on very high on my 970 with the two cores turned off to simulate an i3. It's not like if you were running a Pentium and you'd have horrible framerate oscillations making gameplay a mess. The only game I can think of right off hand that sucks with an i3 is Crysis 3, i5 is the bare minimum unless you want to cap framerate to 30 fps and really, i7 or Xeon E3 is needed to turn the physics effects up all the way. But Crysis 3 is a crappy game anyway imo, nowhere near as much fun as the original which was brilliant.

 

So get an i5, i7, or Xeon E3 sometime, you'll notice the difference. But don't feel like you have to rush out and get one, you can still play most games pretty well with an i3 and a 970. And also don't listen to anyone who tells you to get an R9 390. While the R9 390 is a bit more powerful than the 970 at 1080p (but they're very close) when paired with an i5 or i7, Nvidia GPUs are much better with i3s than AMD are in DirectX 11 games. Look up Eurogamer.net's review of the GTX 960 to see this explained. But don't buy a 960, that GPU is crap compared to the 970. Also, since you have a Z87 board, if you have fast ram that can really benefit i3s. See Eurogamer.net's review of the i3-6100 for some numbers when using DDR3-2133 vs DDR3-1600 on an i3-4130.

[Nena Trinity]

Most cases no!

 

Nvidia works good with dual-cores!

 

Also some 2133MHz RAM or OC your current RAM will help a bit!

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-intel-core-i3-6100-review

 

Youll definitely see a bottleneck in a lot of games. For instance, in GTA V I disabled two cores but left hyperthreading on for my Xeon E3-1231v3 to simulate a 3.8 GHz i3 (though with 8MB L3 cache instead of the 4MB your 4360 has) and my GPU load on my 970 was around 80% most of the time. With that said, the gameplay was pretty damn smooth and over 60 fps the majority of the time, with drops into the mid 50s. Not really jarring drops though like you'd get with say a Pentium. The i3 bottlenecks a 970 enough to where you're going to want to upgrade it to an i5, i7, or Xeon E3 eventually. But the performance will be good enough that it'll still be an enjoyable experience; I know I enjoyed playing GTA V on very high on my 970 with the two cores turned off to simulate an i3. It's not like if you were running a Pentium and you'd have horrible framerate oscillations making gameplay a mess. The only game I can think of right off hand that sucks with an i3 is Crysis 3, i5 is the bare minimum unless you want to cap framerate to 30 fps and really, i7 or Xeon E3 is needed to turn the physics effects up all the way. But Crysis 3 is a crappy game anyway imo, nowhere near as much fun as the original which was brilliant.

 

So get an i5, i7, or Xeon E3 sometime, you'll notice the difference. But don't feel like you have to rush out and get one, you can still play most games pretty well with an i3 and a 970. And also don't listen to anyone who tells you to get an R9 390. While the R9 390 is a bit more powerful than the 970 at 1080p (but they're very close) when paired with an i5 or i7, Nvidia GPUs are much better with i3s than AMD are in DirectX 11 games. Look up Eurogamer.net's review of the GTX 960 to see this explained. But don't buy a 960, that GPU is crap compared to the 970. Also, since you have a Z87 board, if you have fast ram that can really benefit i3s. See Eurogamer.net's review of the i3-6100 for some numbers when using DDR3-2133 vs DDR3-1600 on an i3-4130.

GTA V is poorly optimized but in most cases he should be fine!

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-intel-core-i3-6100-review