I3 4170 with gtx 960 vs i4 4460 gtx 950

[Tog]

Just now, Jintil said:

i can always over clock it i guess

If you plan on water cooling this would be good option.

[xAcid9]

6 minutes ago, Jintil said:

that was my original plan

14 minutes ago, Enderman said:

i would get the i5, so that you dont have to upgrade your CPU in the future you can just upgrade the GPU 

 

These because pure quad core will last longer than 2c/4t i3 and 950 is just slightly slower than a 960.

[Tog]

Just now, App4that said:

I agree, but the 960 is even better.

But would a I3 bottle neck the 960?

[Jintil]

Just now, App4that said:

I agree, but the 960 is even better.

agreed

[Jintil]

Just now, Tog said:

But would a I3 bottle neck the 960?

apprantly no i3 4470 is a good combo with the gtx 960

[App4that]

Just now, Tog said:

But would a I3 bottle neck the 960?

Depends o the task/game. Yes. But so will the i5. If you want worry free gaming you need a i7. So I wouldn't worry too much.

[TheRandomness]

1 minute ago, Tog said:

But would a I3 bottle neck the 960?

Depending on the game, yes. The 380 performs up to 15% better depending on the game

[007agentHP]

Just now, Tog said:

If you plan on water cooling this would be good option.

watercooling a 950 is a waste. you would spend more on watercooling than the value of the card. dont watercool the 950. besides, it can overclock plenty without it

[SteveGrabowski0]

Do you plan on upgrading in the next year or two? Then get the i5 so you'll be set on CPU for a while, and upgrade your 950 to something really nice later on. CPU performance has stagnated since Sandy Bridge 2011, so it's a decent bet your i5 will still be pretty nice in 3-4 years. An i3 won't be. A 950 won't let you play ultra 60 fps, but a 380 won't either, especially with a weaker cpu. The 380 is significantly better than the 950 when you have an i5 or better, but with an i3 the DirectX 11 overhead makes AMD cards often underperform relative to their Nvidia counterparts, sometime spectacularly. Nvidia tends to do better in games when combined with an i3. Normally I think it makes sense to spend the most on GPU, but with a new generation with node shrinks to 14/16 nm (from 28 nm), I think the new cards coming in the second half of 2016 could really be something. The gains were enormous last time there was a node shrink from 40 nm to 28 nm in 2012, where Nvidia put out an upper midrange chip (GK104) to replace their Fermi equivalent of the Titan (the GTX 580), and the GK104 chip (GTX 680) destroyed the GTX 580 by 40% when comparing 1080p framerates. AMD already showed off their Polaris 10 chip running on maybe 40-50W while playing Battlefront at a locked 60 fps on what looked like high settings at CES last month. That kind of energy efficiency means they can probably put out some really impressive shit at 150W or 200W when Polaris launches, like a much more powerful GTX 970.

 

tl;dr version - CPUs are stagnant right now, so buy a good one and you don't need to replace it for a while. GPUs are advancing at a much faster pace, so even spending more on an R9 380, it'll still be old news in a few months. And an i3 isn't enough to use a 380 to its potential anyways.

[Nena Trinity]

You want a i5 with a 380 but if not then the i3 with 960 is a solid option to...

 

Or you can get the i5 and upgrade later to a much stronger GPU?

[Guest riley mclinn]

i4 4460 gtx 950 is what i think should i win