i5 Bottleneck

[mathmeister]

I saw a video on the forum that said the i5 6600K bottlenecks the GTX 1070 but I'm playing at 1440p 60hz so I was wondering if it doesn't apply to me. If it does, I would have to pay an extra $100 for the i7, wait for next gen of CPUs, or go for one of those $250 Xeons that have i7ish performance.

[Herman Mcpootis]

you can go for the e3 1231 v3 and h97 anniversary for around $290 IIRC. same performance as an i7 4770 without the iGPU. its a good budget option for the gtx 1070. you also won't have to spend more on a heatsink so you save some money there.

 

[don_svetlio]

It does apply to you. You will get 60fps now but in future more demanding games the CPU bottleneck will show much more apparently. Basically - you WILL get 60fps now but you may not get 60fps in future CPU-demanding games even though the GPU is capable.

[Moress]

No, at 1440p you wont have a bottleneck in any game tht isnt ridiculously GPU intensive

[don_svetlio]

2 minutes ago, Moress said:

No, at 1440p you wont have a bottleneck in any game tht isnt ridiculously GPU intensive

Yes there will be. 1440p is not magic.

[Moress]

1 minute ago, don_svetlio said:

Yes there will be. 1440p is not magic.

It is in fact more GPU intensive while using the same amount of CPU. So it will help minimize any perceived bottleneck.

[mathmeister]

2 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

It does apply to you. You will get 60fps now but in future more demanding games the CPU bottleneck will show much more apparently. Basically - you WILL get 60fps now but you may not get 60fps in future CPU-demanding games even though the GPU is capable.

That's exactly what I had in mind. But if I'm just "future proofing" by upgrading my CPU now, it would be a better idea to upgrade two years down the line when it starts to dip below 60 FPS and I'm thinking about upgrading my GPU and monitor.

[don_svetlio]

1 minute ago, Moress said:

It is in fact more GPU intensive while using the same amount of CPU. So it will help minimize any perceived bottleneck.

You still need the draw calls - the bottleneck will be smaller but still there. In future games it will be even more apparent

[Moress]

2 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

You still need the draw calls - the bottleneck will be smaller but still there. In future games it will be even more apparent

Hows your crystal ball doing? I sure wish I had one that told me games will use more CPU at a faster rate than GPU.

[Misanthrope]

2 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

Yes there will be. 1440p is not magic.

No you won't: he is absolutely right. In the future games will be more intensive and demanding, better looking. At 1440p ultra details many games like Witcher 3 already have the CPU waiting for the GPU to finish so this will continue to be the norm.

 

What you suggest is that not only will games that are CPU bound will become more common but that they will become more and more intensive on the CPU. You have 0 reason to assume that your best bet would be async compute in DX12 and Vulkan but before it's anywhere near common the 1070 and his 6600k will be mostly outdated anyway.

 

There just isn't enough CPU intensive games to justify anything beyond a 6600k and this won't magically change for say the next 3 to 4 years which should be the useful lifecycle of the 1070 and 6600k anyways.

[don_svetlio]

4 minutes ago, mathmeister said:

That's exactly what I had in mind. But if I'm just "future proofing" by upgrading my CPU now, it would be a better idea to upgrade two years down the line when it starts to dip below 60 FPS and I'm thinking about upgrading my GPU and monitor.

Your call. Zen and Kaby lake are coming - maybe wait for those

[mathmeister]

2 minutes ago, Moress said:

Hows your crystal ball doing? I sure wish I had one that told me games will use more CPU at a faster rate than GPU.

 

[Misanthrope]

8 minutes ago, mathmeister said:

 

144hz? You clearly said 60hz. He even says so him self very fucking early in the game "This doesn't apply to people who are not very high refresh rate gamers"

[mathmeister]

1 minute ago, Misanthrope said:

144hz? OP clearly said 60hz stop being disingenuous and misleading. He even says so him self very fucking early in the game "This doesn't apply to people who are not very high refresh rate gamers"

I am op... and I was only worried for future games.

[don_svetlio]

1 minute ago, mathmeister said:

I am op... and I was only worried for future games.

You are fine now but won't be in the future. Tis'  all.

[Misanthrope]

9 minutes ago, mathmeister said:

I am op... and I was only worried for future games.

Yeah I saw, editing.

 

The reality is that unless you specifically want very high refresh rate this just won't be a problem for the reasons I explain: Virtually all games, even games using DX12 and Vulkan with Async Compute with 1 exception (Ashes of the Singularity) are primarily GPU bound. Some are more dependent on CPU like GTA V but I say 95% of all titles out there and a good 80% of announced games are DX11 and GPU bound.

 

GPUs, even the top 2 GPUs out right now (1070 and 1080) are just not powerful enough to completely max out 1440p

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1070-8gb-pascal-performance,4585-5.html

 

 

See the minimum and average on them? They break 60 FPS average but are nowhere near high refresh rates which is the point in which the GPU sometimes is held back by the CPU since it has to wait for it.

 

This just doesn't happens often enough to justify a CPU that will give you 1 to 2 extra FPS on most games and 10 to 20 far beyond 60FPS btw worst case scenario. And the worst case scenario is 1080p and 120FPS or better.

As time goes on your GPU will go down those graphs, not up, meaning that it will still be trying to handle graphically intensive games to even have any real CPU related gains in performance. Please do not listen to people like svetlio who are just basing their arguments on conjectures and assumptions about future games which are not based in anything concrete or anything that can happen quickly enough to matter which is 3 years or so before the GPU is fairly midrange or lower in performance anyway thus no longer capable.

[don_svetlio]

Just to point out - those benches are done with the highest end i7 possible. Not an i5.

[Misanthrope]

2 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

Just to point out - those benches are done with the highest end i7 possible. Not an i5.

And just to point out that graph is 1080p high refresh rate not 1440p 60hz as we're discussing here. 

[don_svetlio]

1 minute ago, Misanthrope said:

And just to point out that graph is 1080p high refresh rate not 1440p 60hz as we're discussing here. 

Point still stands. Your benches are done with a high end i7 - not a mid-range i5

[Misanthrope]

28 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

Point still stands. Your benches are done with a high end i7 - not a mid-range i5

It does not: What part of 1440p 60hz do you fail to understand?

Edited July 17, 2016 by Godlygamer23
Clean up.

[mathmeister]

2 hours ago, Misanthrope said:

It does not: What part of 1440p 60hz do you fail to understand?

His point is that the i5 bottlenecks the GPUs more than the i7 does

[Misanthrope]

4 minutes ago, mathmeister said:

His point is that the i5 bottlenecks the GPUs more than the i7 does

His point is a false equivalency: the bottleneck only occurs at very high refresh rates which are only possible at 1080p or lower res on some games. On future games this will likely not be the case for the 1070 since games in the future will be naturally more intensive.

 

He is advocating for people to spend more money on the basis of an extremely specific case scenario which extremely high frame rate players. All others will face no issues whatsoever and waste money on basically no gains or next to no gains on performance for gaming.

[mathmeister]

3 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

His point is a false equivalency: the bottleneck only occurs at very high refresh rates which are only possible at 1080p or lower res on some games. On future games this will likely not be the case for the 1070 since games in the future will be naturally more intensive.

 

He is advocating for people to spend more money on the basis of an extremely specific case scenario which extremely high frame rate players. All others will face no issues whatsoever and waste money on basically no gains or next to no gains on performance for gaming.

Yeah but those benchmarks show a pretty decent increase

[Misanthrope]

1 minute ago, mathmeister said:

Yeah but those benchmarks show quiet an increase

And you didn't ask for those benchmarks now did you? Do you have a 1080p 120hz or 144hz by chance? Are you planning to get one? Because if you are you might wanna rephrase what you ask for instead of coming here with huge confirmation bias that has nothing to do with the reality of what you fucking asked for.

[mathmeister]

1 minute ago, Misanthrope said:

And you didn't ask for those benchmarks now did you? Do you have a 1080p 120hz or 144hz by chance? Are you planning to get one? Because if you are you might wanna rephrase what you ask for instead of coming here with huge confirmation bias that has nothing to do with the reality of what you fucking asked for.

I got my answer: it doesn't matter at 1440p 60hz. I just think I will need a more powerful CPU in the future when it starts to dip below 60 fps.