RX 480 Bottleneck

[LucasJohn]

Hey guys, I haven't posted here in a while and I cannot seem to find a thread related to this topic. (Unless I'm blind and don't know where to look, then I'm sorry and I'll remove this) The PC I've built is almost a year old. So I'm getting to point where I want to upgrade it a little. I want to just upgrade the GPU to a RX 480 8GB from a R9 380 4GB. I cannot afford to change the CPU or anything else. I know a bottleneck will always be a thing but I want to know how much a bottleneck I will be working with with a new GPU and my other components. My specs aren't the greatest but it's what I could afford and it has served me really well. I'm capable with picking PC components and I have a working knowledge on PCs so it I know pretty well  what I am doing. I've done some research, talked to some people, and now I'm looking here for a last opinion. I know my current specs have a major bottleneck between the GPU and CPU. Where the CPU is bottlenecked by the R9 380. Most conclusions I've came too are that everything else is fine expect for my current GPU. So most people say I should just upgrade my GPU to a better one. I've been liking the appeal of RX 480 and such. I'm not a component favoured person so I'd use any brand really. So what do you guys recommend? Switch out the GPU with RX 480/any other GPU you guys would recommend or wait another 6 - 8 months and build a new PC? Thanks in advanced!

 

My PC's current specs:

 

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4GHz 8-Core (Not really 8 cores but yeah)

RAM: 18GB DDR3 1866MHz

Cooler: Corsair Hydro H100i GTX

MOBO: Msi 970 Gaming (I know not the greatest)

GPU: Msi R9 380 4GB

SSD: 2x Kingston 240GB

PSU: 650W 80+Gold EVGA

OS: Windows 10 Pro

[The Sloth]

no it should be good 

[ARikozuM]

Monitor specs?

[iRileyx]

With an 8350 you should be fine.

[LucasJohn]

Just now, ARikozuM said:

Monitor specs?

Asus VX228H 1080p 60Hz 1ms. Got 3 of them. Got them for a deal at my job.

[ARikozuM]

Just now, LucasJohn said:

Asus VX228H 1080p 60Hz 1ms. Got 3 of them. Got them for a deal at my job.

You'll be fine. Even more so if you're a triple monitor gamer like me.

[LucasJohn]

3 minutes ago, RKRiley said:

With an 8350 you should be fine, but you do know the 970 isnt much of an upgrade from 480? 

 

http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-970-vs-AMD-RX-480/2577vs3634

970? My current GPU is a R9 380

My motherboard is called msi 970 gaming.

[iRileyx]

7 minutes ago, LucasJohn said:

970? My current GPU is a R9 380

My motherboard is called msi 970 gaming.

I realised when I double checked

[Sreno1]

I mean the 380 isn't that bad.. It's between a 960 and 970 in performance.

[ARikozuM]

Just now, Sreno1 said:

I mean the 380 isn't that bad.. It's between a 960 and 970 in performance.

We could say the same of you. /s

[Sreno1]

3 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

We could say the same of you. /s

??

[ARikozuM]

Just now, Sreno1 said:

??

Never mind.

[ivan134]

53 minutes ago, Sreno1 said:

I mean the 380 isn't that bad.. It's between a 960 and 970 in performance.

Do you know how huge the gap is between the 960 and 970? The 380 isn't even 1/4 of the way up that gap.

[Earnhardt]

2 hours ago, Sreno1 said:

I mean the 380 isn't that bad.. It's between a 960 and 970 in performance.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1591?vs=1596

[LucasJohn]

Also I should mention. I play Guild Wars 2. I know the FX-8350 isn't the best thing for a more CPU intensive game(s). However, with my current build I maintain an average FPS of 45 - 60. So not bad. So I'm hoping with a not as wide of a bottleneck between the CPU and GPU the game should run better. I've done research on this and talked to people as well about it. Conclusions I got was that I would get increased performance. Thoughts on this?

[ARikozuM]

5 minutes ago, LucasJohn said:

Also I should mention. I play Guild Wars 2. I know the FX-8350 isn't the best thing for a more CPU intensive game(s). However, with my current build I maintain an average FPS of 45 - 60. So not bad. So I'm hoping with a not as wide of a bottleneck between the CPU and GPU the game should run better. I've done research on this and talked to people as well about it. Conclusions I got was that I would get increased performance. Thoughts on this?

If you're suffering from CPU performance issues, upgrade the CPU.

If you're suffering from GPU performance DUE TO the CPU, increase resolution.

It's better to create work to get the most out of a GPU than to suggest that bottlenecks can't be minimized. Take Photoshop (completely irrelevant to your topic), for example, with an i5 and a 980. The 980 will have no work to do since Photoshop has many uses that can be accelerated by a GPU, but the 980 is extremely overpowered, whereas a 750 Ti 950 would fit the bill much more perfectly. Hyperthreading in Photoshop is barely existent sans the two functions that do get help from it.

 

TL:DR Don't worry too much about it since, these days, it's very easy to overcome the bottlenecks and games are being programmed poorly.

[LucasJohn]

4 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

If you're suffering from CPU performance issues, upgrade the CPU.

If you're suffering from GPU performance DUE TO the CPU, increase resolution.

It's better to create work to get the most out of a GPU than to suggest that bottlenecks can't be minimized. Take Photoshop (completely irrelevant to your topic), for example, with an i5 and a 980. The 980 will have no work to do since Photoshop has many uses that can be accelerated by a GPU, but the 980 is extremely overpowered, whereas a 750 Ti 950 would fit the bill much more perfectly. Hyperthreading in Photoshop is barely existent sans the two functions that do get help from it.

 

TL:DR Don't worry too much about it since, these days, it's very easy to overcome the bottlenecks and games are being programmed poorly.

Oh okay. Good to know. 

So in msi afterburner shows many many drops in GPU usage performance like from 0 to 100. So that would be a GPU bottleneck correct?

[ARikozuM]

4 minutes ago, LucasJohn said:

Oh okay. Good to know. 

So in msi afterburner shows many many drops in GPU usage performance like from 0 to 100. So that would be a GPU bottleneck correct?

Depends on what you're doing.

[LucasJohn]

Just now, ARikozuM said:

Depends on what you're doing.

Sorry I meant to mention that was while running Guild Wars 2.

 

Snip of the GPU Dips: 

[SkilledRebuilds]

12 minutes ago, LucasJohn said:

Oh okay. Good to know. 

So in msi afterburner shows many many drops in GPU usage performance like from 0 to 100. So that would be a GPU bottleneck correct?

If Vsync is on in some games, I get 100%>0%>100%>0% situations too.

Although without Vsync, it's always 99-100%

 

I don't know how threaded GuildWars2 is, but many MMO's that ARE single-threaded or dual-threaded, perform worse than higher thread count games, and in that, perform even worse again on low IPC CPU's.

Compared to a modern decently threaded game where your fine.

Hows the CPU Core load when playing, it could just be the game was created to have all work done on a single core, and performance suffers.

[xAcid9]

1 minute ago, LucasJohn said:

Sorry I meant to mention that was while running Guild Wars 2.

 

Snip of the GPU Dips: 

That's normal for GW2 imo.

[ARikozuM]

What's the CPU usage? Is V-Sync on? Does it happen everywhere or in certain areas?

[rochtech]

My pc is almost exactly what you would have, it runs great.

AMD Fx 8350 4.0GHz 8-core

16gb 1866mhz ddr3

RX 480 4Gb

Gigabyte GA 970-Gaming Motherboard

EVGA 650W 80+ Gold

1TB HDD

620GB SSD (120gb and 500gb)

runs smoothly with triple monitors and this is only with the 4gb rx480

[faziten]

Guild wars 2 is a hardware eater. My 3570K @ 4.2Ghz was constantly at high 90% with a 970, so no luck for you with that CPU and an AMD GPU. 

Also remember AMD DX11 drivers are not properly multi threaded and rely on single core performance. So to be honest you will have even better performance in GW2 with an NV equivalent than an AMD. You can do a quick youtube search, on AMD driver overhead to get more info about this. 

[LucasJohn]

3 hours ago, rochtech said:

My pc is almost exactly what you would have, it runs great.

AMD Fx 8350 4.0GHz 8-core

16gb 1866mhz ddr3

RX 480 4Gb

Gigabyte GA 970-Gaming Motherboard

EVGA 650W 80+ Gold

1TB HDD

620GB SSD (120gb and 500gb)

runs smoothly with triple monitors and this is only with the 4gb rx480

Have you ran Guild Wars 2 on it? If you have, how well does it run?