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Is my i3 3220 holding my 7850 2GB back?

Caporegime
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Ok, so a few things.

When I put AA on extreme in Sleeping Dogs, GPU Usage is always 99% - Does this still resemble a bottleneck?

Will a STOCK i5 3570k bottleneck with my 7850? Will I see a noticeable performance increase?

Cheers

No CPU bottleneck, that's the GPU being maxed out.
I assume if you don't put extreme AA on, it isn't 99%, not being at 99% would be a CPU limitation.
 
Soldato
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No CPU bottleneck, that's the GPU being maxed out.
I assume if you don't put extreme AA on, it isn't 99%, not being at 99% would be a CPU limitation.

Yeah as said if I put AA on High, the GPU usage sometimes goes up to 99 but it does vary between 80-99.

One thing I do want to know, would the i5 give me a noticeable performance increase?
 
Soldato
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Probably not with a 7850.
But there's some games that can't utilise more than 2 threads, in those there won't be much/anything between the i3 and i5 (Older games)

So even though the GPU would no longer be bottle necking I still wouldn't see a performance increase?

Budget really isn't an issue here and I could get a Z77 Mobo aswell, however it took so much time and effort to get my graphics card stable on the overclock, I don't know if I want to go through that again with the CPU lol.
 
Soldato
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I noticed on Skyrim aswell my GPU was only being used 60%... Just really frustrated now because I do want everything running properly.
 
Caporegime
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I'd get an i7 if you can afford it Tom. You won't see that bottlenecked for a very long time. Get an i7 + a new motherboard if you need to. Then in the future when AMD release their new GCN 2.0 8XXX line up around late 2013 - early 2014 you can upgrade your gpu if you wish.
 
Soldato
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As I said above I just want everything to run properly. If that means just getting the i5 3570k and a Z77 then that's fine with me. Is it really worth waiting for the new CPU's? Are they going to provide that much of a difference?
 
Caporegime
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Won't make a massive difference, but end of the day, you need a new board for overclocking, we're not that far away from Haswell launch, extra performance is extra performance.

Most of the time with your i3 you're still at the limit of your 7850, I don't see the point in putting down over 200 quid with the 7850.

Haswell's had some previews, so we're not too far off at all.

That also puts you closer to 8XXX GPU's, which to be honest, since you've got a 2GB 7850, you might be better off Crossfiring that, you'll end up with 7970 besting performance pretty much.

A Haswell i7 and a 7850 Crossfire is going to be pretty potent, or even the i5.
We still don't know how Haswell clocks, for all we know it could clock higher than Ivy.
 
Soldato
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To be honest, I just don't know what to do. PC's seem like to much hassle and I don't even feel like gaming anymore... Might even just consider downgrading again... And getting rid of my rig for a laptop.
 
Soldato
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I just want to get the i5 3570k and the Z77 but am I wasting my money...

The i5 3570k will be future proof won't it? and I can always overclock it.

So the 2 benifits will be overclocking it and my GPU won't be getting bottlenecked?
 
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