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By how much will my CPU bottleneck my GPU

Sebjay

Sebjay

Sebjay

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Joined
27 Nov 2014
Posts
65
I'm going to buy a GTX 1060 gb and was wondering by how much my A8 6600k will bottleneck it.
Will it bottleneck it so much that I should buy a new CPU instead of a GPU?
Thanks.
 
GTX 1060 will bottleneck quite hard but it depends on what games you play, if you are looking to upgrade it isn't a bad choice plus you will upgrade the rest later.
 
It will be a titanic bottleneck at 1080p and would be a waste of money.

Problem with that socket is that there are no decent performance processors at all, so you will need a new board, ram and CPU (Intel Skylake).

To negate that CPU bottleneck you'd literally need to be playing at 4k high-ultra at 30fps. It's an extremely low-end, weak processor.

In fact if you're experiencing low FPS in games right now, it would be more likely due to the CPU and not the GTX950 - stuff like BF1 and Fallout 4 would be virtually unplayable.

I would consider selling the entire PC and starting a new one, might be easier.

Or could get a new board, cpu and ram and keep the GTX950 for another while - it's really not a bad card and as I said I think your low framerates would be due to CPU, not GPU. It's more than capable of playing games like BF1 at 1080p medium settings at 60fps.
 
Here is a gameplay video of someone running Fallout 4 on a A8 6500 and a GTX960 2GB:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaZ-dE0wb5k

It runs fine - I find even with a Xeon E3 1230 V2/Core i7 3770 I am more GPU limited with a GTX960 4GB.

Some areas like the Corvega factory and Diamond City can push systems with even reasonably decent CPUs - it is a Bethesda game after all.

The game can actually take advantage of the 4GB of my GTX960 as opposed to the 2GB on the earlier version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5dXbBCft1s

Plus Fallout 4 has a massive modding community which has made mods which make the game more playable on slower hardware.

Edit!!

If people have performance issues with Fallout 4 they need to look at NMM.

There are quite a few which try and re-do the textures to reduce the performance hit whilst maintaining image quality.

Second Edit!!

There are performance enhancing mods on NMM:

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/m...at=26&src_showadult=1&ignoreCF=0&page=1&pUp=1
 
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Actually,looking through the thread,the OP has not stated what games they want to run(thought it was FO4 looking at the previous post),so maybe we need to find out what the games are first??
 
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CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
Actually,looking through the thread,the OP has not stated what games they want to run(thought it was FO4 looking at the previous post),so maybe we need to find out what the games are first??
Click to expand...

Fairly new games, don't mind playing in 720p on medium or high settings.
Will my system be able to handle this?
 
Sebjay said:
Fairly new games, don't mind playing in 720p on medium or high settings.
Will my system be able to handle this?
Click to expand...

Play them yes, but there is no point in getting a new card as you won't see any difference due to CPU bottle necking badly.

EG a GTX950 can run BF1 at stable 60fps, 1080p medium - but even the fastest FM2+ processor hasn't a hope of getting close to that. (framerate drops into 20's on 860K)

I only chose BF1 as an example but it would be also be true of most games - a graphics upgrade would be a waste as you wouldn't see any difference unless you were playing at insane levels on a large resolution monitor (1440p or 4k) @ locked 30fps.

The issue isn't IF your CPU can play new games - it can to varying degrees, from decent, to acceptable to unplayable - but a graphics upgrade would be wasting money.

A 2nd hand H81M and Haswell i3 or i5 would be pretty cheap, way faster and more up gradable for the future and you can re-use your old ram and GTX950.

The GTX950 is really not a bad card and will play all new games at pretty OK levels which can't be said of your processor.

As I said, may be easier to just sell the PC. The A8-6600 also has integrated radeon graphics, so maybe sell the PC without the GTX950?

Then, an old Dell Vostro 460/Optiplex 3020 type machine with a 3rd gen i5 can be gotten for around £120 on Ebay - throw your GTX950 into one of those and you've a way, way faster gaming PC and shouldn't really cost you any extra.
 
Terrorfirmer said:
Play them yes, but there is no point in getting a new card as you won't see any difference due to CPU bottle necking badly.

EG a GTX950 can run BF1 at stable 60fps, 1080p medium - but even the fastest FM2+ processor hasn't a hope of getting close to that. (framerate drops into 20's on 860K)

I only chose BF1 as an example but it would be also be true of most games - a graphics upgrade would be a waste as you wouldn't see any difference unless you were playing at insane levels on a large resolution monitor (1440p or 4k) @ locked 30fps.

The issue isn't IF your CPU can play new games - it can to varying degrees, from decent, to acceptable to unplayable - but a graphics upgrade would be wasting money.

A 2nd hand H81M and Haswell i3 or i5 would be pretty cheap, way faster and more up gradable for the future and you can re-use your old ram and GTX950.

The GTX950 is really not a bad card and will play all new games at pretty OK levels which can't be said of your processor.

As I said, may be easier to just sell the PC. The A8-6600 also has integrated radeon graphics, so maybe sell the PC without the GTX950?

Then, an old Dell Vostro 460/Optiplex 3020 type machine with a 3rd gen i5 can be gotten for around £120 on Ebay - throw your GTX950 into one of those and you've a way, way faster gaming PC and shouldn't really cost you any extra.
Click to expand...
Alright thanks. Would it be worth selling my GTX 950 and getting a 1050ti, i3 6100 and a motherboard that supports it or should I just put extra money into getting an even better processor?
 
It depends on your budget - as I said, it's possible to get dirt cheap 2nd/3rd gen i5/i7 Dell PC's on Ebay that will take your GTX950, and if you sell the old one you might even net some cash overall. (the A8-6600 has built in radeon graphics you can use without the GTX950, and they're pretty good for cs:go, warcraft, older COD games, etc).

i3-6100 would be twice as fast as your current processor and you'd have a solid platform to upgrade for years to come with i5 or i7 if/when required. Requires DDR4 ram though, some boards will take DDR3 but if going Skylake you're best off getting DDR4 as well to maximize performance.

Personally I would aim for a GTX1060 or RX470 from a GTX950, or a second hand GTX970 maybe. But you could keep it and re-use it, again, it's still a pretty good card.

The AMD A8/A10 processors are great for stuff like CS:Go, Warcraft, World of Tanks, Minecraft, slightly older games, etc. They weren't really ever designed to play the latest AAA titles and don't do very well when paired with performance cards.
 
Sebjay said:
Fairly new games, don't mind playing in 720p on medium or high settings.
Will my system be able to handle this?
Click to expand...

Well you need to consider the consoles have a worse CPU than what you have and even the PS4 doesn't really have a much faster GPU either.

So at low res,you might be fine - for me I would upgrade once I hit a point I find a game actually cannot run if I tweak the settings.

Also,I would wait a few more months,as Kaby Lake will have overclockable Core i3 chips and AMD would have hopefully released Zen by then:

http://wccftech.com/intel-kaby-lake-core-i3-7350k-cpu/

So give it 4 months - hopefully the pound won't tank any further though.

If you want to maximise your budget some places sell secondhand Haswell chips with a warranty and you could re-use your RAM.
 
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To be fair, the A8-6600 can't be compared to the PS4 or XB1 in terms of performance as games are purpose designed from the ground up to make best use of them.

BF1 64 player conquest on either console generally runs between 40-60fps depending on what's happening on screen.

With an 860K (which is faster than the OP's A8-6600), the game runs quite poorly, often hitting lows of 20fps or even below.

I assume the OP wants to play pretty new games if he's looking to upgrade his GTX950 (I still think he's attributing poor performance to GPU, when it's actually CPU).
 
Sebjay said:
Alright thanks. Would it be worth selling my GTX 950 and getting a 1050ti, i3 6100 and a motherboard that supports it or should I just put extra money into getting an even better processor?
Click to expand...

Depends on the costs. You could possibly drop in a Athlon quad core and overclock it. Pair that with a top heavy graphics card and you should be good through a monitor upgrade. If you have the money an Athlon x4, RX 470 and 2560x1440 or 2560x1080 freesync monitor makes a lot of sense.
 
The A8 6600K can be overclocked like an Athlon II X4,so maybe the OP should give that a try first and see if it improves things first??

Edit!!

HWBOT seems to indicate the average overclock is 4.7GHZ:

http://hwbot.org/hardware/processor/a8_6600k/

The A8 6600K uses Piledriver cores,the X4 860K Steamroller cores,but the problem is bulk 28NM tended to clock lower than the 32NM SOI process Piledriver used.

OFC,we need to know what motherboard the OP has.

Edit!!

Also list what games OP!!

You could be trying to run BF1 where my ancient IB based Core i7/Xeon E3 beats out a modern Skylake Core i5 6600K and where Core i3 chips apparently are noticeably worse than a Core i5.

Or it could be some other game,which is mostly GPU limited.
 
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Surely sticking with FM2 and throwing cash at a new GPU and 1440p monitor would be totally OTT just to hang onto the same board?

No matter what resolution or settings you play at, by the time the CPU bottleneck is eliminated you're still talking about framerates light years behind the FX or Intel i3/i5 systems.

Might be OK for the likes of Overwatch or maybe Infinite Warfare, stuff like BF1 64-player online would still be borderline unplayable no matter what resolution or settings you run with an FM2+ processor.

You also have zero upgrade path in future. It would seem bizarre to me to spend several hundred pounds and still be really unable to play some games.

Best thing to do is just go Intel (or AM3+ if you could find a cheap Fx-8330/8350), be it an old Sandybridge platform, Haswell, or Skylake (from cheapest to most expensive).

It can cost as little as £120 for an entire 2500 or 3470/8GB/1TB based Dell, and most of the Dell optiplexes/vostro models use standard motherboards and power supplies. Throw in your existing GTX950 or buy a 2nd hand GTX970 or similar and you're sorted. The old A8-6600 machine would probably sell for even more than that.
 
Or the OP could just get a £20 cooler and overclock their current chip?? Or even find the AM3+ copper cooler for £10 and use that??

The stock cooler for the A8 6600K is the AMD aluminium cooler of fail and it would not surprise me if the CPU is even downclocking under heavy load too.

Plus like I said,what games??

FO4 is a modern game which has mods which make the game far more playable with little or no visual loss.

Or it could be PS2 which can tank on any modern system during heavy battles.
 
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