i3 2130 vs. gtx 980 [bottleneck?]

[peter tron]

i read around a bit, and quite a few people said that it should be ok.

i know it largely depends on whether the game is cpu or gpu intensive.

i will be looking at getting either an i5 or i7 as the next purchase (3-4 weeks after?).

as far i can understand, if i do have a large bottleneck on certain games with this temporary set-up, i will see general performance drops, especially frame drops?

the other point is, i have a 60hz monitor, and i always have vsync on, so i average 60fps most of the time (depending on how well i tweak the settings).

i found myself thinking that i wanted to install crysis and see if i could max it out and hopefully see a constant smooth 60fps?

i know it depends on what type of games i am going to play (stalker complete, bioshock infinite).

i would like to see how far i could push the stalker complete mod.

with my gtx 660, i could not max out stalker clear sky and cop with modern texture packs and maintain a smooth 60.

please feel free to correct me if some of my "findings" are way off the mark

 

[tres_kun]

Well this is a pointless discussion
That i3 is insufficient for gaming
You will not find a lot of people in your situation
But what i can tell you is:
Dragon age inquisition is not playable on i3 4150 at 3.5Ghz

 

[peter tron]

insufficient for a gtx 980, or in general with my current 660?

if you mean 'in general', i find that entirely incorrect, as i quite happily play lots of recent titles such as crysis 3 on medium settings with 60fps 90 percent of the time.

if you mean insufficient with a 980, then explain what you mean by unplayable?

is da inquisition a cpu intensive game, and is it even unplayable with lowered settings?

as mentioned in my opening post, this is intended as a temporary set-up, until i get an i5 or i7.

here is some more info:

the most intensive games in my steam library are about three years old or more (bioshock infinite, alan wake, dishonored). i have metro 2033 & last light redux that came out in 2014.
but i should not have any issues running them.

this is not a pointless discussion, i just want to know that the cpu is not going to explode in flames, due to huge bottlenecking.

for instance: until i get a new cpu, i will only be playing bioshock infinite or the remastered bioshock when it comes out in september.

 

[Borealis]

It's a 3.4GHz dual-core with hyper-threading. In effect, it's equivalent to a 3.4GHz i5. It is by no means insufficient for running a GTX 980.

Some games like ARMA are way more CPU intensive, but for the most part, an i3 is actually a pretty decent CPU. Bear in mind that games are only just starting to take advantage of multiple core/multi-threading. Until now, most games tend to be pretty much single-core.

The Crysis series have always been pretty extreme on performance. I've got #s 2 and 3 installed right now and I have the settings on high, not Ultra. Mainly because any higher and the GPU fans start going crazy and annoy me. I reckon they'd run on ultra, but I don't think I'd get a steady 60FPS on Crysis 3 in some areas on ultra.

If you run something like hwinfo64, you can tell what the GPU and CPU loads are. If the CPU is maxed and the GPU isn't, then you have a CPU bottleneck. If the GPU is maxed and the i3 isn't, then the GPU is the bottleneck.

Your CPU isn't going to crisp itself. If it gets hot enough, it will throttle to protect itself. This usually happens if your CPU temps get into the 80s/90s.

EDIT: I have all the Stalker games and have the Complete mods. I'm fairly sure I was able to max them out with my 4670K. Whether this was before/after I bought my first 980Ti I can't remember. Either way, I was running CS Complete with a stock i5 4670K and either an HD7950 or a 980Ti. I'm fairly sure at that point I only had the 7950 though.

 

[pandem0nium]

It's a 3.4GHz dual-core with hyper-threading. In effect, it's equivalent to a 3.4GHz i5. It is by no means insufficient for running a GTX 980.

2c4t isn't the same as 4c4t, no where near. It'll only be the same when running two threads on pretty old games.

 

[pandem0nium]

Theres no harm in running the 980 with the i3, it'll certainly still be a lot better than the 660.

Should be able to pick up a 2500k/3570k pretty cheaply and overclock it to get the most out of the card.

 

[Borealis]

Yeah, I'd always go with a true quad core any time. However, I know that the Stalker series don't make use of multiple cores and TBH it's only the more recent titles that take advantage of multiple cores. I agree that with a 980 it'll still be way better than with a 660.

 

[peter tron]

i still need to install my new arctic pro 7 with my cpu, as i fear the paste was needing to be replaced.
i was getting quite high temps with the stock intel cooler when playing crysis 3.
it reached 98 then stopped, so i assume it was throttling itself back.

i will do this first, because if i didn't, i wouldn't know if the 980 was throttling the cpu or the cpu needed new paste and a decent new cooler.

i am planning to completely upgrade soon.
this includes the mobo, monitor, ram (?).

i have 2x4gb hyperfuryx DDR3 1333MHz BUT...(i'm ashamed to say..)

atm, i am still using vista 32, so only have access to 2.5 of that?

temporarily, will this be a problem with the 980 until i plan on installing the cooler and upgrading to windows 7 64, as i have it here waiting to be installed?

like i said, i just need to install the 980 to see that it actually works before i go ahead and install a new 64bit os, cpu cooler etc.