i5 bottleneck a low end graphics card?

[sgoaty]

Im putting together a budget gaming pc. It's going to be based on an 1155 platform with 8GB of RAM and a GTX 670 or 680. I'm hoping this should perform reasonably well for 1080p gaming an medium settings.

Im aware that the majority of modern titles can now take advantage of more than 4 threads but i5s and 4c/4t xeon E3s can be picked up a lot cheaper than 4c/8t CPUs.

I've looked online at benchmarks but they all seem to be using much more powerful GPUs which are obviously going to bottleneck a lower end CPU.

My question is would there be much of an advantage going for an i7 over an i5 (neither overclocked) considering the graphics card I'd be using?

Thanks
Scott

 

[sgoaty]

Good stuff that's what I was hoping to hear thanks.

 

[sgoaty]

If you can find a z77 or z75 board and something like Xeon E3 1240v2 you can get a reasonable fast machine with overclocking. Anything from the xeon 1230v2 up is a i7 3770. Price would be key though as you can also get 4 core 8 thread Ryzen 5's and boards for good prices.

DDR 4 prices stop RYZEN being an option with this build unfortunately. Its a B75 board I've bought as Z77 is a lot more expensive and I didn't think overclocking xeons was really worth it?

 

[sgoaty]

That's good info about the V2s i didn't know that. I know 8 threads would be better but if the i5/4T xeon isn't going to bottleneck the GTX670 its not really worth it for this build.

 

[sgoaty]

I know its a widely used term but in this instance i think its the correct one. I just want to get the best out of the card without paying for a cpu thats not needed. If an i7 was going to give me 10-20 FPS more then it might be worth the extra but if it's only 5 then there's no point.

 

[sgoaty]

Can't directly answer the question, but a few weeks ago I knocked up the cheapest gaming rig of the year so far for my 9yr old nephew. I bagged an old HP desktop tower unit from a car boot sale for £10, that had nothing in it other than PSU and motherboard (and a DVD-RW), won an i5-3570 on that famous auction site for £14 delivered, and put in a 128GB SSD (£11.50 at auction) a 500GB 2.5" HDD (Free laying around), and 8GB DDR3 RAM (£15 from second hand shop), then put in a GTX 660Ti.

I've not benched marked it as such, but it seemed to run the Unigine test programs at 1080p 35-70 FPS for the most part with no stuttering, and with a bit of tweaking it would go faster I reckon, but for £40 + the graphics card I doubt you could get better value with out nicking it. Windows 10 was running great on the SSD, and he was happily playing his Lego Ninjago or whatever it was last time I went round and it looked nice/smooth etc.

I've seen i5-2400/2550/3550/3570/3570K go for £10-30, so unless you are getting an i7 CPU or equivalent for £5-10 more then I don't see the point, it's not like if you pay double you'll get 100% more performance.

This is exactly the kind of thing I'm trying to achieve. I don't think I'll manage it quite as cheap as you have though!

 

[sgoaty]

Yes thats my thinking. I can see why the 3770Ks make decent money. Its the top of the range 1155 cpu so the best/easiest upgrade path for those who've had an I5 for the last few years.

 

[sgoaty]

The real question is what games are you intending to play? The battlefield games like more cores, but you will still be primarily gpu limited.

In general an i5 is a good match for that gpu and you'll be fine as long as you accept the limitations and adjust your settings accordingly.

Well TBH Ive got no idea what I'm going to use it for I just fancied seeing what I could cobble together on a budget.