Question 12400f bottleneck 3060 ti

[El2016]

Hi,

I'm sure this has been asked several times before. I looked at the bottlenecking thread here and it confused me even more.
I'm very new to pc building. This is my first time building a pc and originally, i installed a 6600xt into a build with a 12400f. I have a chance to get a 3060ti for around the same price, and return the 6600xt, however i was wondering if the 12400f would bottleneck the 3060ti?

I dont even fully understand bottlenecking, but it spunds like its not a great thing if a cpu significantly bottlenecks a gpu.

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Hey there,

Short answer, no!

The 12400f is a stellar midrange gaming CPU, which most certainly can push a 3060ti, with ease. It's good enough for stronger GPU's. Prob best bang for buck CPU out there right now.

In terms of bottlenecking, hmmm, that's a bit of a misleading word. The absolute bottleneck in any system is the user themselves

But your CPU and GPU are well balanced. No bottleneck to consider really..

At 1080p, will a 12700/12900 push a few more FPS. Yes, but that's only down to clock speed differences.

 

[El2016]

Hey there,

Short answer, no!

The 12400f is a stellar midrange gaming CPU, which most certainly can push a 3060ti, with ease. It's good enough for stronger GPU's. Prob best bang for buck CPU out there right now.

In terms of bottlenecking, hmmm, that's a bit of a misleading word. The absolute bottleneck in any system is the user themselves

But your CPU and GPU are well balanced. No bottleneck to consider really..

At 1080p, will a 12700/12900 push a few more FPS. Yes, but that's only down to clock speed differences.

Do you think its worth upgrading from a 6600xt to 3060ti if the price is very similar? I can still return the 6600xt

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Do you think its worth upgrading from a 6600xt to 3060ti if the price is very similar? I can still return the 6600xt

They are both brilliant at 1080p, but pretty decent at 1440p too. The 3060ti prob pushes a bit more performance in min FPS, Avg FPS and about 15-20% (game dependant) increase max FPS. If the price is close, then it's a no brainer! The 3060ti all day long. It also brings RT 2ng gen tensor cores to the whole Ray tracing mania. If that's important to you, then it's a 3060ti. You also get DLSS 2nd gen, and the new DLDSR too.

 

[El2016]

They are both brilliant at 1080p, but pretty decent at 1440p too. The 3060ti prob pushes a bit more performance in min FPS, Avg FPS and about 15-20% (game dependant) increase max FPS. If the price is close, then it's a no brainer! The 3060ti all day long. It also brings RT 2ng gen tensor cores to the whole Ray tracing mania. If that's important to you, then it's a 3060ti. You also get DLSS 2nd gen, and the new DLDSR too.

Thank you so much!
I dont know much about these and have been happy with the 6600xt, but the 3060ti has dropped to around a similair price, i figured its a good time while i can still return the 6600xt

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

No probs, you're very welcome!

Yes, the 3060ti is more comparative to a 6700xt. Slightly less performance than that card in pure raster performance, but with RT/DLSS involved the 3060ti wins out, but not by much.

 

[El2016]

No probs, you're very welcome!

Yes, the 3060ti is more comparative to a 6700xt. Slightly less performance than that card in pure raster performance, but with RT/DLSS involved the 3060ti wins out, but not by much.

Thats great! Even at just a few more frames, for the sale price it is wort grabbing and returning the 6600xt. This forums been great for someone like me. I never built a pc and everything seeeeems like its working and these answers help alot. I just didn't want to mess anything up where the 6600xt has been great for the week I've had it!

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Thats great! Even at just a few more frames, for the sale price it is wort grabbing and returning the 6600xt. This forums been great for someone like me. I never built a pc and everything seeeeems like its working and these answers help alot. I just didn't want to mess anything up where the 6600xt has been great for the week I've had it!

Cool! Yes, a few more frames can often be the difference between smooth gaming and not.

Ah, that's very nice of you to say. The community here at Tom's Forums are second to none. Always happy to help users, and offer advice. I love being part of it

The 6600xt is no slouch by any means. And a good purchase. The 3060ti offers a little more, but sometimes has a premium over the 6600xt.

Either way, you've a good gaming GPU going on.

Happy gaming

 

[USAFRet]

I looked at the bottlenecking thread here

Stop doing that.

The term 'bottleneck' is one of the most misused and misunderstood terms around.
Seriously.

Your chosen parts are just fine.

 

[El2016]

Stop doing that.

The term 'bottleneck' is one of the most misused and misunderstood terms around.
Seriously.

Your chosen parts are just fine.

Thank you. Im not used to any of the terms and was concerned that i would mess the cpu up by using a more powerful gpu. Again, I've never done these things so all the gpus and stuff are the first i ever read about any of it.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Thank you. Im not used to any of the terms and was concerned that i would mess the cpu up by using a more powerful gpu. Again, I've never done these things so all the gpus and stuff are the first i ever read about any of it.

You're on the learning curve! Welcome! This is a great place to learn more about these things.

 

[El2016]

You're on the learning curve! Welcome! This is a great place to learn more about these things.

Actually! If you dont mind me asking another question simi related...

How do you remove a gpu? I plan on viewing some videos, but i have a lian li mesh 2 rgb case, and a b660 bazooka motherboard, and i cant reach behind the 6600 xt card to hit the clip! I am afraid to simply pull on it.

 

[Karadjgne]

I dont even fully understand bottlenecking, but it spunds like its not a great thing if a cpu significantly bottlenecks a gpu.

Welcome to the club. Very few ppl actually do understand bottlenecking, in its entirety, most ppl including calculators, apply it as a label to describe one component not being equal to another.

The kicker is, there's no set pattern. It changes per game, it changes per situation, per setup.

In cpu heavy games, it's the cpu that gets bogged down, so the gpu is under utilized. In gpu heavy games, the cpu is takin a nap because the gpu is bogged down. And then there's detail levels, which include cpu and gpu. There's resolution of the monitor, workload type etc.

The game code itself is often the biggest bottleneck, quite often so badly optimized or written that you can't get decent fps from it. Or so old and relatively simple, like CSGO, that they'll play on a potato.

Without a set scenario, with boundaries and known limits, just claiming bottleneck is where calculators fail, hard.

 

[USAFRet]

I dont even fully understand bottlenecking, but it spunds like its not a great thing if a cpu significantly bottlenecks a gpu.

Basically, it is one part of the system not being able to realize its full potential, due to the rest of the parts.

Like putting racing tires on a stock Honda Civic.
You would never be able to utilize the full potential of the tires, because the rest of the car is very basic.
It does not mean the car runs 'slower' than it did before the tire swap, and it will not break the rest of the car.

And in actual fact, the Civic would be able to corner better than with the stock tires. Just not to the full capabilities of the racing tires.

 

[El2016]

Basically, it is one part of the system not being able to realize its full potential, due to the rest of the parts.

Like putting racing tires on a stock Honda Civic.
You would never be able to utilize the full potential of the tires, because the rest of the car is very basic.
It does not mean the car runs 'slower' than it did before the tire swap, and it will not break the rest of the car.

And in actual fact, the Civic would be able to corner better than with the stock tires. Just not to the full capabilities of the racing tires.

Ok, so it doesn't necessarily mean that it is damaging anything, it simply can't push the specs to its fullest potential?

 

[USAFRet]

Ok, so it doesn't necessarily mean that it is damaging anything, it simply can't push the specs to its fullest potential?

It absolutely does NOT incur any damage.

 

[Karadjgne]

And the kicker is, you really don't want to push the pc to its full potential. That's a hard limit. Imagine your toon is running through a town and the detail levels have pushed cpu or gpu to max potential. Then picture a tank bursting through a wall in front of your toon. That adds a ton of AVX and vector calculations and objects with all those particals and smoke and wall chunks flying in all directions from the explosion. If the cpu is already at max potential, and you add all that, the fps tanks hard, dropping like a rock, simply because the cpu has all that extra work to deal with per frame. On the gpu side, gotta add all the objects, colors, shadows, dimensions, smoke and lighting per object, and if the gpu is maxed on potential, fps tanks, because of the inability for the gpu to handle that much info per frame and maintain fps amounts.

Far better if neither ever reaches full potential, thereby leaving headroom for stuff that does or doesn't happen in game.

Same with the racing tires, do you really want to push them right to the edge of being able to maintain grip on the road, where just 1 more mph would tip them over the edge and you go sliding off the road? Using them on a Honda Civic might mean they never see full potential, but then again no matter how hard you drive that Honda, it'll stay on the road. Same can't be said if you stick them on a Ferrari, where much of the time you'll not be pushing the car hard before over driving the tires ability.

 

[KyaraM]

Do you think its worth upgrading from a 6600xt to 3060ti if the price is very similar? I can still return the 6600xt

Do you care for raytracing? If the answer is no, then my answer is, no, there isn't enough difference between the two to justify the effort.

 

[Karadjgne]

If streaming and much prefer nvenc then swap. If you are fine with obs, then don't. If you must have Ray Tracing, then swap, if you are good without that fps killer, then don't. Otherwise the cards are similar enough win-some, lose-some, to really not make a difference.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Actually! If you dont mind me asking another question simi related...

How do you remove a gpu? I plan on viewing some videos, but i have a lian li mesh 2 rgb case, and a b660 bazooka motherboard, and i cant reach behind the 6600 xt card to hit the clip! I am afraid to simply pull on it.

You may have to take out another component to reach the clip. Can you post a pic of it? I would not just pull the card out, without releasing that clip. Likely to cause some damage.

 

[El2016]

You may have to take out another component to reach the clip. Can you post a pic of it? I would not just pull the card out, without releasing that clip. Likely to cause some damage.

I think i found the clip this time. There is a little space between the cpu heatsink and the gpu. There would be just enough to push a tool in and oush back on the clip. I was actually worried I'd have tp unsaddle the cooler to get around!

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

I think i found the clip this time. There is a little space between the cpu heatsink and the gpu. There would just enough to push a tool in and oush back on the clip. I was actually worried I'd have tp unsaddle the cooler to around!

Good stuff.

 

[El2016]

If streaming and much prefer nvenc then swap. If you are fine with obs, then don't. If you must have Ray Tracing, then swap, if you are good without that fps killer, then don't. Otherwise the cards are similar enough win-some, lose-some, to really not make a difference.

I got the 3060 ti coming, I certainly want to give it a try. Its only meant for gaming and i know they are very similar, but it seemed the 3060ti could squeeze a bit more at 1440p? The extra frames seemed like they could make a difference in the odd game.

Honestly, i kind of know its a bit of a lateral move, but the difference in price at this moment being almost the same for what i got the 6600xt for, feels like a reasonable consideration. If i was outside the return window, i wouldn't even bother with the trouble.