About CPU bottleneck

[Arnab Roy Chowdhury]

My friend currently has a PC setup consisting a Gigabyte 970 DS3-P mb with AMD fx 4300 processor and a Sapphire R7 260x GPU .. Now he wants to upgrade his GPU with a Sapphire VaporX R9 270x so is it necessary for him to upgrade his cpu too to avoid bottle-necking?? I suggested him to upgrade his CPU too but I just want to be sure with an expert opinion from here.

Thanks in advance.

 

[KuroNanashi]

My friend currently has a PC setup consisting a Gigabyte 970 DS3-P mb with AMD fx 4300 processor and a Sapphire R7 260x GPU .. Now he wants to upgrade his GPU with a Sapphire VaporX R9 270x so is it necessary for him to upgrade his cpu too to avoid bottle-necking?? I suggested him to upgrade his CPU too but I just want to be sure with an expert opinion from here.

Thanks in advance.

Bottlenecking in the real world only becomes an issue when the change in CPU vastly affects the performance you're getting out of an upgrade. In this case moving from a 260X to a 270X is a relatively minor jump and spending the extra money on the CPU might not bring about massive gains.

To make things absolutely clear, bottlenecking will only occur when the CPU cannot provide enough commands to peg the GPU at 100% of it's utilization. This may happen where the scenes are limited in detail, for example looking at a floor in a game - your max framerates will probably be in the realms of the hundreds but would be much higher on a CPU with vaster single threaded performance (such as a modern intel) but for most intents and purposes, you will not experience many situations where a FX-4300 realistically bottlenecks a 270X and in cases where it does, the effect will be minor (slight stuttering). If you want to avoid this then yes a better CPU would be an idea but the cost of doing that will vastly outnumber the benefits of simply moving to a 270X from a 260X.

 

[i7Baby]

Now he wants to upgrade his GPU with a Sapphire VaporX R9 270x so is it necessary for him to upgrade his cpu too to avoid bottle-necking??

Yeah - I'd go to a FX6300.

 

[Wisecracker]

In the overwhelming majority of situations it is simply not an issue.

IF it becomes an issue there are 2 no-cost alternatives: 1) OC the FX-4300; or 2) Turn down the detail settings in the game.

 

[Arnab Roy Chowdhury]

In the overwhelming majority of situations it is simply not an issue.

IF it becomes an issue there are 2 no-cost alternatives: 1) OC the FX-4300; or 2) Turn down the detail settings in the game.

As u stated overclocking the Fx 4300, please suggest a safe OC frequency in stock voltage.. He is using the stock cooler of FX8320 on his fx4300 and a 600 watt Cooler Master thunder PSU. Room temparature is about 30 degree Celsius.

 

[Wisecracker]

Slowly raise the CPU multiplier, and test for temps and stability along the way.

If he stubs his toe, he can simply bump the VCore +0.0125v and test again.

He should disable Turbo and *APM* (the core management system).

That's pretty much it -- Gigabyte motherboards have been known to over-volt in the past on 'Auto'. I'm not familiar with that mobo, but it may be to his advantage to take manual control of his VCore.

He should read the BIOS section of his motherboard manual to learn the GB magic handshake to open his BIOS options

 

[Arnab Roy Chowdhury]

Slowly raise the CPU multiplier, and test for temps and stability along the way.

If he stubs his toe, he can simply bump the VCore +0.0125v and test again.

He should disable Turbo and *APM* (the core management system).

That's pretty much it -- Gigabyte motherboards have been known to over-volt in the past on 'Auto'. I'm not familiar with that mobo, but it may be to his advantage to take manual control of his VCore.

He should read the BIOS section of his motherboard manual to learn the GB magic handshake to open his BIOS options

Thank you very much

 

[Arnab Roy Chowdhury]

Thanks to everyone for their opinions