AMD A10 6700 R9 280 will it bottleneck?

[dhogthe3rd]

i have a AMD A10 6700, i want to upgrade my GPU i am looking at the R9 280 but i was wondering if my CPU would bottle neck the GPU?

 

[sammy sung]

Probably just shy of experiencing a bottleneck, at 1080p. Generally the more CPU intensive it is the bigger the bottleneck. Here are some examples, the Richland A10-6700 is not in the benchmark, but the Trinity A10-5700 is. The major difference between the two is Richland officially supports DDR3-2133 RAM. Performance between Richland and Trinity generation is very close when DDR3-2133 RAM is used.

 

[dhogthe3rd]

So should i just settle for the r9 270 until i can get a better CPU

 

[sammy sung]

I wouldn't settle. I'd get the single most powerful card I could get in the meanwhile, as when you get a stronger processor then the card would be lacking. What's your card budget?

 

[dhogthe3rd]

about 190 is the max i would like to spend

 

[SM125]

In case you havent already bought it, I have the R9 280 and an A10-6800k so its your lucky day haha.

The card is brilliant, however, like Sammy said, in really CPU intensive games like Skyrim and even Battlefield 4 in big 64 player games, the cpu does take quite a hit and loses quite a bit of performance.

My sweet spot is everything set to the "High" preset with MSAA turned off and v-sync on, normally sits at 60fps all the time.

Well optimized games and games that support mantle, (Sniper Elite 3, BF4 etc.) are more than playable and the card is at its best.

I'd say buy it, and in the future a stronger CPU would only compliment your purchase.

 

[mdocod]

CPU performance dictates the hard limits of FPS in compute intensive games. WIth the A10-6700, you should expect performance limitations imposed by the CPU in compute intensive games no matter what GPU you pair it with.

The way we measure and compare GPU performance causes a lot of confusion about where gaming performance originates. When we compare GPUs in a benchmark, we create artificial conditions that shift the bottleneck squarely on the GPU for the duration of the benchmark, allowing us to use the FPS result as a yardstick. In the real world, the differences in FPS performance we see in those GPU matchups, will actually manifest as differences in visual quality once implemented. The end user is going to adjust the visual quality in an attempt to achieve the FPS they are comfortable playing at regardless of whether they are using a $100 or $500 GPU. Coincidentally, both $100 and $500 GPUs can play any game at 60FPS. On the other hand, not all CPUs can maintain 60FPS in all conditions.

Trying to think of the CPU and GPU in some sort of "balancing" act is fundamentally flawed without consideration of the compute and render workload. An A10-6700 would make a great CPU for an R9 290X if it's connected to a 4K display, since the render workload of the high resolution display is going to firmly plant the bottleneck on the GPU in most conditions, even when paired with a "weak" CPU. On the other hand, if the goal is to game at 144hz@720P/1080P, the A10-6700 is a poor CPU choice, regardless of what GPU is selected to accomplish that goal.