[SOLVED] Best CPU to pair with a 2070 RTX?

[Adrian M]

Hi all!

Planning to upgrade my CPU+MBU+RAM. What's the best CPU to pair with my RTX 2070 (normal version, not super)? I would like it to not bottleneck the graphics card, but on the other hand wouldn't like to pay twice the amount for a minimal gain.
I was thinking about i5-10400. Is it worth going for i5-10600 or even i7-10700, or would it be overkill for the 2070?

Thank you!

Currently using, mostly for gaming:
CPU: i5 4570
RAM: 16 GB DDR3
GPU: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 WINDFORCE, 8GB, 256-bit
PSU: Seasonic M12II-520 Bronze 520W EVO EDITION
Monitor: 1440p 144hz

 

[sizzling]

What’s the budget? A good B450 motherboard, Ryzen 3600 and 2x8gb 3200-3600mhz RAM will perform equally well to any of those and be cheaper. At 1440p you are limited by the gpu, the differences between CPU’s only really shows when running 1080p with a high end gpu, as soon as you increase resolution or go down the gpu tiers the difference between CPU’s for gaming is negligible.

 

[AngelJin]

Ryzen 5 3600 and also upgrade and ur psu.

 

[Adrian M]

I'm willing to pay between $200-$500 USD for the CPU alone if going higher is worth it.
I might play some games at 1080p to ensure those 144 FPS.
I may be biased, but would rather go for Intel. Is Ryzen 5 3600 really that good compared to Intel's Comet Lake?

 

[AngelJin]

I am at work atm so i ll keep it simple check this 2 links Link 1 , Link 2.

 

[Juan_Bijero]

I'm willing to pay between $200-$500 USD for the CPU alone if going higher is worth it.
I might play some games at 1080p to ensure those 144 FPS.
I may be biased, but would rather go for Intel. Is Ryzen 5 3600 really that good compared to Intel's Comet Lake?

Ryzen processors are very, very good. But there will always be a sweet spot. Since you already have a 1440p 144hz monitor and a very good GPU, you can go to gpucheck.com and select your video card and then input the processor and see what the CPU impact is on the GPU. Gigabyte- RTX-2070-Windforce-With-Ryzen5-3600 Just keep plugging in different CPUs and see what the CPU impact is. You will find that there is only a -1.3 FPS for the Ryzen 5 3600 mated to the card that you already own. With a Ryzen 7 3700X (~$270) there is only a-0.6 FPS negative impact. With the Ryzen 9 3900X there is a-0.3 FPS negative impact. This means that there is only a 1 fps difference going from a Ryzen 5 3600 to a Ryzen 9 3900X.

 

[alexbirdie]

I would suggest a 3600x. 3700x would not give you much for games, but does have 2 cores more( 8 vs 6). That might help for additional applications running while gaming.

 

[GarrettL]

Get the 3700x if you can, the 3600 would be fine too for 1440p.

 

[geofelt]

A balanced gamer will budget about 2x the cost of the processor for the graphics card.
From that, a cpu budget in the $250 range would be appropriate.
I like the I5-10600K.
Here is a review:
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i5-10600k-cpu-review

 

[refillable]

PSU needs to go IMO. Seasonic M12II is way too old for an RTX 2070.

I'm indifferent when it comes to whether you should buy an i7-10700, i5-10600, or Ryzen, 3700X, or 3600 (and also 3600 XT coming soon). Just get the one that you can afford. These give about the same performance.