Best CPU to pair with the GTX 980 ti

[Deankavanagh1999]

Hello everyone, as the title say's, what CPU would you recommend to pair with my GTX 980 ti?
I ask this as i made the the mistake of pairing this GPU with an i5 4460, which to be honest, i did blindly as i am relatively new to PC gaming and didn't realize that pairing a £150 CPU (in the UK at least) with a £500-600 GPU (Again, in the UK) was not the best idea, at least with regards to getting the most out of this GPU and avoiding bottlenecks. As a result, i have not had the most enjoyable and consistent gaming experience that i should have had (provided that i had done more thorough research prior to building) with games such as GTA 5, AC Syndicate, Far cry 4 and AC unity all causing 100% CPU usage, which results in large FPS spikes, stuttering and inconsistent GPU usage.

Therefore, any recommendations on a wise choice of CPU would be much appreciated!

 

[Xtergo]

4790K with a CPU cooler like this one as this one gets loaded hot.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (£270.53 @ More Computers)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£26.99 @ Novatech)
Total: £297.52
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-04-29 19:11 BST+0100

 

[Eximo]

Hmm, that is odd. Can maybe get 20% more performance out of an i7-4790k, but an i5-4460 shouldn't be much of a bottleneck to a GTX980Ti. Would need motherboard details to say if that higher power CPU was a good idea or not.

At worst an i7-4790 or Xeon 1231v3 would drop right in. (Xeon doesn't have graphics and runs a little cooler as a result)

 

[Deankavanagh1999]

Hello Eximo, my motherboard is a Gigabyte Z97X-Sli.

 

[Xtergo]

Hello Eximo, my motherboard is a Gigabyte Z97X-Sli.

You have a very high end motherboard that made for overclock go for a 4790K, newer games i see are begging for even more cores which is strange tbh, GTA Vs new update shows it wont run on dual cores and quite some improvement AC Syndicate controls allot of characters on screen on a vastly large map which again is seen to improve on 8 logical cores.

 

[Deankavanagh1999]

Should I provide some evidence of thermals and stats of my hardware that I captured using msi afterburner whilst in game? Would that be helpful as well because I think my temps might be quite high?

 

[Eximo]

If the temperatures are high and the CPU is throttling that would easily explain your poor gaming performance. Are you using the stock cooler?

 

[Eximo]

The i7-4790k and the cooler master hyper evo 212 are a decent combo. I would recommend a slightly different cooler as the evo is very tall and doesn't fit in all chassis.

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/cryorig-cpu-cooler-h7

No need to overclock an i7-4790k, it is more or less already done 4.0-4.4Ghz (a high overclock might take it ti 4.7Ghz, not much of a gain)

i5-4690k would be another option, if you wanted some overclocking experience that actually benefits you. Though if you want to maximize your GTX980ti then the i7-4790k is the way to go.

 

[Deankavanagh1999]

Yeah, I am using the stock cooler.

 

[Eximo]

Go ahead and pick up that cooler and install it, see if it gets any better. Then you can decide whether replacing the CPU is immediately necessary.

 

[technoholic]

i would say a 4460 is not a bottleneck for a gtx 980ti, it is fast enough. Of course it is a matter of choice but in my humble opinion the benefit of upgrading to a more expensive CPU (plus the cost of CPU cooler) versus the cost is minimal

 

[burdenbound]

Go ahead and pick up that cooler and install it, see if it gets any better. Then you can decide whether replacing the CPU is immediately necessary.

Before picking up a cooler and hoping that solves the problem you can download some monitoring applications to check the CPU clock rate/temps to make sure it is not throttling before dropping money. Although it's never a bad idea to get away from the stock cooler.

 

[Deankavanagh1999]

After monitoring AC syndicate, I have recorded this.

 

[Deankavanagh1999]

I know my FPS is high and so is my GPU utilisation, but, i get regular stutter/hitching which is so annoying and game-breaking.