Bottleneck solution: get a cheaper GPU?

[Kodiakz]

Right now I have an AMD FX-8320 CPU, and an ASUS R9 390 GPU, and I have read a pile of forums, AMD fanboys said that these won't bottleneck, Intel fanboys said that it'll be useless.
Now, I have my own experience, and it DOES bottleneck like hell. Getting a new CPU is hopeless, the only thing I can do, is switch from the R9 390 to a 3GB GTX 1060. I know that's a weaker GPU, but the question is this: Would the overall performance get better if I get rid of the bottlenecking by switching to the GPU mentioned above?
How much does it bottleneck? For example where I have around 80FPS, a friend of mine with an I7 4790K and the same R9 390 has around 120FPS. Actually another friend with I5 6500 and the 3GB 1060 has sometimes a bit more FPS.

 

[Corwin65]

As you are already aware, it's your CPU at issue.

As you cannot replace your CPU, GPU, RAM at this time, you need to lower your expectations.

Getting a "cheaper" GPU while it MAY increase your bottleneck, it really depends on the game(s) you want to play.

 

[bgunner]

Getting a less powerful GPU will not help at all because the CPU is holding the GPU back. Having a Weaker GPU, you will still have an issue with the CPU holding the performance at the same spot.

My suggestion is get a good cooler and overclock the CPU. those can hit 4.8 GHz fairly easy and with a really good cooling solution you may be able to get to 5.0 GHz. All of this depends on how good the CPU is and how good the motherboard is. Overclocking will address the CPU issue directly without the need for a new CPU.

 

[Kodiakz]

Mobo: ASUS M5A99X EVO R2.0 with a 990X chipset. Now I have a Deepcool Maelstrom 240T cooler, I guess it's not good enough... Can you recommend me a proper cooler?

 

[anti-duck]

That CPU cooler isn't bad at all for such a cheap AIO. Your motherboard is excellent for overclocking, with a 6+2 digital VRM. You're good to go if you have a decent PSU.

Just read and read some more if you've never overclocked before.

 

[bgunner]

Mobo: ASUS M5A99X EVO R2.0 with a 990X chipset. Now I have a Deepcool Maelstrom 240T cooler, I guess it's not good enough... Can you recommend me a proper cooler?

That cooler will be enough to get you to at least 4.8 GHz, as for the motherboard you will not have issues with it overclocking.

When overclocking turn off turbo boost along with APM that is located in CPU management.

 

[Kodiakz]

How far can I go with temps?

 

[bgunner]

download AMD Overdrive and under the CPU tab is Thermal Margin. This temp reads backwards from standard temps, It goes down, when it hits 0°C your CPU will start to throttle the core frequency to cool it's self off. (Do not use AOD to overclock or test, use it just to monitor CPU temps.)

Personally I like to leave 9°-12°C to allow for summer weather temperature difference. This way I know that during the hot weather the CPU will still remain cool enough not to throttle. While this is how I do things some have both winter and summer Overclocks to accommodate the higher temps during the summer.

 

[Kodiakz]

Okay, things have changed quite a bit. I've tried prime95 before any modifications, which means 3,8GHz (turbo boost). After 10 minutes, the socket went all the way up to like 75°C, and the cores to like 57°C (tho they all dropped like -20°C at the moment I've stopped the test, cores to like 33°C). I think that's a "bit" higher than it should be.

 

[bgunner]

Again, download AMD Overdrive and watch the temps. This will tell you if you are having temperature issues.

 

[Kodiakz]

Okay, after 30 minutes of Prime95 it went all the way "down" to 10,8°C which is too hot. My PC was between two desks, so I moved it to a more open place, and I'll test it again tomorrow, thanks for the assistance, I think I'll manage to test how much it can take, and if the temperature issues remain, I'll try reapplying the thermal paste and stuff like that.

 

[Kodiakz]

I had enough time for 10 minutes of testing, and IT looks waay much better now

 

[sabata4754]

I'm posting this for anyone who stumbles across this post like I did. Misinformation was spread about the AMD R9-390 being more powerful than the Nvidia GTX 1060. This was never corrected, so I decided to leave this information here. Strictly speaking the 1060 is only 6-11% better than the r9-390 in gaming performance. Certain AMD optimized games such as Hitman may show the 390 winning by a small margin. As the OP said, his two friends with the i7-4790k/390 and i5-6500/1060 showed this to be true with the difference in fps. OP was under the impression that somehow this was due to the bottleneck being switched to the GPU. This is not the case. I recommend if somehow you are looking for more information on these cards or a comparison of the two, you do research outside of this post.

 

[bgunner]

I'm posting this for anyone who stumbles across this post like I did. Misinformation was spread about the AMD R9-390 being more powerful than the Nvidia GTX 1060. This was never corrected, so I decided to leave this information here. Strictly speaking the 1060 is only 6-11% better than the r9-390 in gaming performance. Certain AMD optimized games such as Hitman may show the 390 winning by a small margin. As the OP said, his two friends with the i7-4790k/390 and i5-6500/1060 showed this to be true with the difference in fps. OP was under the impression that somehow this was due to the bottleneck being switched to the GPU. This is not the case. I recommend if somehow you are looking for more information on these cards or a comparison of the two, you do research outside of this post.

The point still remains that the CPU was holding his system back due to comparing his system to Intel based systems. It does not matter in this case that the 1060 can and does beat the 390 in some cases because the Intel chips have higher IPC than the AMD FX series CPU's which is causing the difference in FPS between the Intel based 4790K with the same GPU, the R9 390, and the OP's system.

My original post is edited to better explain that this is a CPU issue.