Cheapest CPU that won't bottleneck a 1070.

[ProPlayerGR]

Hey guys. Right now I have an amd fx 9370 and a gtx 1070 and I am going to buy the 2600x but my budget is a bit tight so I wanna know which is the cheapest cpu that won't bottleneck the 1070. Thanks in advance.

 

[King_V]

Honestly, that depends on what games you're playing, and what the resolution and refresh rate of your monitor is.

 

[mgallo848]

I can't say for certain but I personally wouldn't go below a Ryzen R5 1400. It's 4 cores / 8 threads so it should be be good. Anything below a R5 1400 is only 4 cores.

 

[ProPlayerGR]

I'm playing at 1080p 60hz. The games I play are: Battlefield 1, Rainbow Six Siege, ARK: Survival Evolved, Rocket League, GTA 5 and many others.

 

[Eximo]

Hmm. Bit of a toss up:

Intel is going to get you better stock gaming performance. The older Ryzen 1600 is cheaper than the 2600 or 2600x, and only suffers a little performance loss. And it can be overclocked. I would probably go with the 2600 if possible.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i5-8400 2.8GHz 6-Core Processor ($178.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI - B360-A PRO ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($69.99 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill - NT Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($75.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $324.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-08-07 10:17 EDT-0400

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor ($149.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350 Pro4 ATX AM4 Motherboard ($59.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Team - Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($85.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $295.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-08-07 10:19 EDT-0400

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor ($165.99 @ Walmart)
Motherboard: MSI - B450-A PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard ($89.99 @ B&H)
Memory: Team - Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($85.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $341.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-08-07 10:21 EDT-0400

 

[mgallo848]

I'm playing at 1080p 60hz. The games I play are: Battlefield 1, Rainbow Six Siege, ARK: Survival Evolved, Rocket League, GTA 5 and many others.

BF1 (and most likely BFV) likes more than 4 cores.

The only other potentially demanding game I see on your list is GTA. All the others can run on lower-end hardware.

 

[spdragoo]

Depends on the motherboard you plan on buying, & whether you're going AMD or Intel. And realize that either way, you're looking at buying new RAM along with the new motherboard & CPU. Since you said you're limited, what's your max budget, & what country are you buying from?

 

[ProPlayerGR]

Well my budget is around 600€ and I live in Greece. Thanks for the help.

 

[mdd1963]

I'm playing at 1080p 60hz. The games I play are: Battlefield 1, Rainbow Six Siege, ARK: Survival Evolved, Rocket League, GTA 5 and many others.

2600X/B450 combo
i5-8400/B360 combo

Either is more than enough...

 

[dontlistentome]

The problem with going with the cheapest CPU is that you'll wind up with performance that isn't much better than what you have now. This is what happens when you pair an expensive videocard with an older and slower CPU. You wind up not getting the performance the card is capable of producing.

I agree with mgallo848, if you going to build the core of a new system(CPU/motherboard/DDR4 ram), go with either a 4 core/8 thread CPU or a 6 core/6 thread CPU at minimum.

Keep in mind that 1080p is relatively low resolution for a 1070. This means framerate is mostly dependent on the CPU. So you will see some bottlenecking until you reach the higher levels of the Ryzen 5 or Intel i5. What I'm saying is once you bought a 1070 'cheap' was no longer a viable option if you want to get the most out of it.

 

[Serisly]

Hmm. Bit of a toss up:

Intel is going to get you better stock gaming performance. The older Ryzen 1600 is cheaper than the 2600 or 2600x, and only suffers a little performance loss. And it can be overclocked. I would probably go with the 2600 if possible.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i5-8400 2.8GHz 6-Core Processor ($178.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI - B360-A PRO ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($69.99 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill - NT Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($75.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $324.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-08-07 10:17 EDT-0400

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor ($149.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350 Pro4 ATX AM4 Motherboard ($59.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Team - Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($85.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $295.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-08-07 10:19 EDT-0400

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor ($165.99 @ Walmart)
Motherboard: MSI - B450-A PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard ($89.99 @ B&H)
Memory: Team - Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($85.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $341.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-08-07 10:21 EDT-0400

Sorry for necro'ing the thread but what about a 1600x?

 

[Eximo]

Same answer roughly. 1600x is clocked a little higher than the 1600, but that is basically a mild overclock of difference. R5-2600 is still the better choice for the memory performance improvements.

And now that we are even closer to the launch of the 3000 series it really depends on how desperately you need a new system. There might be some decent price drops on 2000 series parts.