CPU questions and upgrade advice

[MattMayhem]

So, I recently learned about my system being bottlenecked by my CPU.

My ultimate goal, is to be able to play games, on max settings, at 1080p, with no less than 60 fps.

With that in mind, I have been looking at upgrading my system, based on Intel's i5 7600k, which caught my eye due to it's price being in my budget, and performance being seemingly great (And yes, I plan on overclocking, so the k model is a must). I especially love it because of how new it is.

Now, I have a few questions that I am not too keen on.

For example, what makes a CPU bottleneck? What specs do I look at to know if it will or not?

Also, as I'm relatively new to Intel systems, what is up with the chipsets? For example, the i5 7600k, motherboards with that socket have chipsets of Q270, Z270, B250, H270. What do all those mean, and what are they good for?

Also any suggestions on CPU's? I want a CPU that will last me a good long while, and won't bottleneck, at LEAST for the near future.

 

[geofelt]

There is no such thing as "bottlenecking"
If, by that, you mean that upgrading a cpu or graphics card can
somehow lower your performance or FPS.
A better term might be limiting factor.
That is where adding more cpu or gpu becomes increasingly
less effective.
The i5-7600K with an overclock is about as good as it gets for gaming.
If you have any limiting factor, it will be the graphics card.

To overclock a kaby lake I5-7600K you will need a motherboard with a Z270 based chipset.
Here is what the different chipsets enable:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_1151

If your budget permits an extra $100, the very best is the i7-7700K.
The main advantage is that I7 adds 4 more hyperthreads.

FWIW
s of 2/23/17
What percent of samples can get an overclock
at a vcore around 1.4v.
I5-7600K
5.3 samples exist, unknown % of occurence
5.2 13%
5.1 27%
5.0 52%
4.9 72%
I7-7700K
4.9 78%
5.0 59%
5.1 28%
5.2 7%

 

[huskysonian]

A few of the key factors in bottle-necking are core & thread count, speed, and efficiency. Bottleneck, as a term, refers to the amount of potential performance in a system that is blocked by one component. Low core count CPUs, when combined with a high power GPU, lead to lower frame rates because the CPU is unable to feed the GPU enough information fast enough. Pairing a Pentium with a 1080Ti is a good example of this. You can leverage a weaker CPU with hyper-threading (which is what makes an i3 compelling, 2c/4t). Speed can play a role in a similar fashion. An i7 running at 1GHz wouldn't be able to adequately feed info to a GPU even if it has more cores than a 3.2GHz i5. Efficiency is a roundabout way of saying age. Older CPUs tend to be less efficient, and lower efficiency also leads to a lower speed even with a high clock.
If you are using an older AMD chip and are planning to move on up to an Intel CPU, the 7600k is a good choice as an entry into the space. As for motherboards, the number refers to a tier. Z270 boards are top-end and offer overclocking and other enthusiast features, the B250 is a middle-tier and may offer overclocking but is often found to offer less.
Puget systems has a good guide for motherboards with Skylake and Kabylake since my explanation is very basic and there are very granular differences among the 270 chip-sets based on the identifying letter.


If you want to overclock, pair the 7600K with a Z270 board in whatever form factor you want to use.