Does cpu affect graphics cards performance

[AshrAf59]

My PC has an Intel Core2 Quad CPU 2.33Ghz and i am planning to buy a MSI R9 380 gpu which is in my budget. I would like to know if my cpu would allow me to use the full potential of the R9 380 gpu and not cause any bottleneck.

 

[Guest]

Just been told buy the gang bellow that it will bottleneck, with certain games.

 

[geofelt]

I suspect that you will run into a cpu limitation.

Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

 

[king3pj]

No bottleneck here.

What? a Core 2 Quad is below the minimum CPU requirement for pretty much all modern, AAA games. There will almost certainly be a CPU bottleneck in many games.

 

[spdragoo]

It's not that the CPU will degrade your GPUs performance, it's that you have to balance the performance of the games themselves. For example, if your CPU is equal to or better than the "recommended" CPU for that game, then you won't have a bottleneck per se...but since the game probably won't stress the 380, you'll be able to turn all of the quality settings up to '11'. If your CPU is somewhere between "minimum" & "recommended", then depending on the game you may have to fine-tune some of the most advanced settings, but depending on resolution you should still be able to hit 60+ FPS with just about any game on "high"or "ultra" levels. If your CPU is barely above "minimum" for the game...that's where a "bottleneck" may occur, in the sense that your CPU just can't get the data to your GPU fast enough for it to crunch it.

What's your current GPU, & what games will you be playing?

 

[Guest]

No bottleneck here.

What? a Core 2 Quad is below the minimum CPU requirement for pretty much all modern, AAA games. There will almost certainly be a CPU bottleneck in many games.

How will a Quad-core bottle neck this? Its not even great GPU.

 

[king3pj]

No bottleneck here.

What? a Core 2 Quad is below the minimum CPU requirement for pretty much all modern, AAA games. There will almost certainly be a CPU bottleneck in many games.

How will a Quad-core bottle neck this? Its not even great GPU.

It appears to be the Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 from 2008. A processor that is nearly a decade old is going to bottleneck modern GPUs even if it does have 4 cores. Take a look at this PassMark listing comparing it to a few other CPUs.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core2+Quad+Q8200+%40+2.33GHz

Also take a look at any graphically intensive game from this year and see how many of them list a Core 2 Quad in the system requirements. I just did a quick look at system requirements from some of the most popular games from 2015 on Steam and every game I looked at listed an i3, i5, or i7 as the minimum Intel CPU. The Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad CPUs are long outdated.

I'm not trying to bash the OPs computer. I just don't want them to throw money at a graphics card thinking they will get good performance in modern games without also upgrading the motherboard and CPU.

Edit: Also the r9 380 is a good graphics card. It may not be a 980Ti or Fury X but it's a nice mid-range GPU.

 

[Greeko85]

It will very well depend on the types of games you'd want to play-for example gpu heavy games such as Assetto Corsa or the Trine series will run just fine but games that can get heavy on the cpu, such as the witcher 3, can bottleneck quite badly.

 

[hydrastas]

i have an i5 2400 which is ~10% lower benchmark than the minimum requirements of i5 2500k for witcher 3. I still get 50-70 fps with max settings. Your cpu is closer to 50% the requirements according to benchmarks. The 380 has half the benchmark of the 980ti. Which would lead me to believe you may be able to get 12.5 fps with that setup at max. Should be playable at medium settings.

 

[AshrAf59]

It's not that the CPU will degrade your GPUs performance, it's that you have to balance the performance of the games themselves. For example, if your CPU is equal to or better than the "recommended" CPU for that game, then you won't have a bottleneck per se...but since the game probably won't stress the 380, you'll be able to turn all of the quality settings up to '11'. If your CPU is somewhere between "minimum" & "recommended", then depending on the game you may have to fine-tune some of the most advanced settings, but depending on resolution you should still be able to hit 60+ FPS with just about any game on "high"or "ultra" levels. If your CPU is barely above "minimum" for the game...that's where a "bottleneck" may occur, in the sense that your CPU just can't get the data to your GPU fast enough for it to crunch it.

What's your current GPU, & what games will you be playing?

I am currently using the Nvidia 260 Gtx and I'm currently playing games from 2013 and below but I want to play games from 2015/2016 like Witcher 3, Rise of the tomb raider, Gta V etc

 

[spdragoo]

What's your current GPU, & what games will you be playing?

I am currently using the Nvidia 260 Gtx and I'm currently playing games from 2013 and below but I want to play games from 2015/2016 like Witcher 3, Rise of the tomb raider, Gta V etc

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html

Your GTX 260 badly needs replaced, as it's considered a 12th-tier GPU. Based on Tom's recommendations, the 380 would be a good buy, as it performs better at 1080p than the GTX 960.

However, your CPU (most likely the Core 2 Quad Q8200, as pointed out earlier) is still going to hold you back a bit. Unfortunately, that CPU is a Socket LGA 775 CPU, so your ability to get much better performance is going to be limited (4 generations back from Socket LGA 1151, the current Skylake socket) without a full motherboard replacement.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html

Ideally, since your CPU is pretty far down the list (7th tier), & the recommendation is to only upgrade if you can improve by at least 2 tiers, you'll want to consider full replacement of the motherboard & CPU. However, since you're also talking about replacing RAM, as well as having to reinstall Windows, that might not be something you want to do right now.

With that in mind, see if you can pick up a better CPU that works with your motherboard. Your Core 2 Quad is not only the weakest Yorkfield-based CPU, it's the lowest Core 2 Quad on the hierarchy (as even the older Kentsfield-based Q6600 is a tier higher). Bumping up to a Q9400/9450/9550 raises you up to 5th-tier, & also puts you at the same level as the mainstream AMD Phenom II chips, while a Q9650 or higher puts you at 4th-tier with the 95W AMD FX chips & their Kaveri A-series.