Does FX 8320 bottleneck Gtx 970?

[Devilmonk]

I managed to snag a 8320 on sale on black frday, now I'm considering which GPU to get. I'm mainly thinking between the r9 280x and the GTX 970. The r9 280x seems like a good GPU, and it's roughly $100 cheaper. I also keep hearing that the 8320 might bottleneck the 970 running at stock speed. I'll be overclocking to around 4 Ghz, but I don't really want to exceed that by much.

Which do you guys think I should get?

Edit: Should add that I'm in Canada if your going to suggest a different GPU

 

[TheMentalist]

The 8320 will not bottleneck the GTX 970.
A good overclock will be enough for any modern game right now.

 

[apcs13]

The short answer is no.

Long answer: In fact, even my FX-6350 won't bottleneck a GTX 970 (and I'm receiving one tomorrow, so I will be able to personally verify this in a little more than 24 hours). In gaming, the CPU is only an issue if it is either a weak cpu, clocked very slowly, or both. While the FX series is not the most powerful, they still are very good CPUs despite what some Intel fanboys may say. Looking at benchmarks, $100 AMD CPUs come within 5-10 FPS in most games of $250-300 Intel processors in gaming.

Unless you play tons of strategy games or other CPU intensive titles (CIV, Planetside 2, etc.), then a GTX 970 is a great choice for a GPU, especially if you plan to overclock.

 

[Devilmonk]

Cool, now that thats out of the way, do you think this motherboard is a good combo with the fx 8320? Asus M5A97 R2.0. After looking around, this one seems like the best motherboard (in the $100 price range).

 

[apcs13]

Cool, now that thats out of the way, do you think this motherboard is a good combo with the fx 8320? Asus M5A97 R2.0. After looking around, this one seems like the best motherboard (in the $100 price range).

Quite interesting, as you can see I have the exact same motherboard and it works very well. I even have my 6350 completely rock solid stable overclocked to 4.4 GHz and the board handles it fine, and my system is cool even with only air cooling.

It is a good motherboard, however, you must keep in mind that it does NOT support SLI. So if you (like me) want to use a second 970 somewhere in the future, you would need to buy a new motherboard, and potentially a new CPU, and format and reinstall Windows and all of your programs. If you don't need SLI, then this is of no concern to you.

Another thing to keep in mind is that this motherboard uses a 970 chipset. This is a more general/standard/mainstream chipset which supports mild overclocking and has a decent suite of features. If you want the full deal, however, you need to go with a 990FX chipset motherboard. These boards support better/higher overclocking, and better overclocking on FX 8XXX series CPUs, as well as additional PCIE lanes, various ports, and other features. Many 990FX boards also support SLI as well. The only issue with these boards is that they do cost more. However, that additional cost may be worth it to you depending on your needs.

 

[madmatt30]

The fact the 970 boards don't run sli is irrelevant when your looking at a gtx 970 - only a crazy man would even consider running 970sli on a fx CPU!! & that's coming from someone running a 8230 with a gtx970.
Will it limit a 970 at stock speeds ? Yep but only a little - you'll still get 60fps+ ultra on any title.
I went from a 280x to a gtx970 - mainly for power/temp constraints in a mini htpc build.
You're looking at 10-15fps more than the 280x (which is still an entirely capable card) but with less fps drops in general - is it worth a $100 more - yep for future proofing definitely IMO.get your 8320 up to 4ghz & that little bottleneck disappears near completely

Consider this board
http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-970UD3P

Its better than the r2 & at least on a par with the evo r2 (personally think the udp is THE best 970 board around) - a top overclocker with an 8 phase system & excellent vrm sinks.

 

[TheMentalist]

I second that Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P.
Good board for overclocking.

 

[apcs13]

The fact the 970 boards don't run sli is irrelevant when your looking at a gtx 970 - only a crazy man would even consider running 970sli on a fx CPU!! & that's coming from someone running a 8230 with a gtx970.
Will it limit a 970 at stock speeds ? Yep but only a little - you'll still get 60fps+ ultra on any title.
I went from a 280x to a gtx970 - mainly for power/temp constraints in a mini htpc build.
You're looking at 10-15fps more than the 280x (which is still an entirely capable card) but with less fps drops in general - is it worth a $100 more - yep for future proofing definitely IMO.get your 8320 up to 4ghz & that little bottleneck disappears near completely

Consider this board
http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-970UD3P

Its better than the r2 & at least on a par with the evo r2 (personally think the udp is THE best 970 board around) - a top overclocker with an 8 phase system & excellent vrm sinks.

I believe than any and all useful facts and information is not irrelevant at all, but on the contrary are entirely necessary when purchasing expensive products, such as PC components. It is important to know all the facts before making a costly purchase, especially since with PC parts, if you choose wrong, you could be regretting your choice for years to come.

People have high end SLI configurations with FX CPUs and they work fine. Dismissing that as a "crazy" notion is absurd. The only reason you use a SLI setup is to either get better visual performance/quality, or to increase the resolution. Visual quality and resolution are completely independent on the CPU, as increasing the resolution in a game puts no extra load on CPU. It is entirely GPU-based.

Certain game options may put a greater load on the CPU, such as enabling enhanced physics effects, or more complex AI and the like, but you use SLI when you want to be on the bleeding edge of graphics, and having 2 970s running on an AMD-based system isn't inherently worse than on an Intel system. In fact, it scales better than a single GPU on an AMD vs Intel. At massive resolutions and high detail settings, almost no matter what (unless you use an old Pentium or AMD CPU) you are going to run into frame rate issues on the GPU end, not the CPU.

TL;DR SLI is a completely viable option on AMD-based systems. You might get overall less performance than if you used an Intel system, but it's not even close to being big enough to get rid of your CPU and spend $500+ on converting to Intel.

 

[madmatt30]

^ to me it is irrelevant in this case when your looking at a new build with a fx chip & a gtx 970.
There will never be a am3+ system capable of keeping up with gtx 970s in sli.
Its an old chipset ,the fx piledrivers are old tech now & the new 8370 offers nothing that the 8320/8350 can't manage with a slight oc.
I'm not a fan of sli/crossfire anyway especially with high end cards like the 970 - its not a bad option for older/weaker cards like the gtx 760/r9 270x but there's not even a single Intel cpu available eithercthat would push 2 970s without some serious over clocks.
He asked for the best board under $100:Canadian dollars - :the 970 ud3p is that board IMO.

 

[Devilmonk]

Thanks for all the comments guys! K, to clarify, I have no intention of running sli with the 970. I'm currently running the Gtx 450 on sli and it's just a hassle altogether rather than having one strong card.

I'm just wondering how or why the Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P is a better choice than the Asus M5A97 R2.0. I'm not that knowledgeable on motherboards, so it's not that I dought you guys, its that I'm trying to learn. What does having a " 8 phase system" mean?