GPU Bottleneck with new Coffee Lake CPU?

[iMove Quick]

Hi there,

In a few weeks I want to upgrade my CPU/MOBO/RAM to make it a little more future proof and next to that I do alot of flight simming in Prepar3d v4 . And as you maybe know, it's really CPU bound..

At the moment I got a i5 4460 with 8GB ram and a AMD R9 380 4GB. (3,5 years old)

I want to upgrade to a i5 8600K or a i5 6600K.

Will my R9 380 4GB be a problem? Or would it only be a problem if I upgraded a GPU instead of a CPU? (Not going for a GPU anyway..).

Thanks in regards,

Casper/iMove Quick

 

[Lutfij]

Your upgrade would be worthwhile. You shouldn't worry about the GPU. Speaking of which, bottleneck wouldn't be the right word I'd use to state when a component becomes a limiting factor.

On a side note, since you'll be getting an unlocked processor, you should look at DDR4-3200MHz ram kits.

 

[jacobweaver800]

Your upgrade would be worthwhile. You shouldn't worry about the GPU. Speaking of which, bottleneck wouldn't be the right word I'd use to state when a component becomes a limiting factor.

On a side note, since you'll be getting an unlocked processor, you should look at DDR4-3200MHz ram kits.

Any ram really thats 3000+ speeds, also since its CPU bound you'll probably be better off with the 8600k since its a 6 core chip and the 6600k is a quad core. Also make sure you get an overclockable board since your getting an overclockable CPU, and get a better cooler while your at it, also the R9 380 4gb should be plenty for now its still a decent GPU all things considered, you may want to upgrade that later down the line so be prepared for that.

 

[gasaraki]

i5-8600K is a better upgrade. Keeping your GPU is fine but it will limit you at higher resolutions.

 

[gasaraki]

i5-8600K is a better upgrade. Keeping your GPU is fine but it will limit you at higher resolutions.

 

[jaslion]

Your upgrade would be worthwhile. You shouldn't worry about the GPU. Speaking of which, bottleneck wouldn't be the right word I'd use to state when a component becomes a limiting factor.

On a side note, since you'll be getting an unlocked processor, you should look at DDR4-3200MHz ram kits.

Intels coffee lake doesn't really care much what speed of ram it has. So why invest in really expensive 3200mhz ram?
Mild oc's won't make it so the ram becomes an issue.

 

[jacobweaver800]

Your upgrade would be worthwhile. You shouldn't worry about the GPU. Speaking of which, bottleneck wouldn't be the right word I'd use to state when a component becomes a limiting factor.

On a side note, since you'll be getting an unlocked processor, you should look at DDR4-3200MHz ram kits.

Intels coffee lake doesn't really care much what speed of ram it has. So why invest in really expensive 3200mhz ram?
Mild oc's won't make it so the ram becomes an issue.

Actually, if you look at pricing 3200mhz ram isn't actually that much more expensive than slower ram, the price difference comes with the amount of ram not speed. DDR4 is going to be expensive anyways, also a good overclock, say 4.7 or so, would benefit from higher speed ram like 3000+ speeds.

 

[iMove Quick]

Your upgrade would be worthwhile. You shouldn't worry about the GPU. Speaking of which, bottleneck wouldn't be the right word I'd use to state when a component becomes a limiting factor.

On a side note, since you'll be getting an unlocked processor, you should look at DDR4-3200MHz ram kits.

Any ram really thats 3000+ speeds, also since its CPU bound you'll probably be better off with the 8600k since its a 6 core chip and the 6600k is a quad core. Also make sure you get an overclockable board since your getting an overclockable CPU, and get a better cooler while your at it, also the R9 380 4gb should be plenty for now its still a decent GPU all things considered, you may want to upgrade that later down the line so be prepared for that.

A higher speed ram kit is almost double the price though. What are the benefits with higher speed ram?
If it's not that much I would rather stay with slower ram.

Can you also recommend a "Budget" motherboard? (I know with the Z370 chipset it won't be cheap, but still.)

Maybe I sound stupid but would it be weird if I woudn't overlock it...?

Thanks

Casper/iMove Quick

 

[iMove Quick]

i5-8600K is a better upgrade. Keeping your GPU is fine but it will limit you at higher resolutions.

No plan yet to upgrade my 2 1080p screens.

Thanks

Casper/iMove Quick

 

[iMove Quick]

Your upgrade would be worthwhile. You shouldn't worry about the GPU. Speaking of which, bottleneck wouldn't be the right word I'd use to state when a component becomes a limiting factor.

On a side note, since you'll be getting an unlocked processor, you should look at DDR4-3200MHz ram kits.

Any ram really thats 3000+ speeds, also since its CPU bound you'll probably be better off with the 8600k since its a 6 core chip and the 6600k is a quad core. Also make sure you get an overclockable board since your getting an overclockable CPU, and get a better cooler while your at it, also the R9 380 4gb should be plenty for now its still a decent GPU all things considered, you may want to upgrade that later down the line so be prepared for that.

In first instance I won't be overclocking it, main reason for that is that I have zero experience with overclocking. Next to that I also don't have money YET for a decent cooler (Maybe few months later).

So I'm hoping a Gigabyte Z370-P D3 with a stock cooler from my 4460 will be fine...

Thanks, and sorry that I didn't say this is one post.

Casper/iMove Quick

 

[logainofhades]

Spend the $35 or so on a Cryorig H7 or H5 universal. The stock cooler from your i5 isn't going to cut it on a k series cpu.

 

[zyh1987]

8600K is a very powerful CPU, don't bother with 6600k, 6600k is more than 3 year old. less frequency and 2 less cores.

your GPU is fine, it sits between 1050ti and 1060 3gb. which is $250 right now. still a decent card for 1080p gaming.

 

[logainofhades]

As an FYI, Ryzen 2 will be out sometime in April, so you might want to look how those benchmark, before you buy. Might get a better price/performance that way.

 

[iMove Quick]

Spend the $35 or so on a Cryorig H7 or H5 universal. The stock cooler from your i5 isn't going to cut it on a k series cpu.

You are right. Coolers are not that expensive. I'm allready spending 450 Euro's on the upgrade so 30 extra isn't really a problem.

With a decent cooler what kind of clock speed can I achieve? 4.0, maybe higher?

Thanks

Casper/iMove Quick

 

[jaslion]

Spend the $35 or so on a Cryorig H7 or H5 universal. The stock cooler from your i5 isn't going to cut it on a k series cpu.

You are right. Coolers are not that expensive. I'm allready spending 450 Euro's on the upgrade so 30 extra isn't really a problem.

With a decent cooler what kind of clock speed can I achieve? 4.0, maybe higher?

Thanks

Casper/iMove Quick

The 8600k boosts up to 4.3ghz without any oc (that is only on 2 cores unless you enable an option in the bios that allows it to boost to 4.3ghz on all cores).

 

[mdd1963]

another 8600K vote....for the win!

 

[zyh1987]

Spend the $35 or so on a Cryorig H7 or H5 universal. The stock cooler from your i5 isn't going to cut it on a k series cpu.

You are right. Coolers are not that expensive. I'm allready spending 450 Euro's on the upgrade so 30 extra isn't really a problem.

With a decent cooler what kind of clock speed can I achieve? 4.0, maybe higher?

Thanks

Casper/iMove Quick

usually you can safely start at max turbo speed (4.3 in your case)
and work your way up. with decent motherboard and decent cooling,
i would say 4.5~4.8 can be easily achived with good air cooling.
anything higher, it's a lottery, i think most chip can hit 5.0ghz , but core voltage are vastly different, for some itsnot suitable for daily use.

 

[jacobweaver800]

Spend the $35 or so on a Cryorig H7 or H5 universal. The stock cooler from your i5 isn't going to cut it on a k series cpu.

You are right. Coolers are not that expensive. I'm allready spending 450 Euro's on the upgrade so 30 extra isn't really a problem.

With a decent cooler what kind of clock speed can I achieve? 4.0, maybe higher?

Thanks

Casper/iMove Quick

usually you can safely start at max turbo speed (4.3 in your case)
and work your way up. with decent motherboard and decent cooling,
i would say 4.5~4.8 can be easily achived with good air cooling.
anything higher, it's a lottery, i think most chip can hit 5.0ghz , but core voltage are vastly different, for some itsnot suitable for daily use.

Generally 5 is pushing it, try and target for 4.8, Jayztwocents has an 8700k that he went for 5 on under watercooling and after running it at 5ghz for like half an hour the chip degraded that much it would post past 4.8

 

[spdragoo]

Faster RAM kits shouldn't be running twice the cost. Whether looking at PCPartPicker.com (https://pcpartpicker.com/products/memory/#Z=16384002&sort=price&t=14) or even brick-and-mortar retailers (http://www.microcenter.com/search/search_results.aspx?N=4294966965+4294863615+4294937312&NTX=&NTT=&NTK=all&page=1&sortby=pricelow), at most you're maybe looking at 50% higher costs, but more in the range of 25% higher. And it's not 100% correct to say that Coffee Lake ignores faster RAM speeds...but rather that they don't benefit nearly as much as Ryzen CPUs do from it.

Not 100% sure that your i5-4460's stock cooler is going to be compatible with Coffee Lake, so yes,if you're going to buy a "K" CPU you should spend the extra $30 or so for a cooler like the Cryorigs. However...if you're not 100% comfortable with overclocking right now, you could always go for the i5-8400.
Itwill Turbo up to 3.8GHz on all cores or 4.0GHz on a single core, right behind the 8600K's stock speeds, while saving you nearly $100 USD (about $65 on the CPU itself, plus you don't need the cooler).

 

[zyh1987]

Spend the $35 or so on a Cryorig H7 or H5 universal. The stock cooler from your i5 isn't going to cut it on a k series cpu.

You are right. Coolers are not that expensive. I'm allready spending 450 Euro's on the upgrade so 30 extra isn't really a problem.

With a decent cooler what kind of clock speed can I achieve? 4.0, maybe higher?

Thanks

Casper/iMove Quick

usually you can safely start at max turbo speed (4.3 in your case)
and work your way up. with decent motherboard and decent cooling,
i would say 4.5~4.8 can be easily achived with good air cooling.
anything higher, it's a lottery, i think most chip can hit 5.0ghz , but core voltage are vastly different, for some itsnot suitable for daily use.

Generally 5 is pushing it, try and target for 4.8, Jayztwocents has an 8700k that he went for 5 on under watercooling and after running it at 5ghz for like half an hour the chip degraded that much it would post past 4.8

sry, i was refering to 8600k in my discussion.

8700k is a lot more power hungry than 8600k, having the HT disabled uses less power hence less heat generated.
8600k has a higher clock headroom, 4.8Ghz on 8700k is already pushing the limit of air cooling.

 

[iMove Quick]

Faster RAM kits shouldn't be running twice the cost. Whether looking at PCPartPicker.com (https://pcpartpicker.com/products/memory/#Z=16384002&sort=price&t=14) or even brick-and-mortar retailers (http://www.microcenter.com/search/search_results.aspx?N=4294966965+4294863615+4294937312&NTX=&NTT=&NTK=all&page=1&sortby=pricelow), at most you're maybe looking at 50% higher costs, but more in the range of 25% higher. And it's not 100% correct to say that Coffee Lake ignores faster RAM speeds...but rather that they don't benefit nearly as much as Ryzen CPUs do from it.

Not 100% sure that your i5-4460's stock cooler is going to be compatible with Coffee Lake, so yes,if you're going to buy a "K" CPU you should spend the extra $30 or so for a cooler like the Cryorigs. However...if you're not 100% comfortable with overclocking right now, you could always go for the i5-8400.
Itwill Turbo up to 3.8GHz on all cores or 4.0GHz on a single core, right behind the 8600K's stock speeds, while saving you nearly $100 USD (about $65 on the CPU itself, plus you don't need the cooler).

I'll will be staying with the slower RAM (2666Mhz) and I'll be getting a cooler with the CPU.

 

[Karadjgne]

Since flight Sim is the important factor, the main protagonist here, that's going to be everything that determines anything. What does it use? So far I've seen some antiquated posts on CoffeeLake not really benefitting from faster ram. That's not entirely true. AutoCAD for instance does considerably better with Intel cpu's, few cores, faster and greater ram. Most games don't because the ram has no issues keeping up with the memory controller and ram usage. The sim is a high cpu usage program. Does it use more ram than normal games? Higher speed ram? More cores? For all anyone has questioned, a CoffeeLake i3 maybe just perfect for that sim, not using more than 1-3 cores, but might benefit from 32Gb of 3200MHz more than from the i5 with 16Gb of 2667MHz ram.

For all anyone has questioned, the gpu could be the issue. If that sim is using high amounts of physX for cloud detailing, on an AMD gpu that's tantamount to added backlog on the cpu, an nvidia gpu with native gpu physX rendering could alleviate any cpu issues op is having

 

[jacobweaver800]

Since flight Sim is the important factor, the main protagonist here, that's going to be everything that determines anything. What does it use? So far I've seen some antiquated posts on CoffeeLake not really benefitting from faster ram. That's not entirely true. AutoCAD for instance does considerably better with Intel cpu's, few cores, faster and greater ram. Most games don't because the ram has no issues keeping up with the memory controller and ram usage. The sim is a high cpu usage program. Does it use more ram than normal games? Higher speed ram? More cores? For all anyone has questioned, a CoffeeLake i3 maybe just perfect for that sim, not using more than 1-3 cores, but might benefit from 32Gb of 3200MHz more than from the i5 with 16Gb of 2667MHz ram.

For all anyone has questioned, the gpu could be the issue. If that sim is using high amounts of physX for cloud detailing, on an AMD gpu that's tantamount to added backlog on the cpu, an nvidia gpu with native gpu physX rendering could alleviate any cpu issues op is having

It's also important to note that newer AMD cards have PhysX rendering capabilities that are just as good as on NVidia cards, but good luck getting any graphics card at a decent price right now. It might be in your best interests to get something like an I3 or I5 8th gen and invest in some decent ram I would say around 16gb's of 2667mhz or 2933mhz would work best. Your going to have to hold out on a new GPU for a bit since pricing is so messed up right now.

 

[iMove Quick]

Since flight Sim is the important factor, the main protagonist here, that's going to be everything that determines anything. What does it use? So far I've seen some antiquated posts on CoffeeLake not really benefitting from faster ram. That's not entirely true. AutoCAD for instance does considerably better with Intel cpu's, few cores, faster and greater ram. Most games don't because the ram has no issues keeping up with the memory controller and ram usage. The sim is a high cpu usage program. Does it use more ram than normal games? Higher speed ram? More cores? For all anyone has questioned, a CoffeeLake i3 maybe just perfect for that sim, not using more than 1-3 cores, but might benefit from 32Gb of 3200MHz more than from the i5 with 16Gb of 2667MHz ram.

For all anyone has questioned, the gpu could be the issue. If that sim is using high amounts of physX for cloud detailing, on an AMD gpu that's tantamount to added backlog on the cpu, an nvidia gpu with native gpu physX rendering could alleviate any cpu issues op is having

It's also important to note that newer AMD cards have PhysX rendering capabilities that are just as good as on NVidia cards, but good luck getting any graphics card at a decent price right now. It might be in your best interests to get something like an I3 or I5 8th gen and invest in some decent ram I would say around 16gb's of 2667mhz or 2933mhz would work best. Your going to have to hold out on a new GPU for a bit since pricing is so messed up right now.

Is there a major difference in terms of performance between the i5 8400 and the i5 8600K?

Since I won't overclocking it (Too scared of breaking it) would a 8400 also be fine?
It's about 80 euro's cheaper.

Thanks

Casper/iMove Quick

 

[Karadjgne]

For non OC, there's not that much of a difference, normally. But as many have pointed out, (in other posts) sometimes even a 200MHz bump can make a world of difference, not just to the cpu speeds, but added umph to the memory controller, faster throughput, just a stronger pc in general. The 8600k has a max turbo of 4.3GHz, the 8400 is 4.0GHz. Might make a difference, might not. As said, depends on just how that Sim responds to the cpu cores/speeds etc.