How much will an amd fx 4130 bottle kneck a gtx970

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
thekyle64

thekyle64

Reputable
Jun 6, 2014
546
0
5,160
A friend of mine just offered to sell me his gtx 970 for $50 I could not pass this deal up obviously.

I am curious about how much my new GPU will be bottlenecked.
I have amd fx 4130 over clocked to 4.2ghz, how much will my current cpu bottle kneck a gtx 970 in most games? Which settings in game typically effect cpu the most? Should I upgrade to a fx 8300? (I know that upgrading to Intel would be better but I don't want to buy a new motherboard)

P.S. To all of u wondering "why don't you just plug in the gtx 970 and find out?" unfortunately I am grounded right now, if I wasn't I would do just that.
 
Solution
spdragoo
Without knowing the OP's motherboard, it's hard to say exactly what his best move is.

Having said that, there are some things to consider:

1. Although an Intel build can provide a boost, that performance isn't always that high. Core i3 chips are fine budget builds, but don't always provide any benefit over the much, much older FX-83xx chips...& in fact, some games show them lagging slightly behind the FX chips. So an i3-based build might provide some 'future upgrade potential' by letting him move to an i5 or i7 build down the road, but isn't going to guarantee a noticeable improvement. And that leads to...

2. Price. Anyone who thinks the OP can simply replace his motherboard, CPU & RAM for the same price as any FX chip...
Sort by date Sort by votes
Aww man. So turns out the 970 is quite a strong card, and the FX 4130 is quite weak by comparison. The CPU will max out at 100% but the gpu probably is only at 65-80% through my experiences even with my fx 4300 OC to 4.6 GHz. And comparatively I have my HD7970, which is a 960 grade gpu and the FX 4300 is maxed out when the gpu is at 70-85%. And the 970 is noticeable better than a HD7970
It won't bottleneck heavily, but it will be noticeable enough. Get a used Intel system, like a used i5 3570k if you are on a budget, and plug in your current ram.
 
Upvote 1 Downvote


Or if you can't find a used i5 anywhere, go ahead and get a Core i3 + H110 setup and you'll have a excellent system for that 970.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


Yeah he could, but there are too many cons:

1. He'd still get some bottlenecking in the latest AAA titles (only those games however).
2. Why upgrade a 4 year old chip with ANOTHER 4 year old chip?
3. A Core i3-6100 + H110 motherboard costs the same as a FX 8350.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Eh, depends on the game. A FX-8 core will run some games well, and some games like crap. I am completely surprised at how well I run BF1, and it has very little issue keeping up with the GTX 970 in most games that *I* play (on a 60 Hz 1080p monitor).

But given the chip currently in there, OP probably doesn't have the type of motherboard that will actually run an 8 without choking and throttling itself when it overheats the VRMs.

It would be an excellent time to build an i3-6100 system.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Without knowing the OP's motherboard, it's hard to say exactly what his best move is.

Having said that, there are some things to consider:

1. Although an Intel build can provide a boost, that performance isn't always that high. Core i3 chips are fine budget builds, but don't always provide any benefit over the much, much older FX-83xx chips...& in fact, some games show them lagging slightly behind the FX chips. So an i3-based build might provide some 'future upgrade potential' by letting him move to an i5 or i7 build down the road, but isn't going to guarantee a noticeable improvement. And that leads to...

2. Price. Anyone who thinks the OP can simply replace his motherboard, CPU & RAM for the same price as any FX chip apparently hasn't been looking at pricing. The FX-8300 chip is running just over $100 USD right now (http://pcpartpicker.com/product/qmrcCJ/amd-cpu-fd8300wmhkbox). In contrast, a bare-bones Skylake i3 build with a microATX motherboard & the lowest-end DDR4 runs just over $200 USD, about twice as much (http://pcpartpicker.com/list/zb6zYr). But unless he has a case that only takes microATX motherboards, he's missing out on the expandability of a full ATX board...which will run him another $30USD (http://pcpartpicker.com/list/vtMf3C). And even assuming he keeps everything else (DVD drive, SSD/HDD, etc.), that also leaves him with...

3. Reinstalling Windows & every app. Changing out a CPU requires at most updating the CPU drivers for the system. Switching out motherboards, however, especially with switching from AMD to Intel (or vice versa), means you have to reinstall everything from scratch. If he's lucky, he has a retail version of Windows, so that he can reuse his old key; otherwise, he has to add another $100-120 USD on top of that price for a brand-new copy of Windows (since an OEM copy is tied to the original motherboard & is non-transferable).

The FX-8300 that the OP mentioned is not a "bad" chip; if it were, Tom's Hardware wouldn't be including it in their Top Picks (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-cpus,3986.html), & they even specifically mention how it's not only more affordable than a "modern Core i3", but has the added flexilibity of overclocking potential (assuming his motherboard can handle OCing). Plus, it's a much better CPU than his current one, being 3 tiers higher on the hierarchy (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-cpus,3986.html). With that CPU combined with the GTX 970, he's going to have more than enough computing power for gaming at 1080p resolutions at high quality (maybe even ultra, depending on the game).

Unless he's going to spend the time & money for a complete rebuild, an FX-8300 is a perfectly acceptable upgrade for him, especially if he's going to pair it with the older GTX 970.
 
Upvote 1 Downvote
Solution
Not really. Run games at 720p with ultra gpu settings. When you turn down gpu settings, it has to go more through the CPU to run at lower settings. When you turn up resolution, the CPU has to process the codec of that higher resolution. Same reason why an i5 has trouble running 4K with a single 1080.
 
Upvote 1 Downvote


Yes. The CPU doesn't care about the resolution, or how many pieces of an exploding ship are on the screen, or whether HairWorks is engaged or not; it's already included in the data being sent to the GPU, the GPU settings are what determine what's shown on the screen. Turning on those details, or displaying more pixels on the screen, will push the GPU much, much more than it will the CPU.
 
Upvote 1 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom