i3 4170 and r9 290. Bottlenecking?

[benjaminl746]

I'm planning on building a pc and am on an extreme budget. I thought the i3 4170 with hyperthreading may be able to run the r9 290 without MAJOR frame drops but after reading other threads on this question, I am unsure whether the i3 is capable of running the r9 290 without bottlenecking. Would it be a better option to go with an i5 4590 and a used 7970~$140 or an i3 4170 and a used r9 290~$200. I will be gaming at 1080p. Any help is appreciated.

 

[manmeetpaul]

I3 will bottleneck however I'll suggest you to get the 290 with i3 . Normally I wouldn't suggest so because of the need of upgrading motherboard as well. However, this is not the case.
Getting a bad gpu with a good CPU will affect the frames in the same way or even worse. I'll stick with a bottleneck than a bad gpu ruining my games. You can upgrade to i5.
However, this is just my suggestion. Many people don't upgrade their CPU after buying for a long time and for obvious reasons. You can hence buy i5 with 7950 and wait for the newer cards to go cheaper and get the 390x in the future.
I don't force my opinion on people. I've given you the two options and you can decide for yourself.
Best of luck

 

[Sig2525]

i5 and a 7970 or 280x if you found 1 that is cheap - if its just for 1080p gaming the 7970/280x will be plenty - you can just upgrade later on.

not much of a difference between a 290 and a 280x anyway.