i5 2500k bottleneck?

[bruuhndon]

I have an i5 2500k (not overclocked) and an r9 290. My fps drops in GTA 5 in crowded areas and during explosions. Is my graphics card unable to handle it or is my cpu bottlenecking it? I have 8gb of ram.

The fps drops from 60 to 45 at 720p.

 

[Supernova1138]

At that low a resolution, given how CPU heavy GTA V is, I would say you could very well be CPU bound with a stock clocked 2500k. You really should be running GTA V at a higher resolution with that graphics card, if 720p is the highest resolution your display supports, try turning on VSR and render the game at 1080p and see if that helps performance, that will shift more load towards your GPU.

Other than that, consider overclocking your 2500k if you have a P67, Z68 or Z77 motherboard. Sandy Bridge is starting to get on in years, and may need a bit of an extra boost to keep up with some of the newer CPU heavy titles.

 

[bruuhndon]

At that low a resolution, given how CPU heavy GTA V is, I would say you could very well be CPU bound with a stock clocked 2500k. You really should be running GTA V at a higher resolution with that graphics card, if 720p is the highest resolution your display supports, try turning on VSR and render the game at 1080p and see if that helps performance, that will shift more load towards your GPU.

Other than that, consider overclocking your 2500k if you have a P67, Z68 or Z77 motherboard. Sandy Bridge is starting to get on in years, and may need a bit of an extra boost to keep up with some of the newer CPU heavy titles.

Tried turning on the VSR and it seemed to help. Thank you for that. I was wondering if overclocking my CPU would result to a significant FPS boost in gaming? So that I can decide if I will get a motherboard that can actually do so.

 

[Supernova1138]

Overclocking will offer a significant improvement in more CPU bound games, eg. a lot of the open world stuff that has come out lately like GTA V, the last two Assassin's Creed installments, online shooters with large player counts like Battlefield 4. For games that aren't all that CPU heavy, you wouldn't see much of an improvement.

If you have a motherboard that can't overclock, then you may want to consider simply saving up some more money and doing a full platform upgrade to something more modern. It doesn't have to be done immediately, and you should be able to ride out a 2500k at stock for another year or two without much trouble. The small incremental upgrades Intel has made in the past few years have started to add up to the point where current CPUs do have a noticeable advantage over the old Sandy Bridge chips. You'd also get more chipset features like more 6Gbps SATA connectivity, more USB 3.0, USB 3.1 support, M.2 and SATA Express for high performance SSDs and PCI-E 3.0 support, which will probably start to become beneficial soon with advancements on the GPUs.

If not, good luck finding an LGA 1155 motherboard, there aren't many new ones left out there, and you may have to look to the used market to find a decent one.

 

[bruuhndon]

Overclocking will offer a significant improvement in more CPU bound games, eg. a lot of the open world stuff that has come out lately like GTA V, the last two Assassin's Creed installments, online shooters with large player counts like Battlefield 4. For games that aren't all that CPU heavy, you wouldn't see much of an improvement.

If you have a motherboard that can't overclock, then you may want to consider simply saving up some more money and doing a full platform upgrade to something more modern. It doesn't have to be done immediately, and you should be able to ride out a 2500k at stock for another year or two without much trouble. The small incremental upgrades Intel has made in the past few years have started to add up to the point where current CPUs do have a noticeable advantage over the old Sandy Bridge chips. You'd also get more chipset features like more 6Gbps SATA connectivity, more USB 3.0, USB 3.1 support, M.2 and SATA Express for high performance SSDs and PCI-E 3.0 support, which will probably start to become beneficial soon with advancements on the GPUs.

If not, good luck finding an LGA 1155 motherboard, there aren't many new ones left out there, and you may have to look to the used market to find a decent one.

Thanks again. I already sold my cpu and motherboard. I'm deciding to upgrade to better hardware. Thank you so much for the info!