i5 3450 gtx 970/980 bottleneck?

[kchris]

Hello, i currently have a rig with an i5 3450 in it and i would like to upgrade to a 970 or 980 and i'm unsure whether it would hinder gaming performance as in unstable fps? I basically would want to run the latest games maxed out/near maxed out at a minimum of 50-60fps.

 

[clutchc]

Nope. You are fine with either card. The i5-3450 is still near the top tier in gaming CPUs.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html

 

[Guest]

Neither will bottleneck, and you will get the full performance of the GPU.
the 970 and 980 are both high end cards and are definitely capable running games on ultra 50-60FPS.
Just google image search for 'GTX 980 benchmarks' to find out which games yield which frame rate.

You also want to make sure your PSU, is of high quality and has the required Wattage amount to run a 970/980.

PSU tier list:http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html
Wattage Calculator:http://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator

 

[junkeymonkey]

maybe a article like this can help out some and give you a better understanding ??

http://www.maximumpc.com/will-your-cpu-bottleneck-your-graphics-card/#page-1

no matter a lesser cpu is not going to preform as a higher end cpu so you got to know something's going to have to give somewhere ?? and then is the program a gpu bound or a cpu bound ?

the closer you keep thing balanced and hand in hand the less issue you will see [opinion]

 

[kchris]

Thank you for the prompt answers, much appreciated.

 

[junkeymonkey]

I like this from a site compairing the 2 chips [4670]

''In terms of overall gaming performance, the Intel Core i5-4670 3.4GHz is massively better than the Intel Core i5-3450 3.1GHz when it comes to running the latest games. This also means it will be less likely to bottleneck more powerful GPUs, allowing them to achieve more of their gaming performance potential.

then 2 paragraphs down the say

''Both CPUs exhibit very powerful performance, so it probably isn't worth upgrading from one to the other, as both are capable of running even the most demanding games at the highest settings (assuming they are accompanied by equivalently powerful GPUs). ''

so would it not be worth the upgrade if the 4670 is ''massively better than the Intel Core i5-3450 3.1GHz when it comes to running the latest games.'' ???

see with that you get that 980 stick it in and it will do as you expect with in reason or it don't

but the end result is the more powerful the cpu the better the results

 

[Nikolay Mitev]

I have 3450 paired with GTX980. In Witcher3 on Ultra without Hairworks I sometimes have CPU spikes to 100% while GPU is on 75-85%. So, if you push Witcher3's settings 3450 can get choked.