i7-920 and GTX1080

[simpleacc]

Hello!

I have i7-920 CPU and I want to buy a GTX1080 (just to play games). But I am not sure if this CPU will do a Bottleneck or not... can someone help me with this please? Also, can you say me how to know if a CPU is 100% compatible with a graphic card?

Best regards!

 

[chizrah]

Yes, it's compatible, but that CPU is very old. The 1080 will most likely be held back somewhat, but I really don't know how much by. It will still be very playable though.

 

[mcconkeymike]

A big question here is what resolution are you going to be gaming at? If you are gaming at 1080p then buying a GTX1080 would be a waste. If at 1080p 60hz then a GTX 1060 6gb is the sweetspot. If at 1080p 120 or 144hz or at 1440p, then you'll want a GTX1070. If you are wanting stupid high end 1440p or 4k, then you want the GTX1080. But for your question, yes an i7-920 would bottleneck you in CPU bound games, but GPU bound games then you should be fine.

 

[simpleacc]

A big question here is what resolution are you going to be gaming at? If you are gaming at 1080p then buying a GTX1080 would be a waste. If at 1080p 60hz then a GTX 1060 6gb is the sweetspot. If at 1080p 120 or 144hz or at 1440p, then you'll want a GTX1070. If you are wanting stupid high end 1440p or 4k, then you want the GTX1080. But for your question, yes an i7-920 would bottleneck you in CPU bound games, but GPU bound games then you should be fine.

Hmmm... I will play at 1080p. So... do you recommend me a 1070? Maybe I should do it, but... with which CPU? I prefer a Intel socket, not AMD :S I saw this one Intel Core i5-6500 and someone recommended me it but... I am not sure if it is a good option change my i7 for this...

 

[theyeti87]

A big question here is what resolution are you going to be gaming at? If you are gaming at 1080p then buying a GTX1080 would be a waste. If at 1080p 60hz then a GTX 1060 6gb is the sweetspot. If at 1080p 120 or 144hz or at 1440p, then you'll want a GTX1070. If you are wanting stupid high end 1440p or 4k, then you want the GTX1080. But for your question, yes an i7-920 would bottleneck you in CPU bound games, but GPU bound games then you should be fine.

Hmmm... I will play at 1080p. So... do you recommend me a 1070? Maybe I should do it, but... with which CPU? I prefer a Intel socket, not AMD :S I saw this one Intel Core i5-6500 and someone recommended me it but... I am not sure if it is a good option change my i7 for this...

Hello Simpleacc,

A 1080 will be bottlenecked in your system. I have a 1060 6GB paired with an i7-950 on a X58 chipset & pcie 2.0. In my setup, the 1060 6GB can achieve about 85% of it's full potential. I doubt that my CPU is the bottleneck(OC to 3.77Ghz), but rather the pcie 2.0 slot.

At 1080 resolution, go with a GTX1060, because a faster GPU will be wasted due to bottleneck.

 

[hdmark]

A big question here is what resolution are you going to be gaming at? If you are gaming at 1080p then buying a GTX1080 would be a waste. If at 1080p 60hz then a GTX 1060 6gb is the sweetspot. If at 1080p 120 or 144hz or at 1440p, then you'll want a GTX1070. If you are wanting stupid high end 1440p or 4k, then you want the GTX1080. But for your question, yes an i7-920 would bottleneck you in CPU bound games, but GPU bound games then you should be fine.

Hmmm... I will play at 1080p. So... do you recommend me a 1070? Maybe I should do it, but... with which CPU? I prefer a Intel socket, not AMD :S I saw this one Intel Core i5-6500 and someone recommended me it but... I am not sure if it is a good option change my i7 for this...

Hello Simpleacc,

A 1080 will be bottlenecked in your system. I have a 1060 6GB paired with an i7-950 on a X58 chipset & pcie 2.0. In my setup, the 1060 6GB can achieve about 85% of it's full potential. I doubt that my CPU is the bottleneck(OC to 3.77Ghz), but rather the pcie 2.0 slot.

At 1080 resolution, go with a GTX1060, because a faster GPU will be wasted due to bottleneck.

pretty sure pcie 2.0 wont affect performance more than a few percent. not 15%. I think that is in fact a CPU bottleneck that you are experiencing


OP - if youre going to be playing 1080p 60hz with no plan to upgrade your monitor any time soon, i would either get a 1060 6gb or a 1070. the 1070 is a big more powerful than a 980 ti. Depending on the game, even a 980ti gets stressed on 1080p.

as for your CPU, it will definitely still bottleneck a 1070 or 1080.
one option if you had the budget for a 1080. drop to a 1060 or 1070, and pick up an i5 6600, h110 motherboard, and 8 or 16gb of ddr4 ram.

that should give you a solid increase

 

[simpleacc]

A big question here is what resolution are you going to be gaming at? If you are gaming at 1080p then buying a GTX1080 would be a waste. If at 1080p 60hz then a GTX 1060 6gb is the sweetspot. If at 1080p 120 or 144hz or at 1440p, then you'll want a GTX1070. If you are wanting stupid high end 1440p or 4k, then you want the GTX1080. But for your question, yes an i7-920 would bottleneck you in CPU bound games, but GPU bound games then you should be fine.

Hmmm... I will play at 1080p. So... do you recommend me a 1070? Maybe I should do it, but... with which CPU? I prefer a Intel socket, not AMD :S I saw this one Intel Core i5-6500 and someone recommended me it but... I am not sure if it is a good option change my i7 for this...

Hello Simpleacc,

A 1080 will be bottlenecked in your system. I have a 1060 6GB paired with an i7-950 on a X58 chipset & pcie 2.0. In my setup, the 1060 6GB can achieve about 85% of it's full potential. I doubt that my CPU is the bottleneck(OC to 3.77Ghz), but rather the pcie 2.0 slot.

At 1080 resolution, go with a GTX1060, because a faster GPU will be wasted due to bottleneck.

pretty sure pcie 2.0 wont affect performance more than a few percent. not 15%. I think that is in fact a CPU bottleneck that you are experiencing


OP - if youre going to be playing 1080p 60hz with no plan to upgrade your monitor any time soon, i would either get a 1060 6gb or a 1070. the 1070 is a big more powerful than a 980 ti. Depending on the game, even a 980ti gets stressed on 1080p.

as for your CPU, it will definitely still bottleneck a 1070 or 1080.
one option if you had the budget for a 1080. drop to a 1060 or 1070, and pick up an i5 6600, h110 motherboard, and 8 or 16gb of ddr4 ram.

that should give you a solid increase

Currently I have two R9 280X tri connected via Crossfire. With your configuration... Will I see the change? Or will be significant? I want update my PC for 4 years more or less...

Thanks for your answers.

 

[theyeti87]

A big question here is what resolution are you going to be gaming at? If you are gaming at 1080p then buying a GTX1080 would be a waste. If at 1080p 60hz then a GTX 1060 6gb is the sweetspot. If at 1080p 120 or 144hz or at 1440p, then you'll want a GTX1070. If you are wanting stupid high end 1440p or 4k, then you want the GTX1080. But for your question, yes an i7-920 would bottleneck you in CPU bound games, but GPU bound games then you should be fine.

Hmmm... I will play at 1080p. So... do you recommend me a 1070? Maybe I should do it, but... with which CPU? I prefer a Intel socket, not AMD :S I saw this one Intel Core i5-6500 and someone recommended me it but... I am not sure if it is a good option change my i7 for this...

Hello Simpleacc,

A 1080 will be bottlenecked in your system. I have a 1060 6GB paired with an i7-950 on a X58 chipset & pcie 2.0. In my setup, the 1060 6GB can achieve about 85% of it's full potential. I doubt that my CPU is the bottleneck(OC to 3.77Ghz), but rather the pcie 2.0 slot.

At 1080 resolution, go with a GTX1060, because a faster GPU will be wasted due to bottleneck.

pretty sure pcie 2.0 wont affect performance more than a few percent. not 15%. I think that is in fact a CPU bottleneck that you are experiencing


OP - if youre going to be playing 1080p 60hz with no plan to upgrade your monitor any time soon, i would either get a 1060 6gb or a 1070. the 1070 is a big more powerful than a 980 ti. Depending on the game, even a 980ti gets stressed on 1080p.

as for your CPU, it will definitely still bottleneck a 1070 or 1080.
one option if you had the budget for a 1080. drop to a 1060 or 1070, and pick up an i5 6600, h110 motherboard, and 8 or 16gb of ddr4 ram.

that should give you a solid increase

Doubtful it is a CPU bottleneck. Heaven scores +/- 10 points between CPU OC and stock frequency. If it were a CPU bottleneck I'd doubt that 700Mhz OC would yield practically the same result in benchmarks.

 

[hdmark]

whats your CPU useage? and then it might be something else because from everything ive read, pcie 2.0 bandwidth is still plenty big enough for a 1060

 

[chizrah]

PCI-E 2.0 can only achieve 85% of the bandwith of 3.0, so that figure sounds correct. Alos, people need to stop recommending the GTX 1060. The RX 480 is only marginally slower, performs better in DX12, which will become more and more common, has more VRAM and is usually cheaper. Also, AMD tends to support older cards with driver for longer than NVIDIA.