Is i5-4460 still good for gaming?

Galluxi

Commendable
Dec 7, 2016
31
0
1,540
Hello everyone! I am wondering, is i5-4460 is still a good CPU for modern games? I upgraded to GTX 1060 6GB from GTX 960 2GB but I don't see a lot of difference in performance in games. Could it be because of my current CPU? Should I upgrade to a new CPU and would it make any difference?
 
Solution


There's better price to performance upgrades than that. For that CPU he'd need a motherboard, CPU and RAM to upgrade, yet he can simple get an i5 4690 and that'd be better.

But agreeing with the others, you should be good with that CPU for another good few years and along with the 1060 is a great pair.
I... I have an i5 4460 and a GTX1060. It's great! 😉

But seriously, it depends on the games you're playing. If we're talking about The Witcher 3 or Tomb Raider or BF1, then that GPU upgrade should have made a pretty big difference. If we're talking about Planetside 2 and TERA and Blade and Soul and like every MMORPG in existence, then yes, you're probably still being held back by the CPU.

I only upgraded from my old R9 380x because I was sick and tired of not being able to turn off AMD Powertune without some hairy workaround or a soldering iron. In Planetside 2 and TERA and BnS and PSO2, I saw a net gain of exactly 0FPS (yeah, most the games I play are super CPU heavy). I did however, get a lot less FPS fluctuation, and can actually get a really smooth experience with adaptive vsync on, compared to the micro-stuttering hell that was the 380x. With less CPU-demanding titles like Dirty Bomb, Kingdoms of Amalur: The Reckoning, and that new generic FPS with Ghost in the Shell slapped on it, my FPS nearly doubled.
 


There's better price to performance upgrades than that. For that CPU he'd need a motherboard, CPU and RAM to upgrade, yet he can simple get an i5 4690 and that'd be better.

But agreeing with the others, you should be good with that CPU for another good few years and along with the 1060 is a great pair.
 
Solution


I agree with you, upgrading to a 4690 would be greater than change almost the whole system due DDR4 been the new default.

Galluxi, your i5-4460 is just fine for now, it may have a very little bottleneck on certain titles, but for 1080p should be enough for the next couple of years until you need to build a new system.

Changing from a 960 to a 1060 should've brought you a very good performance boost, but would be more noticeable on titles that you know that the 960 was not handling well.

In the near future, if decide to upgrade your CPU, you should still get a better 4th generation CPU, it will be better for your money. Newer CPUs are not getting better as fast as Newer GPUs, The i7-6700K from this 6th gen only got about 6% more performance than the I7-4790K that was the top pick for the 4th gen.

In my research, I see that you will get about 16% performance boost if you change your CPU to a i5-4690, 24% for a i5-4690K and 50% for a I7-4790K.

As I said, I think your CPU is just fine for now, you should not worry much about it.