RX 470 CPU Upgrade Bottleneck

[ray12370]

Hi, so I recently picked up a the 4gb model of the RX 470 for my system, but I've realized that my i5 2400 with 3.1 ghz is a huge bottleneck due to its age. So I was wondering if I should upgrade from the i5-2400 to something like the i5-3770, or if I should simply buy a new motherboard altogether and get a skylake CPU like the i5-6600. Should I get a small CPU upgrade for my new RX 470 4gb or a big one?

 

[pasow]

the i5-3770 is faster than a i5-2400 but the difference isn't significant enough to warrant spending money on it IMO unless you got it for dirt cheep. now if you bumped up to a K series and overclocked it i could see value there. otherwise i would just save your money for a full CPU+MoBo+RAM upgrade.

 

[logainofhades]

What is your current motherboard? The i5 2400 should not be a big bottleneck, even with an RX 470.

 

[adamdbz]

I run an I5 2400 with an oced r9 290
yest there is some bottle-necking in SOME parts of SOME games but for the most part it's a non issue
From my experience at the worst times in gta v
while in the middle of the city
The cpu usage is 100% and the gpu is only 90%
so ya there is a bottleneck but not a big one.
in most games there is no bottleneck..

I say do like me and wait for Zen.

 

[spdragoo]

http://www.techspot.com/review/991-gta-5-pc-benchmarks/page6.html

You're looking at maybe ~12% improvement going to the i7-3770 over your current CPU, so it probably isn't worth. Although that would put you about equal with the Haswell i7-4770K...which would also mean you'd be right there with any Skylake i5/i7 system.

Unless you're really having problems, I would say you're fine waiting.

 

[ray12370]

What is your current motherboard? The i5 2400 should not be a big bottleneck, even with an RX 470.

I've got the Asrock Pro 3 Z75, an lga 1155 mobo.

 

[ray12370]

I run an I5 2400 with an oced r9 290
yest there is some bottle-necking in SOME parts of SOME games but for the most part it's a non issue
From my experience at the worst times in gta v
while in the middle of the city
The cpu usage is 100% and the gpu is only 90%
so ya there is a bottleneck but not a big one.
in most games there is no bottleneck..

I say do like me and wait for Zen.

I just got the card and installed it today. I tested a bunch of games and the improvements are massive, it's just that the card came with a free copy of the new Hitman, and it just so happens that the 2400 bottlenecks that game, the minimum is a 2500 lmao. I guess I'll wait for Zen, or Ryzen as it's called now, since I will be forced to go to the $200+ range anways.

 

[ray12370]

the i5-3770 is faster than a i5-2400 but the difference isn't significant enough to warrant spending money on it IMO unless you got it for dirt cheep. now if you bumped up to a K series and overclocked it i could see value there. otherwise i would just save your money for a full CPU+MoBo+RAM upgrade.

Could you infer on the K series thing? I made a typo and meant to put i5-3770k, which is about $180 online lowest, but what benefits would I really get from the thing in comparison to the regular 3770? I can't overclock due to my 500w PSU, so would getting the 3770k be beneficial at all? My card just came in and I also got a copy of the new Hitman with it as well, but the minimum req for the game is an i5-2500 and I have to cap the game at 30 fps because of it, so now my goal is to be able to run Hitman. I'd just like to upgrade to something significantly better.

 

[spdragoo]

Not really. Most "K" chips are only slightly faster than the non-"K" variant (~0.1GHz or so), as their primary benefit is the ability to manually OC.

That being said, if a non-"K" chip isn't available, it's better to buy the "K" chip even if you can't OC it.

However...

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z75%20Pro3/?cat=CPU

The only "3770" chip on that list is an i7-3770 in 3 flavors: standard i7-3770, unlocked i7-3770K, & low-power i7-3770T. Those are going to run you about $400 USD new, so any of them running for $180 are used/pre-owned parts. So you'd want to look for an i5-3570 (standard or "K") if you want an i5.

 

[logainofhades]

What is your current motherboard? The i5 2400 should not be a big bottleneck, even with an RX 470.

I've got the Asrock Pro 3 Z75, an lga 1155 mobo.

That board supports non K overclocking. On a P67 extreme4, I was able to set the multiplier, of my 2400, to 38, for 3.8ghz. If you have decent cooling, it is worth a shot.

 

[pasow]

the i5-3770 is faster than a i5-2400 but the difference isn't significant enough to warrant spending money on it IMO unless you got it for dirt cheep. now if you bumped up to a K series and overclocked it i could see value there. otherwise i would just save your money for a full CPU+MoBo+RAM upgrade.

Could you infer on the K series thing? I made a typo and meant to put i5-3770k, which is about $180 online lowest, but what benefits would I really get from the thing in comparison to the regular 3770? I can't overclock due to my 500w PSU, so would getting the 3770k be beneficial at all? My card just came in and I also got a copy of the new Hitman with it as well, but the minimum req for the game is an i5-2500 and I have to cap the game at 30 fps because of it, so now my goal is to be able to run Hitman. I'd just like to upgrade to something significantly better.

if you could pull of a GHz OC on a processor you could see some nice CPU performance gains when your bottle necking there, however i wouldn't personally go for the 3770K for 180 USD. (if you could get it for say 50-75 then maybe) the performance difference with out overclocking is minimal to unnoticeable. bumping that up to say 4.5GHz though you could see a good elevation of your choke point. for the cost though, just wait it out for Ryzen and do a full platform upgrade like i'm doing. the IPC gains and additional threads will be far more beneficial per dollar spent than going from a Sandybridge to Ivybrdge processor.

 

[ray12370]

the i5-3770 is faster than a i5-2400 but the difference isn't significant enough to warrant spending money on it IMO unless you got it for dirt cheep. now if you bumped up to a K series and overclocked it i could see value there. otherwise i would just save your money for a full CPU+MoBo+RAM upgrade.

Could you infer on the K series thing? I made a typo and meant to put i5-3770k, which is about $180 online lowest, but what benefits would I really get from the thing in comparison to the regular 3770? I can't overclock due to my 500w PSU, so would getting the 3770k be beneficial at all? My card just came in and I also got a copy of the new Hitman with it as well, but the minimum req for the game is an i5-2500 and I have to cap the game at 30 fps because of it, so now my goal is to be able to run Hitman. I'd just like to upgrade to something significantly better.

if you could pull of a GHz OC on a processor you could see some nice CPU performance gains when your bottle necking there, however i wouldn't personally go for the 3770K for 180 USD. (if you could get it for say 50-75 then maybe) the performance difference with out overclocking is minimal to unnoticeable. bumping that up to say 4.5GHz though you could see a good elevation of your choke point. for the cost though, just wait it out for Ryzen and do a full platform upgrade like i'm doing. the IPC gains and additional threads will be far more beneficial per dollar spent than going from a Sandybridge to Ivybrdge processor.

I'm considering just waiting for Ryzen, but I doubt I'll be able to get my hands on one due to it being new hardware and likely selling out fast and going for double the price for a while, like with what happened with the RX series of GPUs. Could you comment on if upgrading to skylake would be a safe bet though? An lga 1151 MOBO and the i5-6600 are on my radar since I can get them both for a good $300, but like I said in my original post, I have a 500w PSU. Would a 6600 and an RX 470 be fine on 500w, because my rx 470 and i5-2400 make a terrible team right now and I'm desperate just to upgrade anything. It feels as if I still have my r9 270x installed, the only game that I saw significant improvement in is Battlefield 4 which I can run on ultra at 60 FPS now.

BTW thanks to everyone that has replied so far, I'm learning a shit ton.

 

[pasow]

the i5-3770 is faster than a i5-2400 but the difference isn't significant enough to warrant spending money on it IMO unless you got it for dirt cheep. now if you bumped up to a K series and overclocked it i could see value there. otherwise i would just save your money for a full CPU+MoBo+RAM upgrade.

Could you infer on the K series thing? I made a typo and meant to put i5-3770k, which is about $180 online lowest, but what benefits would I really get from the thing in comparison to the regular 3770? I can't overclock due to my 500w PSU, so would getting the 3770k be beneficial at all? My card just came in and I also got a copy of the new Hitman with it as well, but the minimum req for the game is an i5-2500 and I have to cap the game at 30 fps because of it, so now my goal is to be able to run Hitman. I'd just like to upgrade to something significantly better.

if you could pull of a GHz OC on a processor you could see some nice CPU performance gains when your bottle necking there, however i wouldn't personally go for the 3770K for 180 USD. (if you could get it for say 50-75 then maybe) the performance difference with out overclocking is minimal to unnoticeable. bumping that up to say 4.5GHz though you could see a good elevation of your choke point. for the cost though, just wait it out for Ryzen and do a full platform upgrade like i'm doing. the IPC gains and additional threads will be far more beneficial per dollar spent than going from a Sandybridge to Ivybrdge processor.

I'm considering just waiting for Ryzen, but I doubt I'll be able to get my hands on one due to it being new hardware and likely selling out fast and going for double the price for a while, like with what happened with the RX series of GPUs. Could you comment on if upgrading to skylake would be a safe bet though? An lga 1151 MOBO and the i5-6600 are on my radar since I can get them both for a good $300, but like I said in my original post, I have a 500w PSU. Would a 6600 and an RX 470 be fine on 500w, because my rx 470 and i5-2400 make a terrible team right now and I'm desperate just to upgrade anything. It feels as if I still have my r9 270x installed, the only game that I saw significant improvement in is Battlefield 4 which I can run on ultra at 60 FPS now.

BTW thanks to everyone that has replied so far, I'm learning a shit ton.

the new skylake processors and Motherboards are more power frugal than the old Sandybridge ones so if you run fine presently on your PSU you should after, assuming your PSU doesn't have any issues with the sleep states. (i remember a lot of conversations about that when Haswell launched) on the performance front, a Skylack should be a nice bump, they are in the range of 20-30% faster clock for clock to a sandybridge, and are clocked higher. i would still personally wait for the Ryzen launch as Intel may counter with lower prices even if your not going with AMD. just keep in mind that both Ryzen and Skylake will require you to purchase new RAM.