[SOLVED] Upgrading and Bottlenecking

[Lenny2k12]

Hi all,
Currently running a setup of a
gtx 1060 3gb
core i5-7600k
16gb of ram

Thinking of upgrading motherboard and the graphics card to a gtx2060 super
Ive read on some websites that there will be a bottleneck and on other websites that there will be no bottleneck present so its quite confusing. Just need some help clearing this up

 

[USAFRet]

Adding better parts means better performance.
Ignore the term "bottleneck".

 

[RTX 2080]

What is the resolution and refresh rate of your monitor?

What kinds of games will you be playing? What settings?

 

[hang-the-9]

Hi all,
Currently running a setup of a
gtx 1060 3gb
core i5-7600k
16gb of ram

Thinking of upgrading motherboard and the graphics card to a gtx2060 super
Ive read on some websites that there will be a bottleneck and on other websites that there will be no bottleneck present so its quite confusing. Just need some help clearing this up

There is usually no benefit to changing the motherboard, money spent on that should be put towards other parts first unless you have some specific reason you need to change it.

 

[Lenny2k12]

What is the resolution and refresh rate of your monitor?

What kinds of games will you be playing? What settings?

Hoping to run games at the max quality settings on 1080p at 60hz, mainly like to play rpgs and jrpgs and open world games along with first person shooters

 

[Lenny2k12]

There is usually no benefit to changing the motherboard, money spent on that should be put towards other parts first unless you have some specific reason you need to change it.

My current motherboard doesnt allow my processor to be overclocked and it also cant run my ram at full speeds for some reason

 

[sizzling]

My current motherboard doesnt allow my processor to be overclocked and it also cant run my ram at full speeds for some reason

If your going to buy a new motherboard you should change the cpu. Quad core/thread CPU’s are the bare minimum for the latest AAA games and will struggle to average 60fps in a few cpu heavy games. The cost of a new motherboard just to oc the cpu and run the RAM at rated speed is going to return limited performance gains.

 

[RTX 2080]

Hoping to run games at the max quality settings on 1080p at 60hz, mainly like to play rpgs and jrpgs and open world games along with first person shooters

Ok, let me explain bottlenecking to you. In the context of gaming, their are two primary types of bottlenecking: CPU bottlenecking and GPU bottlenecking.

GPU bottlenecking is how things are supposed to work, it is entirely ok. GPU bottlenecking means that the CPU is feeding the GPU a steady stream of frames to be rendered and the GPU is rendering at it's maximum potential.

CPU bottlenecking is where you run into problems. In CPU bottlenecking, your GPU is able to process frames faster than the CPU can feed them to it, leading to your CPU's utilization being pegged and the GPU running at less than it's full potential. This usually happens at higher framerates. The problem with CPU bottlenecking is that it causes stuttering and jittering.

Bottlenecking happens mainly at 1080p at high framerates (over 60 fps). This is because the CPU doesn't care about resolution, it cares about fps, and the higher your fps, the more load you are putting on your CPU.

Seeing as how you play games at a fixed 60 fps and at max quality, you aren't nearly as likely to bottleneck your CPU as you would be if you played at low quality, high frame rates. The 2060 super will not bottleneck your current CPU any more than your 1060 could, because regardless of which GPU you are using, you are never exceeding 60 fps (so long as you have V-Sync on that is).

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My current motherboard doesnt allow my processor to be overclocked and it also cant run my ram at full speeds for some reason

I agree with the post above me; it isn't worth it to upgrade your motherboard unless you buy one that you can use with a better CPU. Your GPU choice at 1080p 60 fps (whether its your current 1060 or a new 2060) will not bottleneck you CPU, but most AAA games these days require 4 cores and 8 threads minimum to run properly, otherwise you may get stuttering or jittering. Your current CPU is 4 cores, 4 threads.

My advice would be to purchase the RTX 2060 and run it with the rest of your hardware as-is. If you then run into performance issues when your CPU can't handle the latest games, you should upgrade to a new motherboard with a new CPU; overclocking your old CPU won't fix the fact that you don't have enough cores and threads no matter what clock speed you push it to.

 

[cryoburner]

If your going to buy a new motherboard you should change the cpu. Quad core/thread CPU’s are the bare minimum for the latest AAA games and will struggle to average 60fps in a few cpu heavy games. The cost of a new motherboard just to oc the cpu and run the RAM at rated speed is going to return limited performance gains.

Yep, there's probably not much point in upgrading to a Z-series board for a 7th gen i5 at this point, since core and thread counts have increased at any given price point since then, and an increasing number of newer games will benefit from having access to more than just four threads. The current 10th-gen i3 and Ryzen 3 processors are roughly equivalent to the 7th-gen i7s, having 4-cores and 8-threads with similar performance per core. And it's possible to get a 6-core, 12-thread processor for not much more, like the Ryzen 3600 for around $160, or the i5-10400 for around $180.

While an i5-7600K is still certainly usable for gaming on, and will get very competitive performance in games that don't utilize a lot of threads, such as many esports titles, if you plan on playing the latest demanding AAA titles, going into the future you will probably want to upgrade to a new processor before too long, and that would require a newer generation of motherboard that isn't compatible with your existing processor. Overclocking your 7600K could help improve performance a bit, but the lack of threads is going to result in performance instability in many titles.

So unless you were getting a Z270 motherboard for cheap, like for well under $100 on the second-hand market, it's probably not worth bothering with a motherboard upgrade for your existing processor.