Question What best RTX GPU fits my 3400G ?

Amr Ibrahim

Reputable
Sep 10, 2019
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SETUP :
B450M S2H
Ryzen 5 3400G
2x8GB @ 3000GHz

I wanted to buy a new RTX GPU . I've read that 3400G bottlenecks the RTX 3060 by a fair amount! But it's a smooth 60+ FPS on 1080p gaming which I'll be on.

QUESTIONS :
1- Does bottlenecking damages GPU ? " I'll maybe upgrade my CPU in future so am asking if i can buy the RTX 3060 for now "
2- Any other choice for a cheaper RTX GPU and a CPU Upgrade without such high bottleneck?
 
SETUP :
B450M S2H
Ryzen 5 3400G
2x8GB @ 3000GHz

I wanted to buy a new RTX GPU . I've read that 3400G bottlenecks the RTX 3060 by a fair amount! But it's a smooth 60+ FPS on 1080p gaming which I'll be on.

QUESTIONS :
1- Does bottlenecking damages GPU ? " I'll maybe upgrade my CPU in future so am asking if i can buy the RTX 3060 for now "
2- Any other choice for a cheaper RTX GPU and a CPU Upgrade without such high bottleneck?

GPU bottlenecking occurs when the CPU can't feed the GPU data fast enough. This is usually game dependent, but often associated with 1080p games and high frame rates. (No frame cap limit)

Part of the problem of your 3400g is it's PCIe lane limited, thus your GPU can't use it to the full extent. (x4 PCIe 3.0)

What you can do is sell it for $100 and pick up a 5600X for $259. With the 5600X you'll get 2/4 (2 more cores, 4 more threads), a higher clock, and about 30->40% faster single core performance. But you'll need to carefully update your BIOS first.
 
Just buy a GPU that:
  • Is appropriate for the resolution and FPS you're intending to play.
  • Offers the best price--performance in that performance tier.
Simplified way a PC plays a game:
  1. CPU figures out what needs to be in a given frame (imagine a rough sketch) based on user and game world input. Issues draw call to GPU to tell it what to render.
  2. GPU receives draw call and makes a pretty picture. Sends to monitor when complete.
  3. The GPU can't do any work until the CPU tells it what to draw. Raising graphics settings and/or resolution increases the complexity of the GPU's job, making it take longer to render each frame. Lowering settings decreases the complexity of the GPUs job making it take less time to render each frame.
  4. If the GPU finishes rendering a frame before the CPU has finished figuring out what the next frame should contain, the GPU has to wait (<100% GPU usage).
  5. Based on #3 & #4, you should be able to optimize for 90% or greater GPU usage (depending on a game's CPU stress and the CPU/GPU balance of a system)
  6. CPU usage is usually reported as active time across all available threads of a CPU. Most* games don't leverage more than....6-7 threads. Monitoring CPU usage isn't really useful.
More statements:
  • Some games stress the GPU more than the CPU. If you ever see them in a CPU round-up review, you'll see very little difference in FPS between various GPUs (Battlefield games are historically GPU-bound). Because of game-to-game variability in CPU stress (which is what you're concerned about) it's not always a clear cut answer.
  • The term "bottleneck" refers to a constraint that doesn't allow the other components in the system to reach its MAXIMUM FPS potential. This is going to depend on the game used, resolution being tested, in-game quality settings, and the GPU/CPU in question. The problem with "bottleneck" is what % of the maximum possible potential is considered a "bottleneck". If there's only a 10% difference in FPS between a $600+ CPU and a $150 CPU, is that a bottleneck? What if the difference is 30%? etc etc.
  • https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html (using a RTX3090 to minimize GPU bottlenecks)
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