What CPU should I pair with my GTX 970?

[AyanUsmani]

I have a GTX 970, and its paired with an AMD FX 6300 and I read some fourm posts that it tends to bottleneck the GPU, and that you would notice a huge difference having a core i5, so I am sort of on a budget, and my case only supports micro atx, so what CPU and mobo would be good to pair with my GTX 970? I don't care too much about overclocking, but if the cpu and mobo are compadable, I'll do it, but again, I'm on a budget.

 

[BadActor]

Overclockable Skylake build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6400 2.7GHz Quad-Core Processor ($183.88 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG H7 49.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($32.50 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock Z170M Pro4S Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($79.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($44.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $341.36
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-02 07:48 EST-0500

Or, one that would let you re use your current RAM:


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($174.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 Anniversary ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($74.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $249.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-02 07:50 EST-0500

 

[RCFProd]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6400 2.7GHz Quad-Core Processor ($183.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170-HD3P ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $283.87
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-02 07:52 EST-0500

For this Z170 chipset mobo you don't need DDR4 RAM. Once you want to OC you can buy a CPU cooler later, but you don't need to really.

 

[CBender]

Anything above an I3 6100 would be decent. Ideally an I5 6500 would be pretty sweet for gamig systems without overclocking needs. Anything more that an I5, like an I7 is going to be redundant for gaming.

 

[13thmonkey]

not 6400k's?

 

[BadActor]

Asrock and MSI both have motherboards that now allow bclk overclocking of locked Sylake processors. I'm sure others will follow suit shortly.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-locked-intel-cpus-can-now-be-overclocked

 

[RCFProd]

not 6400k's?

http://wccftech.com/intel-skylake-nonk-processors-feature-overclocking-support-adjustable-bclk-memory-igpu-oc/
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9848/bclk-overclocking-intels-non-k-skylake-processors-coming-soon

 

[13thmonkey]

I'd be interested to see if you can go as far on bclk as multiplier, and whether there is any difference in performance at an OC of 4.3Ghz for instance. Do you even need a Z board for that?

 

[BadActor]

The link above contains a video which shows their overclocked. performance. I was surprised to see the results. Right now, only the Z170 boards have the Bios update that allows the bclk overclocking, I'm sure this will change.

 

[13thmonkey]

so you lose c states and the iGPU. Not a bad trade. I'd have liked to have seen i5k at 4.5 through multiplier and i5 at 4.5 though Bclk.