Will a i5 6500 Skylake CPU Bottleneck a GTX 970?

[whitemarvels]

I'm in the process of picking new parts for an entirely new build for gaming (Games such as BF4, Fallout 4, CS:GO, etc...) and I was recommended by a few people to go with an i5 6500 and a GTX 970 as the CPU and GPU choices. I did some research and found that in some cases the i5 bottlenecks the 970 and I was wondering if that was true, and if so how much performance would be lost. Any help is appreciated!

 

[Gam3r01]

The i5 will never* bottleneck the 970, I dont know where you heard that.
*Never is a strong word, but I stand by it.

 

[synphul]

I'm curious as to what research led to findings of a 4th, 5th or 6th gen i5 bottlenecking a gtx 970.

 

[rcald2000]

@whitemarvels, with specifically Fallout 4, the i5 will probably be a bottleneck for a GTX 970. Blame Bethesda. Jump straight to time index 4 minutes of this Fallout 4 performance review and watch.

Fallout 4 PC Performance Review | 980 Ti, R9 380, 970 Tested
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5ojEukUj94

 

[synphul]

I'm watching, so far I've seen it dip to 55fps with the gpu at 75% load and the cpu at 29% load so it's not a cpu bottleneck yet at 5:17. I'm at 6:22 and not sure but think he switched to the i7. I hear a lot of talk of cpu bottlenecking but no evidence, if he had issues in areas he should have shown them. I can say lots of things too. He also mentions in the vid a cpu bottleneck with the cpu at 90% and the gpu around 50% or less. If the cpu was the bottleneck it would be 99-100%, not 90%.

Keep in mind this guy's also been pushing 90fps+ on an i5 with a game that was meant to be locked at 60fps. That's not me just grasping at random numbers, that comes from Bethesda and is nothing new. Whether he's seeing issues over 60fps or not they say it affects the game physics and things. They coded the game so I'd have to believe them. Fallout 3, skyrim etc were the same way, nothing new here. Playing a game over 50% faster than what the game author's recommend is hardly a bottleneck.

 

[Gam3r01]

The i5 does not perform as well as say an i7, but that does not make it a bottleneck. Unless the CPU is maxed out and the GPU is still struggling, then it is a bottleneck. Fo4 is just demanding on the processor, and not as much so on the graphics card.

 

[synphul]

I know previous games were capped by Bethesda, according to this article Bethesda made a tweet that pc versions wouldn't be capped. In the same article it says they found it was capped and said it was tied to the physics.
http://www.technobuffalo.com/2015/11/10/fallout-4-framerate-capped-and-tied-to-game-speed/

Others in the video posted by whitemarvels said no there is no physics handicap over 60fps.

This article says it runs on the same game engine as skyrim which was 60fps capped.
http://www.gamersnexus.net/game-bench/2177-fallout-4-pc-video-card-fps-benchmark-all-resolutions

As usual no apparent consensus that matches, seems more and more games are a free for all without specs/standards and vary from one update to the next. Makes me miss some of the old console games where things were coherent and stayed the same from one session to another with uniform performance. Now it's more or less a crapshoot and you don't know if the next game will scale well on an i3 with 750ti or totally kill a haswell-e with two gtx 980ti's in sli. It might even change from one to the next on the same exact game depending which day and which update the user's running.

 

[Gam3r01]

I know Fo4 was supposed (and should) be capped at 60FPs.
My roommate was showing me what happens when its not, at anything over 60FPs the physics speed up. Bottles drop faster, you swing quicker, and enemies move faster. Another side effect was at 120FPs and above lockpicking becomes impossible, as any movement just snaps the bobby pin instantly.