Will an FX 6300 bottleneck a GTX 970?

[lukedt95]

So currently I have an FX 6300, MSI R9 270 Gaming edition, 8GB Corsair Vengeance (1600Mhz) RAM and a Corsair 550 Watt PSU. I've been considering either upgrading my current PC or building a new rig from scratch for quite a while now.

My question is, would it be viable to buy a GTX 970 and put it in my current rig? Or would the FX 6300 bottleneck it? If I was to build a new rig I'd go for an i5 4960.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[geofelt]

I think you have a good plan.
A GTX970 is a big jump in graphics power and will run on your current 550w psu.
In time, it is easily moved to a new build with a different cpu.

Most games are graphics limited so you will get a boost in fps and certainly more eye candy.

To help clarify your CPU/GPU options, run these two tests:

a) Run your games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

b) Limit your cpu, either by reducing the OC, or, in windows power management, limit the maximum cpu% to something like 70%.
Go to control panel/power options/change plan settings/change advanced power settings/processor power management/maximum processor state/
This will simulate what a lack of cpu power will do.
Conversely what a 30% improvement in core speed might do.

You could also experiment with removing one core in the bios. You can also do this in the windows start configuration.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many cores.

If your FPS drops significantly, it is an indicator that your cpu is the limiting factor, and a cpu upgrade is in order.

It is possible that both tests are positive, indicating that you have a well balanced system, and both cpu and gpu need to be upgraded to get better gaming FPS.

 

[mdocod]

geofelt is onto a very important point here..

What result are you expecting from a GPU upgrade?

If you want more visual quality, then a GPU upgrade is ABSOLUTELY valid and will give you the option of running higher resolution and/or higher visual quality settings.

If you want more FPS, then you need to determine if you have any headroom for more FPS from your CPU in the games you like to play, and the conditions you like to play them in... Geofelt gave some very good examples of how you might go about determining this.

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Having said that, if you want an improvement in FPS, and play mostly DX11 games, and you determine that your CPU is currently setting a performance threshold and would theoretically prevent you from getting an FPS boost, there's a hidden "trick" here that is often overlooked...

Nvidias's driver and DX11 implementation is better threaded than AMD drivers. When you switch from an AMD GPU to an Nvidia GPU on the AM3+ platform, you're making a software level change that is better optimized for AMD's own CPU architecture (ironic eh?). It's not uncommon to see a 25% increase in FPS in CPU bottlenecked conditions when switching from an AMD to NV GPU.

In other-words, the GTX970 will actually provide better visual quality, AND better performance than the R9 270 in DX11 games, even if you are CPU limited. Fun eh?

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If you favor visual quality over performance, stick with the 6300 and upgrade the GPU. If you want a performance increase, and don't care about your visual quality settings, get an i5.

 

[leeb2013]

In cpu intensive games the fx-6300 will bottleneck, it has quite weak performance