Will an i3-4130 Bottleneck a R9 280?

[Christopher Aubert]

Will an i3-4130 bottleneck a R9 280? I was wondering because I am thinking on building a Budget Gaming PC and started off with the R9 270x as my first choice, but noticed that the R9 280 was just a tiny bit more in price, but then I started to doubt the i3-4130 and it's power. I planned on playing BF4, Far Cry 3, and Skyrim (stuff like that) on Medium-High settings. Do you think it would bottleneck?
-Chris

 

[turkey3_scratch]

No, I do not think it will bottleneck. Maybe in a couple years some.

 

[logainofhades]

Yes, it will bottleneck a bit, but you will be able to turn up the eye candy to lessen it. If the price is really close, go with the 280. If your games support Mantle, use it.

 

[Christopher Aubert]

Yes, it will bottleneck a bit, but you will be able to turn up the eye candy to lessen it. If the price is really close, go with the 280. If your games support Mantle, use it.

What do you mean "turn up the eye candy to lessen it"? Anyway, I might just go for the R9 270x. I'm positive that won't bottleneck...right?

 

[Calculatron]

Bottleneck doesn't mean it won't work. It just means that the video card won't reached 100% capacity/usage of its resources. The R9 280 may still work better than the R9 270X, even with the slight bottleneck.

With a severe bottleneck, both products will work almost identical with one another - because they will work only as fast as the CPU will allow.

 

[mdocod]

The question is fundamentally flawed because the compute workload per frame not adjustable, but the render workload is broadly variable/adjustable with resolution and detail and post processing settings. The R9 280 will draw 120FPS, 60FPS, and 30FPS (all other things being equal) at 720P, 1080P and 1440P respectively. (comparatively/hypothetically speaking). If you're trying to use the R9 280 at 720P to achieve 120FPS, then you will run into lots of CPU performance limitations. If you are trying to use the R9 280 to run 1440P at 30FPS, then the i3 is an ideal match as it should have no problem maintaining a 30FPS minimum in the vast majority of games and conditions.

The i3 can be a fantastic match, or a terrible match for the R9 280 depending on your FPS vs visual quality goals.

 

[logainofhades]

Yes, it will bottleneck a bit, but you will be able to turn up the eye candy to lessen it. If the price is really close, go with the 280. If your games support Mantle, use it.

What do you mean "turn up the eye candy to lessen it"? Anyway, I might just go for the R9 270x. I'm positive that won't bottleneck...right?

Turning up anti-aliasing, for instance, will put more of the load on the GPU, lessening the CPU bottleneck.

 

[TheMagicalWallaby]

Bottleneck doesn't mean it won't work. It just means that the video card won't reached 100% capacity/usage of its resources. The R9 280 may still work better than the R9 270X, even with the slight bottleneck.

With a severe bottleneck, both products will work almost identical with one another - because they will work only as fast as the CPU will allow.

Thank you for being probably one of the only people on this website who understands what a bottleneck is.

 

[Calculatron]

I try. 😉
(Thanks.)