i5 bottlenecking 1170 ti

[SlowBox]

Get your cork screw ready...... That CPU is going to eat dust if you pair it with a 1070 GTX my friend. lol

 

[bergami]

Your current CPU is not that much slower than the I5 8400 or the R5 2600, though for only $30 more I would suggest the 2600x as it comes with a much better cooler, has much higher boost clock of up to 4.25GHz on two cores and has XPM which if you have high quality cooling can boost the clock up to 200MHz more.

So it's much better in lighter threaded applications than the 2600, in fact at stock its over 20% faster. Obviously you can OC the 2600 up to 4.1GHz easily and use the $30 that you save to buy an aftermarket cooler, there are some quite good ones for $30 and $40.

Ultimately your I5 6400 is not bottlenecking your GPU that much, if at all. It would depend on the games, but I think the large majority of games would have little to none of a bottleneck.

If you are going to "upgrade" then you need to look at R7 2700x or I7 8700k or at least the 8600k. Going for a 8400 or a 2600 would be more of a side grade, sure you are going to gain 10% to 15% performance, but in terms of fps that amounts to like 3-6fps gains, hardly worth it investing $200 in a CPU and $100+ in a mobo.

The bottlenecking is real for all high cpu demanding games, the weakest aspect of the 6400 is not its c/t count, it is its lower turbo boost.
I see that clearly in AC Origins, as I said before, doesnt matter the resolution, even 720p at very low settings, I still get drops going under 45 frames.
Same as "low cpu demanding" 4k very low which the cpu still runs at 100% 4 cores and delivers the same results of 1k and 2k.

On the other hand, getting the 7700 or the 8400 (quite similar performance) paired with a 1070 + card wields easily 80+ stable frames.

Other comparisons of the 7400 with the 8400 shows, at 1080p, +20 - 25 frames with various games.

Anyways,

I got the 8400 and a B360 for R$ 1500.
My old kit should worth R$ 700-900.
In this upgrade I am going to invest about R$ 600 (U$ 150)

 

[SlowBox]

Firstly congrats on your purchase, I hope you enjoy it for many years to come. Anyhow the earlier POS cpu will get all 4 cores working 100 percent,, or 8 threads. If your CPU is powerful enough which nowo the 8400 is if you check your CPU usage while your gaming, its going to be like 12 percent or soo. Doesn't even need the other threads. Problem is you sure you don't want the K version so you can overclock ? good luck

 

[bergami]

Firstly congrats on your purchase, I hope you enjoy it for many years to come. Anyhow the earlier POS cpu will get all 4 cores working 100 percent,, or 8 threads. If your CPU is powerful enough which nowo the 8400 is if you check your CPU usage while your gaming, its going to be like 12 percent or soo. Doesn't even need the other threads. Problem is you sure you don't want the K version so you can overclock ? good luck

Problem is in my country things gotta be on budget, any increase of $5 or $ 10 means a lot here and we ll end up getting something overpriced.

K processor plus a Z board is something I cannot agree on ´cuz of that overpricing.

 

[SlowBox]

That's fine. Let us know what you do. good luck

 

[beginner99]

Ultimately your I5 6400 is not bottlenecking your GPU that much, if at all. It would depend on the games, but I think the large majority of games would have little to none of a bottleneck.

Yeah I wondered about that as well. At 4k I hardly doubt you will see a CPU bottleneck. But it's too late now. Buying into intel H/b boards isn't a very wise or cost efficient decision IMHO. The real problem was getting a 1070ti better save some money there for a better CPU. Nowadays it pays off to buy a high-end cpu because you can easily keep it >5 years. With the locked i5 8400 he will just end up needing to upgrade again sooner than desired.

 

[SlowBox]

My biggest issue for moving to rysen is my ddr4 is at 2400 mhz.

i7 (even old gen) is overpriced in my country, cant afford them.

No dude, don't even feel that way I will tell you why. Having 2400Mhz RAM and 3200Mhz RAM or even 4133Mhz of RAM, his or her framerate will be the same, however benchmarking apps will show an approvement from 2400 to say 2800. Im telling you 0fps difference with 2133 or 2400Mhz. So don't feel bad dude. Instead if I was you, I would downclock that 2400 and tighten the timings if you have that itch

 

[ZGR]

No dude, don't even feel that way I will tell you why. Having 2400Mhz RAM and 3200Mhz RAM or even 4133Mhz of RAM, his or her framerate will be the same, however benchmarking apps will show an approvement from 2400 to say 2800. Im telling you 0fps difference with 2133 or 2400Mhz. So don't feel bad dude. Instead if I was you, I would downclock that 2400 and tighten the timings if you have that itch

all depends on the games and if it is 60hz or not. many games love RAM speed and tight timings.

 

[Organik]

If the CPU usage is reaching 100 percent when you game, then you have a CPU bottleneck. Let me give you a example. My CPU uses avg 12 percent use for Unreal Tournament Alpha. On others games the most it goes is 25 percent. If I throw in a 1080 Ti it would get along with my CPU. However getting a 1080 or 1180 will not yield good results imo.

 

[ZGR]

If the CPU usage is reaching 100 percent when you game, then you have a CPU bottleneck. Let me give you a example. My CPU uses avg 12 percent use for Unreal Tournament Alpha. On others games the most it goes is 25 percent. If I throw in a 1080 Ti it would get along with my CPU. However getting a 1080 or 1180 will not yield good results imo.

You can be CPU limited even if task manager does not say 100% usage.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Yea, you can be cpu limited by either total throughput (cpu usage will be ~ 100%) or single thread frequency, where cpu usage could be less than a hundred percent. The 6400 is not a great gaming cpu, as it has both low frequency and only 4 cores with no hyperthreading. You can always crank up the details to compensate, but at least at 1080p you will still be cpu limited in a lot of games. At higher resolution, not so much. The 8400 should be good for a few years, since it has six real cores and turbos to nearly 4 ghz (3.8 IIRC) on all cores.

 

[SlowBox]

You can be CPU limited even if task manager does not say 100% usage.

I use speedfan my friend, its legit.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Just a note OP. I see that you've already bought new kit, but I just wanted to suggest, that on the old board, if it has a BIOS setting for "mining mode", or is advertised on the box for "mining", then it may run the PCI-E slots at 1.0/1.1-spec speeds, to gain greater stability with a large number of GPUs connected. Something to be careful about with those lower-end / entry-level chipset boards, since so many people use them to mine with.