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Will an i5 3550 Bottleneck Next-Gen GPU's?

Tags:
  • Core
  • Next Generation
  • Intel
  • Intel i5
  • CPUs
  • Motherboards
  • Components
  • Gtx
  • GPUs
  • Bottleneck
  • Graphics Cards
Last response: in Components
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October 21, 2013 10:23:57 PM

I have an Intel Core i5 3550, and I am thinking that I might upgrade my CPU, Motherboard (obviously) and GPU when the Broadwell line is released in 2014. However, I have recently seen some convincing benchmarks that show that current-gen and even last-gen CPU's show little signs of bottlenecking on current GPU's.

My question is:
Should I bother upgrading my CPU from a 3550, or would it be better to leave my CPU alone and just upgrade to a GTX 800 series or whatever? Also, what, specifically, would I be looking at in terms of bottlenecking?

More about : 3550 bottleneck gen gpu

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October 21, 2013 10:33:46 PM

Currently your I5 is fine. Upgrading GPU with the next generation is still going to be fine. Intel has been taking small steps so Sandy Bridge to Ivy bridge was maybe 5-7% similar up to Haswell. As I see it it should be fine waiting at least couple of generations if not three before the CPU starts being a bottleneck.
Basically a bottleneck means that one component can not run at its full potential because something else is not keeping up. Here is an example with CPU benchmark all with the same GPU but different score from different CPU's http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/battlefield-4-graph...
Basically all the CPU's with lower score than the fastest are bottlenecking the GPU compared with the CPU with the fastest score.
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October 21, 2013 10:53:14 PM

Hey thanks a lot! =) It's been bugging me for some time, but I guess I'll wait until the next generation of GPU's comes out from nVidia.
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October 21, 2013 10:54:57 PM

My i5-2500 non overclocked runs at 70 - 80% CPU usage on everything I play (including BF 4 beta) and my GTX 780 is at 99%. So...you should be fine.
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