Determining my bottleneck

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cpn_howdy

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May 5, 2014
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Hi all, I just upgraded my card to a GTX 780 Ti, and I was hoping for some opinions on the necessity of upgrading my CPU. Here are my specs:

GTX 780 Ti
i5-2500 @ 3.3Ghz
8 GB DDR3
250 GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD

Do you think that its worth upgrading my CPU, or put another way: is the excess power of my 780 being wasted thanks to my processor? I am able to max BF4 and Crysis, but typically I'm getting an average of ~50fps. I don't have a good idea anymore of the effect a processor has on game performance, I guess I'm trying to determine if my CPU still exceeds the maximum performance a game will ever need from it. Thanks for any input.

EDIT: I was referring to Crysis 3, not 1.
 
Solution
photonboy
First of all, I wouldn't bother upgrading.

The CPU and Graphics bottlenecks vary depending on the game. The "perfect balance" would be if you had 20 games and 10 of those tended to be CPU bottlenecked most of the time and the other 10 were GPU bottlenecked.

So, you will find games that will have very little benefit to a CPU upgrade and some that do. MOST won't.

It would also cost quite a bit as you'd need a new CPU, motherboard and thus copy of Windows. That's roughly $500. If you did do it I recommend a Z97 motherboard like the Asus Gryphon Z97, and then a high-end i5/i7 Devil's Canyon Haswell CPU (not out quite yet).

Again though, I don't recommend the upgrade.

OTHER:
You can Google for games and how much the CPU is a bottleneck...
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cpn_howdy

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May 5, 2014
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Thanks for your reply.
CORSAIR 850W ATX12V v2.2
I believe it is adequate for the 780 Ti if that is the implication.
 
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photonboy

photonboy

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Jun 20, 2006
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First of all, I wouldn't bother upgrading.

The CPU and Graphics bottlenecks vary depending on the game. The "perfect balance" would be if you had 20 games and 10 of those tended to be CPU bottlenecked most of the time and the other 10 were GPU bottlenecked.

So, you will find games that will have very little benefit to a CPU upgrade and some that do. MOST won't.

It would also cost quite a bit as you'd need a new CPU, motherboard and thus copy of Windows. That's roughly $500. If you did do it I recommend a Z97 motherboard like the Asus Gryphon Z97, and then a high-end i5/i7 Devil's Canyon Haswell CPU (not out quite yet).

Again though, I don't recommend the upgrade.

OTHER:
You can Google for games and how much the CPU is a bottleneck "cpu scaling". It's almost impossible with BF4 now with so many updates, and the fact that Multiplayer is far more demanding than Single player. I do know Windows 8 64-bit works a little better with BF4 though.
 
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cpn_howdy

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May 5, 2014
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4,510
Thanks for your reply, I think I will wait to upgrade as you have suggested. +1 for an explanation of the general performance impact on games, this is exactly the clarification I was looking for.
 
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