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Will i3 4160 bottleneck a Asus R9 280x GPU

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  • Bottleneck
  • CPUs
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September 10, 2014 2:02:49 AM

Hi guys, i want to make a gaming rig for SC2 Heart of the swarm, Diablo 3, CounterStrike GO. I will be using the ASUS R9 280x. I have a Asus z97-k motherboard and i want next year to buy a i5 Broadwell k series processor so that's why i'm getting a Haswell i3 now. I know the i3 is not the best choice for SC2 but i dont have the money to buy a i5.

More about : 4160 bottleneck asus 280x gpu

September 10, 2014 2:13:58 AM

intel g3258 would be a nice choice... you can overclock it on this mobo and it will perform much better than i3
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September 10, 2014 2:42:54 AM

shaheer ahmad said:
intel g3258 would be a nice choice... you can overclock it on this mobo and it will perform much better than i3


So you say i should get this processor and will not bottleneck the gpu until Broadwell arrives? I'l be fine till next year?
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September 10, 2014 2:45:44 AM

asus981 said:
shaheer ahmad said:
intel g3258 would be a nice choice... you can overclock it on this mobo and it will perform much better than i3


So you say i should get this processor and will not bottleneck the gpu until Broadwell arrives? I'l be fine till next year?


intel g3258 at 4.4ghz performs similar to i5 4670k at stock
its not about bottleneck , its about performnce.... get pentium g3258 and overclock it @ 4.8ghz and you will get astonishing result with r9 280x
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September 10, 2014 2:51:43 AM

shaheer ahmad said:
asus981 said:
shaheer ahmad said:
intel g3258 would be a nice choice... you can overclock it on this mobo and it will perform much better than i3


So you say i should get this processor and will not bottleneck the gpu until Broadwell arrives? I'l be fine till next year?


intel g3258 at 4.4ghz performs similar to i5 4670k at stock
its not about bottleneck , its about performnce.... get pentium g3258 and overclock it @ 4.8ghz and you will get astonishing result with r9 280x


That's completely false. A Pentium G3258 heavily overclocked will reach about the same average framerate as an i3-4130, but a lower minimum, and minimums are highly important. It's great for the price, but he'd regret pairing it with anything stronger than an R9 270X.

The problem with CPUs that only run 2 threads is that frametime variance degrades, and it pulls the minimum framerate down with it. On a weaker video card with less bandwidth this isn't really noticeable, but on a stronger card like the R9 280X he'll get better results, both in framerates and frametime variance, from the quad-threaded HT i3s.

But an i3-4160 is a great choice. The slightly weaker i3-4130 still averages 76 fps in Watch Dogs (just about the worst optimized, yet most heavily multithreaded game in existence), hence you shouldn't have any problems pairing an i3-4160 with an R9 280X. It'll easily hold up until you add a Broadwell i5, or beyond.

Here's a chart, for example. Frametime variance is better the lower it is. Lower frametime variance means the frames are drawn at a more consistent pace, making the game look smoother. As you can see, the Pentium G3258 is less than half as stable as an i3 even overclocked.
http://media.bestofmicro.com/X/M/440554/original/thief-...
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September 10, 2014 3:04:25 AM

shaheer ahmad said:
asus981 said:
shaheer ahmad said:
intel g3258 would be a nice choice... you can overclock it on this mobo and it will perform much better than i3


So you say i should get this processor and will not bottleneck the gpu until Broadwell arrives? I'l be fine till next year?


intel g3258 at 4.4ghz performs similar to i5 4670k at stock
its not about bottleneck , its about performnce.... get pentium g3258 and overclock it @ 4.8ghz and you will get astonishing result with r9 280x


Rationale said:
shaheer ahmad said:
asus981 said:
shaheer ahmad said:
intel g3258 would be a nice choice... you can overclock it on this mobo and it will perform much better than i3


So you say i should get this processor and will not bottleneck the gpu until Broadwell arrives? I'l be fine till next year?


intel g3258 at 4.4ghz performs similar to i5 4670k at stock
its not about bottleneck , its about performnce.... get pentium g3258 and overclock it @ 4.8ghz and you will get astonishing result with r9 280x


That's completely false. A Pentium G3258 heavily overclocked will reach about the same average framerate as an i3-4130, but a lower minimum, and minimums are highly important. It's great for the price, but he'd regret pairing it with anything stronger than an R9 270X.

The problem with CPUs that only run 2 threads is that frametime variance degrades, and it pulls the minimum framerate down with it. On a weaker video card with less bandwidth this isn't really noticeable, but on a stronger card like the R9 280X he'll get better results, both in framerates and frametime variance, from the quad-threaded HT i3s.

But an i3-4160 is a great choice. The slightly weaker i3-4130 still averages 76 fps in Watch Dogs (just about the worst optimized, yet most heavily multithreaded game in existence), hence you shouldn't have any problems pairing an i3-4160 with an R9 280X. It'll easily hold up until you add a Broadwell i5, or beyond.
What if i crossfire 2 r9 280x? Will the i3 suffice?


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September 10, 2014 3:06:34 AM

asus981 said:

What if i crossfire 2 r9 280x? Will the i3 suffice?



Really hard to say. Nobody really benchmarks Crossfired cards, so there's not a reliable way to find out for sure about multi-GPU systems without testing it, sorry. :/ 

I personally would not trust a crossfire system with anything less than an i5-4460 or higher.
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September 10, 2014 3:46:12 AM

Rationale said:
asus981 said:

What if i crossfire 2 r9 280x? Will the i3 suffice?



Really hard to say. Nobody really benchmarks Crossfired cards, so there's not a reliable way to find out for sure about multi-GPU systems without testing it, sorry. :/ 

I personally would not trust a crossfire system with anything less than an i5-4460 or higher.


Ok what can you tell me about the dram memory. I bought kingston fury white cl10 at 1866mhz dual channel 2x4 gb. I am concerned about the speed and the cas latency... Till i switch to Broadwell i belive this is enough i got them at a good price.

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September 10, 2014 4:22:16 AM

You can usually get 8 GB of G.Skill Ripjaws X @ 1866 CL 9 for ~$75-80.
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September 10, 2014 6:08:15 AM

Mac266 said:
You can usually get 8 GB of G.Skill Ripjaws X @ 1866 CL 9 for ~$75-80.

I'm from Europe here are very expensive... Should i get cl9 instead of cl 10? What are the + and -?

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September 10, 2014 6:51:08 AM

asus981 said:
Hi guys, i want to make a gaming rig for SC2 Heart of the swarm, Diablo 3, CounterStrike GO. I will be using the ASUS R9 280x. I have a Asus z97-k motherboard and i want next year to buy a i5 Broadwell k series processor so that's why i'm getting a Haswell i3 now. I know the i3 is not the best choice for SC2 but i dont have the money to buy a i5.


Yes it will. A more balance approach would be an i5 with a 270x.
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September 10, 2014 9:48:50 AM

logainofhades said:
asus981 said:
Hi guys, i want to make a gaming rig for SC2 Heart of the swarm, Diablo 3, CounterStrike GO. I will be using the ASUS R9 280x. I have a Asus z97-k motherboard and i want next year to buy a i5 Broadwell k series processor so that's why i'm getting a Haswell i3 now. I know the i3 is not the best choice for SC2 but i dont have the money to buy a i5.


Yes it will. A more balance approach would be an i5 with a 270x.


I'm sorry, but it doesn't look like you really checked before posting that. An i3-4160 will be absolutely fine with an R9 280X, and since Star Craft 2 is so heavily single-threaded, there will barely even be a difference from an i5. Even the old i3-2100 holds up well enough, averaging 86 fps in SC2.
http://i.imgur.com/EiLgYLa.png

Every other game also runs exceptionally well on the newer Haswell i3s, the largest gap is merely 5-10 fps behind the i5s.
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September 10, 2014 9:57:54 AM

An i3 starts to bottleneck around the 270/270x mark. Haswell isn't much faster than Ivy. Anything past a 270x, with an i3, is a waste of $$$.



There is a slight difference in FPS for CPU. The extra cache will help in such titles that are poorly threaded. I only said a more balanced approach would be the i5 and 270x, which is true. An i3, with a 280x, is a lopsided approach.

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September 10, 2014 10:19:58 AM

logainofhades said:


There is a slight difference in FPS for CPU. The extra cache will help in such titles that are poorly threaded. I only said a more balanced approach would be the i5 and 270x, which is true. An i3, with a 280x, is a lopsided approach.


An i3-4160 + R9 280X will still achieve better framerates than an i5 + R9 270X, and you seem to have missed the point that he'll be upgrading to Broadwell next year.

Furthermore, the first image you posted doesn't even appear to be in real games, but merely a measurement of overall CPU performance, so there would not be nearly as much of a difference in games. In actual use, there is barely a difference in game performance, as the GPU is virtually always the bottleneck before the CPU.

Also, the SC2 benchmark you posted shows brokenly low performance on every CPU, including the i5s, so I'd be very interested to see the video card and testing conditions.
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September 10, 2014 10:54:18 AM

The i3 will not do better with the 280x, because it won't be able to properly feed it. It starts to choke around the 270/270x mark. THG uses real games for its VGA charts... It was taken from a somewhat recent buildup article. Yes, I did miss the broadwell upgrade. The 280x does make sense, if that is the case.

Article that had the SC2 bench
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-processor-fr...

The budget build article.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-your-own-budg...
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September 10, 2014 11:33:39 AM

I will buy the i3. I saw a lot of gaming reviews about the i3 Haswell and the difference between the i5 4690k(@ stock) and the i3 4150 is about 2-10 frames per second in the most cpu demanding games out there. I can live with that. In sc2 i will get about 120 fps when i start the game and about 60 to 70 when the games reaches mid point so i think that is very very good. Thank you all for your answers.
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