Do I need a better cpu, or a weaker graphics card?
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Xenith
September 13, 2014 7:29:46 PM
I am planning a budget gaming rig. I have several components such as hard drives already and have achieved about a $100 savings from this. I was planning to have a pentium g3258 overclocked, paired with a gtx 770 which I can afford over the gtx 760 due to my aforementioned savings. My question is, will it be better to have a slightly bottlenecked 770 and upgrade the cpu when I have the money, or have a non bottlenecked 760 and ubgrade both components later on? Also, how big would a bottleneck on the 770 be?
FYI: I will be playing on a 1600x1050 monitor if that effects the cpu and gpu usage.
I really would like the 770 because it's been my favorite gpu for a long time, especially with the recent price drop. I would also get a free game with the 770.
FYI: I will be playing on a 1600x1050 monitor if that effects the cpu and gpu usage.
I really would like the 770 because it's been my favorite gpu for a long time, especially with the recent price drop. I would also get a free game with the 770.
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coolcole01 said:
ImDaBaron said:
Non bottlenecked 760 with a better CPU is my choice. The 750ti would be the max I go on the G3258. I agree get a quad core or at least hyper threading with i3 both will max out the 760 for great performance at your chosen resolution
If you are having bottleneck it is because of the CPU, but I wouldn't bother with an i3. That CPU you have has made them pretty much useless because after you overclock it performs better in most games than any of the Core i3 CPUs. Get an i5 or a Xeon CPU.
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Xenith
September 13, 2014 8:32:08 PM
I'm sorry if I didn't make myself clear, because the cpu is cheap, I was wondering if it would be better to spend my money now on a 770 and upgrade the pentium later, which would mean throwing out a $70 processor, or getting a better cpu and getting rid of a $200 gtx 760 when I next upgrade. I was really just wanting to know if the pentium 770 combo would play games just fine until I can upgrade the cpu.
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Xenith said:
I'm sorry if I didn't make myself clear, because the cpu is cheap, I was wondering if it would be better to spend my money now on a 770 and upgrade the pentium later, which would mean throwing out a $70 processor, or getting a better cpu and getting rid of a $200 gtx 760 when I next upgrade. I was really just wanting to know if the pentium 770 combo would play games just fine until I can upgrade the cpu. It will play games but you won't have any performance increase from the GTX 760 probably at all because the CPU is the bottleneck.
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Best solution
Performance originates with the CPU. Visual quality originates with the GPU.
Determine the FPS you want in the games you want to play, then pick a CPU that can accomplish this goal. Note: forget about GPU selection in this part of the hardware selection phase, it is largely irrelevant. The hard limits of FPS performance are set by the CPU performance, not GPU. In single player first person story-line games, almost any CPU made in the last 5 years can sustain FPS beyond the refresh of most monitors, so the Pentium would be perfectly adequate here for those games. On the other hand, many popular multiplayer battle simulation games, MMORPGs, and strategy games, are very compute intensive, and in these games, not all CPUs will maintain a desirable FPS (no matter what GPU you pair it with big or small). The Pentium can and will run into some performance issues in these types of games, even when overclocked.
After selecting your desired FPS and picking a CPU that can accomplish this in the type of games you anticipate playing, decide what sort of visual quality you would like and pick a GPU that can sustain your preselected FPS at that visual quality setting.
If you intend to stay with a 1050P monitor, then you should factor that into your decision. Resolution is a huge part of the vastly adjustable render workload in games. In fact, the resolution you intend to play at, should have a far more profound effect on what GPU you decide to purchase, than the CPU selection. Don't match the GPU to the CPU, match the GPU to the render workload created by the visual quality settings and desired FPS. Don't match the CPU to the GPU, match the CPU to the compute workload created by the games you want to play and your FPS goals in those games. Any other approach is fundamentally flawed.
The whole premise of finding that ultimate mystical combination of CPU/GPU that is greater than the sum of parts is a common but very flawed approach to computer building. Sizing one part up or down can never "solve" a performance discrepancy of the other part.
Determine the FPS you want in the games you want to play, then pick a CPU that can accomplish this goal. Note: forget about GPU selection in this part of the hardware selection phase, it is largely irrelevant. The hard limits of FPS performance are set by the CPU performance, not GPU. In single player first person story-line games, almost any CPU made in the last 5 years can sustain FPS beyond the refresh of most monitors, so the Pentium would be perfectly adequate here for those games. On the other hand, many popular multiplayer battle simulation games, MMORPGs, and strategy games, are very compute intensive, and in these games, not all CPUs will maintain a desirable FPS (no matter what GPU you pair it with big or small). The Pentium can and will run into some performance issues in these types of games, even when overclocked.
After selecting your desired FPS and picking a CPU that can accomplish this in the type of games you anticipate playing, decide what sort of visual quality you would like and pick a GPU that can sustain your preselected FPS at that visual quality setting.
If you intend to stay with a 1050P monitor, then you should factor that into your decision. Resolution is a huge part of the vastly adjustable render workload in games. In fact, the resolution you intend to play at, should have a far more profound effect on what GPU you decide to purchase, than the CPU selection. Don't match the GPU to the CPU, match the GPU to the render workload created by the visual quality settings and desired FPS. Don't match the CPU to the GPU, match the CPU to the compute workload created by the games you want to play and your FPS goals in those games. Any other approach is fundamentally flawed.
The whole premise of finding that ultimate mystical combination of CPU/GPU that is greater than the sum of parts is a common but very flawed approach to computer building. Sizing one part up or down can never "solve" a performance discrepancy of the other part.
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Xenith said:
I'm sorry if I didn't make myself clear, because the cpu is cheap, I was wondering if it would be better to spend my money now on a 770 and upgrade the pentium later, which would mean throwing out a $70 processor, or getting a better cpu and getting rid of a $200 gtx 760 when I next upgrade. I was really just wanting to know if the pentium 770 combo would play games just fine until I can upgrade the cpu. I would say get the 770 (I have one myself), and upgrade the pentium later. The Pentium will play most games just fine, it has excellent core performance and is an excellent CPU for its price point in general. Very few games at all need more than one or two threads. If you have a Z97-based mobo you can even get one of the new Broadwell series of CPU's coming out when you do.
J
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IInuyasha74 said:
coolcole01 said:
ImDaBaron said:
Non bottlenecked 760 with a better CPU is my choice. The 750ti would be the max I go on the G3258. I agree get a quad core or at least hyper threading with i3 both will max out the 760 for great performance at your chosen resolution
If you are having bottleneck it is because of the CPU, but I wouldn't bother with an i3. That CPU you have has made them pretty much useless because after you overclock it performs better in most games than any of the Core i3 CPUs. Get an i5 or a Xeon CPU.
I3 useless? Which games does the oc pentium perform better in? Heres a hint:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/pentium-g3258-overclockin...
So if you get a g3258, good mobo/cooling ( for over 4.5ghz 100% stable), then learn how to oc properly (as in tune the thing, bench and stress not copy hope theres no bsods) you might, just might, get the performance of an i3 in some old games only.
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con635 said:
IInuyasha74 said:
coolcole01 said:
ImDaBaron said:
Non bottlenecked 760 with a better CPU is my choice. The 750ti would be the max I go on the G3258. I agree get a quad core or at least hyper threading with i3 both will max out the 760 for great performance at your chosen resolution
If you are having bottleneck it is because of the CPU, but I wouldn't bother with an i3. That CPU you have has made them pretty much useless because after you overclock it performs better in most games than any of the Core i3 CPUs. Get an i5 or a Xeon CPU.
I3 useless? Which games does the oc pentium perform better in? Heres a hint:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/pentium-g3258-overclockin...
So if you get a g3258, good mobo/cooling ( for over 4.5ghz 100% stable), then learn how to oc properly (as in tune the thing, bench and stress not copy hope theres no bsods) you might, just might, get the performance of an i3 in some old games only.
Are you really going to post an article going against what you are saying as evidence to support what you are saying?
G3258 has better performance than the i3 in both Thief and Tomb Raider. Thief probably being the most recent game they tested, and Tomb Raider is a 2013 release. Neither are old. In other words 28.6% of games going by this are faster on the G3258.
In World of Warcraft, Arma 3, and Battlefield 4 there was a 0.5%, 2%, 0.4% performance drop from the i3 to the G3258 respectably. In other words going by this sample, in 42.9% of games the performance difference between the G3258 and the i3 is practically none existent and falls without margin of error.
In Grid 2 and Metro Last Light only is the Core i3 significantly faster than the G3258. In Grid 2, this is well past 60FPS, and breaking past 90FPS which means unless you have an expensive 120Hz monitor and for some reason spent that much on a display and went very cheap on the CPU would you ever see the difference.
Metro Last Light, gets an honest 10% improvement with the Core i3 over the G3258 and its below 60FPS so it actually is important, means you will get a good meaningful increase only in about 14% of games.
Granted these results vary by clock speed, but even if you get a half-decent overclock of around 4Ghz your results will be fairly close. So I think its a terrible idea to suggest buying an i3 for about $120 that will give a comparatively small increase in some games, instead of buying the Core i5 which gets much more performance in nearly every game tested for only $180. Literally the i3 is not worth its price to upgrade to it from the G3258.
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^^You said 'outperform the i3 in most games', I posted a review which shows otherwise, then out of 7 gaming benches you pick 2 results, 1 completely gpu bottle necked and on the other, the 4.5ghz pentium beats the i3s' average frame rate by 0.6 of a frame and looses to the i3 in max and minimum fps and then say it contradicts me??
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con635 said:
^^You said 'outperform the i3 in most games', I posted a review which shows otherwise, then out of 7 gaming benches you pick 2 results, 1 completely gpu bottle necked and on the other, the 4.5ghz pentium beats the i3s' average frame rate by 0.6 of a frame and looses to the i3 in max and minimum fps and then say it contradicts me?? Well I'll admit I was wrong to say it outperforms the i3 in most games, but its still very little difference. The contradiction was that you said an i3 was a good upgrade option and that review kind of shows its not. $120 isn't worth an occasional 10% performance increase.
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^Where did I say that? I'm really not trying to start a flame war btw but just a few points, a pentium isnt a viable option imo most of the time for gaming, reviews use single player campaigns, fresh windows installs, nothing running in back ground etc and fps isnt everything, I've seen smooth 40fps and stuttery 40fps. Also for someone asking very, very basic questions on hardware overclocking anything isnt really a viable option for them either imo. The i3 would be a much better chip for most people even at the extra cost which is swallowed up by board and cooler anyway for overclocking.
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con635 said:
^Where did I say that? I'm really not trying to start a flame war btw but just a few points, a pentium isnt a viable option imo most of the time for gaming, reviews use single player campaigns, fresh windows installs, nothing running in back ground etc and fps isnt everything, I've seen smooth 40fps and stuttery 40fps. Also for someone asking very, very basic questions on hardware overclocking anything isnt really a viable option for them either imo. The i3 would be a much better chip for most people even at the extra cost which is swallowed up by board and cooler anyway for overclocking.Yes I see you are being reasonable. Your first post is where you commented on " at least hyper threading with i3". Your right that an i3 does offer several benefits over the Pentium and they offer good performance that would likely help to improve game play. It is a much better chip than the Pentium especially for novice users. I'm just trying to say I don't think it offers sufficient performance improvements over the Pentium to warrant its cost, and feel an i5 should be a minimum to maximize on performance upgrades.
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IInuyasha74 said:
con635 said:
^Where did I say that? I'm really not trying to start a flame war btw but just a few points, a pentium isnt a viable option imo most of the time for gaming, reviews use single player campaigns, fresh windows installs, nothing running in back ground etc and fps isnt everything, I've seen smooth 40fps and stuttery 40fps. Also for someone asking very, very basic questions on hardware overclocking anything isnt really a viable option for them either imo. The i3 would be a much better chip for most people even at the extra cost which is swallowed up by board and cooler anyway for overclocking.Yes I see you are being reasonable. Your first post is where you commented on " at least hyper threading with i3". Your right that an i3 does offer several benefits over the Pentium and they offer good performance that would likely help to improve game play. It is a much better chip than the Pentium especially for novice users. I'm just trying to say I don't think it offers sufficient performance improvements over the Pentium to warrant its cost, and feel an i5 should be a minimum to maximize on performance upgrades.
Oh right I see, that's actually someone else! I can see where a mistake could be with usernames when skimming lol
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