Pentium G4560 - Best Graphics Card Pair (250$ Budget)

Funderful

Prominent
Mar 17, 2017
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510
--Yes, yes, I know a ton of people have already asked this question--

I built my new PC about 3 weeks ago with the Pentium G4560, and I plan to make it a budget gaming beast. The only component I'm missing is the GPU. I have about ~$250 to spend. Most people say that the RX 570 is a great pair that doesn't bottleneck much, but couldn't I get a RX 580 (I know it will bottleneck) and upgrade later? What I'm asking here is that will the bottleneck from the RX 580 lessen my performance over the RX 570 until I get a CPU upgrade?

Any advice helps,
Funderful

P.S. - I just realized how much questions I've been asking. Oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
 
Solution
Bottlenecking is not harmful per se. If your CPU were perfectly matched to the GPU, and you then get a faster GPU, you are not going to lose anything by it. There's no "mismatch penalty" so to speak - I've noticed a number of questions on these forums that give me the impression that people think such a penalty exists.

If the 570 is a perfect, "ideal" match, then the 580 will not do any harm at all, and you have a little extra overhead. If you can get the 580 for the same or slightly more money, there's no downside.

Think of it this way - if your CPU bottlenecks your GPU, it's basically a situation where the CPU is doing all it can, and the GPU will sometimes be sitting there saying to the CPU - "seriously, dude, waiting on YOU...

King_V

Illustrious
Ambassador
Bottlenecking is not harmful per se. If your CPU were perfectly matched to the GPU, and you then get a faster GPU, you are not going to lose anything by it. There's no "mismatch penalty" so to speak - I've noticed a number of questions on these forums that give me the impression that people think such a penalty exists.

If the 570 is a perfect, "ideal" match, then the 580 will not do any harm at all, and you have a little extra overhead. If you can get the 580 for the same or slightly more money, there's no downside.

Think of it this way - if your CPU bottlenecks your GPU, it's basically a situation where the CPU is doing all it can, and the GPU will sometimes be sitting there saying to the CPU - "seriously, dude, waiting on YOU here!" :lol:
 
Solution

Karadjgne

Titan
Ambassador
You won't bottleneck the 580/1060-6Gb, the cpu will still be outputting it's rated performance. What you'll get is a gpu that just doesn't live upto it's potential. So getting the largest gpu you could get now, and upgrading the cpu later is fine, mom's have been doing that forever, always buying you pants 1 size to big so you'll grow into them, vrs buying pants that fit now and you growing out of them. If you were not planning on cpu upgrade, the 470/570, 1050ti/1060-3Gb would be fine.
 
BOTTLENECKING:
This confuses so many people. EVERY GAME IS DIFFERENT. So you could have a GTX1080Ti and not be bottleneck by that CPU in many situations.

Basically just get the best GPU you can in that price point.
1) use PCPARTPICKER, and
2) A reference: https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/RX_580_Nitro_Plus/30.html
3) get more than 4GB VRAM (mostly for future proofing)

I think the average GTX1060 6GB, and RX-580 8GB are close enough to consider equal on average with them trading blows in different games.

If HEAT is an issue, go with the GTX1060. My room gets hot most of the year when gaming and the extra heat would be very, very noticeable.

EXAMPLE:
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/7RKhP6/gigabyte-geforce-gtx-1060-6gb-windforce-oc-6g-video-card-gv-n1060wf2oc-6gd

 
POWER:
The RX-580 uses about 100W more power than the GTX1060. That's not significant to the power bill, but again if your room gets warm I'd avoid go with the GTX1060.

In winter, and in summer (air conditioning so window closed) my room gets a little too hot for comfort sometimes. By my rough estimate a G3258 + RX-580 would have similar power draw to my own setup.

Anyway, both the GTX1060 6GB and RX-580 have pros and cons each which I won't go into here.