5870 bottlenecked by a cheaper cpu?

[mansou]

Hello, if I was to buy a 5870 would it be bottlenecked while gaming at 1080p by a athlon II x3 440 with a 785g socket? Thanks in advance! (Please do not suggest getting a more expensive cpu, had to sacrifice that to fit a 5870 in budget)

 

[notty22]

Its going to perform well. There are going to be some situations where a slightly higher frequency quad would probably have a higher fps curve. Take a look at the article at Toms, building a balanced pc.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-balanced-platform,2469.html?xtmc=building_a_balanced_pc&xtcr=2
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/balanced-gaming-pc,2477.html?xtmc=building_a_balanced_pc&xtcr=1

 

[mansou]

Thanks for the reply, but acouple of questions. All of the amd cpus tested appear to have a l3 cache, would the loss of that be significant? If I overclocked the 440 a bit would it be more balanced? and finally, isn't grand theft auto one of the more cpu intensive games at the moment?

 

[paperfox]

You will see a great improvement with overclocking your 440 cpu as is somewhat demonstrated in notty22's chart. And yes grand theft is one of the more cpu intensive games out there.

 

[mansou]

Thats great! I guess my last worry is whether once overclocked to say 3.4 ish the lack of a l3 cache would still matter