Will a 550 TI bottleneck an I5

Also he is playing on XP for now so it will allow to play at a max resolution of 1400. So he will either be playing at 1280 or 1400 res.

A 2500k will handle any single GPU at any resolution just fine. Unless he buys a really high end card, and uses it at a very low resolution, the GPU will remain the bottleneck in virtually all gaming scenarios.

With higher end cards he may not fully utilize the GPU at a resolution that low, but performance will be good either way. In any case, the 550Ti is not high end, and will be fully utilized at those resolutions with a 2500k. Nothing concrete is out about the 650Ti right now, so I can't comment on that card.

Under most circumstances it would take a very powerful multi GPU setup for the 2500k to become the bottleneck. Even then, you do have the option to overclock, and an overclocked 2500k won't bottleneck any GPU or any reasonable multi GPU setup out there right now.

So you don't think the 550Ti will be "to slow" or lack power to keep up with the I5? Do you think he will be able to max out games with the I5/55o ti combo and get decent framrates. This is a kind of slow process for him he is upgrading but a little at a time.

He wont max anything with a 550ti (trust me I used one for a while this year) but he will get mid settings in most current stuff. Its not great but its not crap

Its a bad balance. The 550 TI isn't a bad video card, but to pair one with a 2500K would be folly for a gaming system.

The 550ti is only a mild gaming card, I would consider an entry level bottom of barrel gaming card myself. The i5 will run it perfectly fine, to it's fullest capacity. No problems there. But, if you want to game, the i5 will run a much more powerful card, and if you plan on doing much gaming at all, and would like to turn the settings up past low, or run at 1080 resolution, I would suggest moving up another couple of tiers from a 550ti.

ofc not, only a Radeon 6990,7970, GTX 680,690 may cause a tiny bottleneck.

I wouldn't even consider getting a Geforce 550ti. If your friend doesn't mind buying from ebay then definitely get this card http://www.ebay.com/itm/ZOTAC-ZT-40407-10P-GeForce-GTX-...

That's the GTX 460 1GB 256-bit version. It's way better than a Geforce 550 ti and it's cheaper.

If he won't buy from ebay then he should at least get a GTX 560 SE. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

With rebates the GTX 560(non-ti) would be the best deal. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
It's only $124.99 with rebates.

As you can see there are much better options than a 550 Ti for around the same price range.

I agree i thnk an 4thread~2core i3 @ 2.8GHz+ would not bottleneck this card

I'd get a 7850 Radeon or a GTX 560 Ti/480 instead.

The 560 SE (suck edition) basically is a clocked up GTX 460 from what I understand.

This isn't a bad deal $180 with mail in rebate, 560 TI AMP edition from Zotac. Zotac seems to not be afraid to push their factory OC'd models further than other companies.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Actually the Geforce 560 SE is worse than the Geforce GTX 460 1GB 256-bit version listed above. The 560 SE has less cuda cores and slower memory but a higher clock speed than the GTX 460. Overall the GTX 460 is better than the 560 SE and it is identical to the GTX 560(non-ti) except for a slower clock speed. The GTX 460 can easily overclock to GTX 560 speeds though.

The only reason I suggested those cards are because they are all better than the GTX 550 ti and they are around the same price range. There are better deals if they want to spend more money. I just assume that sense they are going for such a lowly card that they are trying to work within the price range of the 550 ti.

That bad huh? lol. It really is a Suck Edition then, I was just being a smartass  

Why not throw in a 6870? Thats not really a bank breaker at $160 give or take. For gaming, the guys better off dropping the 2500K for an i5-2400 or something. But if the guy is still running WinXP, lol, good lord.

or wait to see if the 660ti causes a price crash. I have seen some 580's going for £220 already ($300) thats 33% reduction before the 660 even hits market.

I think I'll tell him to wait. I don't know if he wants to or can afford a 300 or 400 dollar video card. How would a AMD 965 be in comparison? If it's paired with a 550ti or 650ti. Would that be more balanced and give decent peformance? Would he be able to max out games with that set up?

A Phenom II works just fine with a 550 TI. You could still go heavier if you wanted. I'd think you could go as high as a 7870 or GTX 570 for sure and not have any complaints.
Now I do have the 550 TI AMP ed, so its overclocked 100mhz over the reference card but, If you have any games specifically in mind, I can bench em if I have em. But off the top of my head, any COD game I can average well over 70FPS @ 1280x1024 fully maxed out AA and all that jazz.

Crysis 2 averages 50-60FPS Ultra settings 1280x1024 again. Skyrim can get a little nasty though, it usually runs okay, but it does indeed dip down to high 20s on occasion. I'm fairly certain is the GPU not the CPU, if I dial the graphic settings down a tad it runs smooth. My boyfriend thinks it runs fine, but honestly, I'm not happy with the dips, I notice it.

At 1080p when I was using a 550ti with my PII BF3 low settings for solid 60FPS if he can dig an average 30FPS then mid even with a little bit of high. MW3 can be ran high. RO2 (UE3 engine) can be pushed mid/high mix.

I run a 670 with my PII now argueably there may be a bottleneck but I can max out anything I have tried theres other on these forums running 6xx cards with Phenom II as well so I doubt a future 650ti would be any problem. On current cards a 560ti or a 570 would be a nice balance I think for your friend, PII + 560ti is going to run most games at better settings than i5 + 550ti anyway unless your friend is in to very CPU intensive games only

I agree that a Phenom II and a 560 Ti would do better than a 550 ti with an i5 2500K. That would probably be the optimal price/performance combination. Those AMD cpus are still good options for the price.