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Started by Holy Jesus | | 6 answers
FX-8320 performance with 780Ti compared to intel i5
Hi guys,

I have built my own PC about 6 months ago now and at the time I decided to go for the cheaper AMD FX-8320 processor and a cheap AM3+ board. I since have upgraded to a 780ti and this performs well on most games maxed out at over 60fps but I feel as if the CPU is definitely throttling the GPU.

Would it be worth making the change to an i5 of some description? If so could you please recommend me an intel processor and mobo combo that will not throttle the 780 Ti keeping a reasonable price in mind.

Also, I understand that I have to do a fresh install of the OS if I change out the CPU and Mobo. I have all of my steam games installed on a separate HDD. This HDD is NOT my boot drive. If I wipe my SSD and re-install windows will steam recognize my 700Gb + of game files or will I have to download it all again?

Thank you! I will post my build below in case it's needed.

Silverstone strider 600w PSU
Fx-8320
Gigabyte 970a-d3p mobo
Corsair Vengeance pro RAM (2x4GB at 1600mhz)
EVGA superclocked 780Ti
Samsung evo SSD 250gb
WD 1tb HDD

Noctua NHC14 cpu cooler
Bunch of Nanoxia fans
Liteon optical driver


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Best solution chosen by ErAnkurPaul

a c 487 à CPUs
June 18, 2014 1:35:56 PM

Overall, it depends on the games you play and also your monitor.

Games are primarily GPU dependent 1st and CPU dependent 2nd. BioShock Infinite is an example of a game that does not care how powerful the CPU actually is unless it is so slow that it bottlenecks the GPU. The game basically performs the same in a PC with a modest AMD CPU as on an overclocked core i5 CPU with both PCs using the same GPU. There would probably be a 1 - 3 FPS difference. On the other hand, Skyrim is known to perform much better on stock speed Intel CPUs compared to overclocked AMD CPUs using the same graphics card.

The monitor comes into play because the refresh rate limits the number of frames the monitor can display. Most monitors sold are 60Hz monitor and that means at most only 60 frames will be displayed on the screen. This is regardless if the GPU is actually pumping out 90 FPS or 120 FPS.

On the other hand a 120Hz monitor can display up to 120 FPS on the screen.
June 18, 2014 4:36:01 AM

An i7 has no advantage in gaming over an I5. It may have stronger single thread performance but they cost double an i5 so it's not really worth it. I have an i7 3770k but I do gaming and lots of video rendering otherwise for gaming i5 is king
June 18, 2014 4:32:18 AM

i5 or i7 oc to 4.6 will help, but games are still cpu bound, cant fix that until later cpu's
a b à CPUs
June 18, 2014 4:23:58 AM

First of all, you don't need to do a fresh installation of Windows, but you may need to reactivate it.

I presume that the GPU is in the PCIe x16 slot? The other one only runs at x4 and that will create a bottleneck.

I don't believe that an i5 will alleviate much of the bottleneck, if you have one. A GPU like the GTX 780 Ti should be paired with an i7 or Xeon to get the most out of it.
June 18, 2014 4:22:15 AM

steam has a option to backup ur games as iso files you could do that to be safe then reinstall them them not redownload them.
a c 167 à CPUs
June 18, 2014 4:18:02 AM

You could try overclocking some to get better performance. An i5 would perform better in many games, but if you have already invested in the 8320 im not sure it would be worth the cost to change.

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