Will my i5-2500K botleneck my 1070@1440p?

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sunchaser

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Dear [H]ard folks,

Ok, that sounded weird, but let's continue anyway.

I'm upgrading my monitor from an Asus VE278E (27"-1080p-144Hz) to the LG 32GK850G-B (32"-1440p-165Hz).

I assume my CPU (and RAM) are going to bottleneck the 1070?

These are my specs :

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 8G

Intel i5-2500K (Bios auto-OC to about 4,1Ghz)

8 GB Corsair DDR3-1600

Asus P8Z68V_LX mainboard

I mostly play FPS-games (CSGO, BF1, Quake Champions,..) but also RPG's (Dragon Age, Witcher 3,..) and Overload starting from today!

So I guess I already know the answer (yes, bottlenecked), but does anyone have any idea by how much % more or less?

Is there for example a website where I can compare different CPU's paired with the 1070 so I can see by how much mine is holding back the system?

Bottom line : I'd like to compare the cash I have to spend on the upgrade to how much performance I would gain from it :)

Many thanks!
Joseph
 
Have the 32GK850G on my [email protected] & the 1080Ti (ignore my sig) and also fiddling with throttling issues. Far Cry 5, Fallout 4, GTA 5, all run well under 165fps (I'd say 100 avg) with the video card only loading to 50-70% or so.

Oddly enough my CPU is also only running about half load in FC5 but still hitting 70c, the same temp as when I test cinebench on all cores.

I'd try playing your games with the MSI Afterburner overlay & Rivan Tuner add on and see what's hitting 100% load.

EDIT: Just tried Witcher 3 and both the CPU & GPU hover between 50-95%, but never hit 100%, and fps is constantly between 90-130, even when CPU & GPU are both sitting around 70%. There's definitely a 3rd bottleneck in the system somewhere... :shifty:
 
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Thanks for the tips&tests.
I will start by detecting 100% loads when I get the screen next week, and then work my way down to eliminate any (serious) bottlenecks (and good luck on finding yours too!).
I'll have to upgrade anyways, but maybe I'll be fine for now on the games I'm currently playing, we'll see next week ;-)
Cheers,
J.
 
That being said, your i5 [email protected] and GTX 1070 should be plenty for running 1440p @ 60 fps, so you're going have fun no matter what your game of choice, nothing to sweat there.

If you get the itch, you can get some decent cooling for that 2500k and try bumping it to 4.4-4.6Ghz. And if you decide you absolutely need a system upgrade, I'd hold out for the next batch of CPUs & GPUs, "should" be just around the corner now.
 
His refresh rate is 165Hz so he will want to run at 165 FPS and that 1070 might struggle with that and your 2500k is definitely going to hold you back.
 
I'm setting a 120 fps cap as recommended in TFT-Central's review, so my fps-aim would be 60-120 I guess (depending on game type, e.g. Rpg vs Fps).
CSGO won't be a prob, I may even get along in BF1 and QChampions with some tweaking. Have to wait and see.
I'm so used to high fps/refresh gaming for several years now that I'll probably notice immediately if I want to upgrade.

In case of an upgrade, any recommendation on which CPU (Amd or Intel) would max out my 1070?
Will need nothing more than that (and of course a new mainboard with 16 GB ram :)
 
It likely is a tad - I recall seeing YouTube reviews showing Ryzen 3 1200 performance (overclocked) paired with GTX 1060 / 1070 / 1080 / 1080 Tis and the primary bottleneck point was right around the 1060 6GB / 1070 level. The 2500k is a tad faster than the Ryzen 3 1200, especially if you OC it above 4.0GHz but should be a similar result.

That said, you are gaming at 1440p which is less CPU-intensive so unless you're trying to squeeze every bit of FPS for a 144hz+ monitor I think you're fine. I would say grab another 8GB of RAM though - cheap $30-40 upgrade that's beneficial for general performance and some of the more memory intensive games like PUBG.
 
It's going to be a subjective decision anyways.
Since I'm G-syncing (for the first time), I'll have to test wether adaptive sync is enough of a compromise vs high refresh rate gaming.
I think in low-fps games like Rpg's it will be OK.
But in high-fps games like Fps's, it may tip me over to invest in a better CPU to try and hit a constant 90-120 Fps (with the necessary tweaking, so not necessarily Ultra settings).
Looking into the i5-8400 now as a possible option.
Btw, my ram-upgrade would cost me about 80€ for 2x4gb of similar voltage/timings DDR-1600 I already have installed.
 
This article, although using a i7-2600K instead of an i5-2500K, answered my question.

TLDR : " Our Conclusion : What does this mean for you if you're a Core i7-2600K owner? Currently, probably not a lot. If you're running a graphics card that's equal to or slower than the GTX 1070, you don't really need to do anything for now assuming you've overclocked that sucker to at least 4.5GHz."
 
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