R3 1200 and 1070 or equivalent GPU, bottleneck or no?

[Vishera]

Giving my old R3 to my cousin once I get my 2600, and he managed to grab a 1070 for super cheap. Just wondering if this is a wise combination? If he were to get a last gen GPU, say a 980Ti or Titan X, or any other older GPU that's more in between the 1060 and 1070, would he be better off? I got a 3.8GHz overclock, so i'm assuming he'll get roughly the same out of it since I'm giving him my old board as well, if that matters.

 

[bmwbaxter]

Quad core I don't think will bottleneck the 1070, will depend on what game. That combo is better than him downgrading his GPU if he got the 1070 for cheap and cheaper than buying a new CPU if he is getting your old one for free. Just remember he will need the same cooling as you if wants to hit the same OC as you got.

 

[trents]

There are also some great buys on first generation Ryzen CPUs right now and your cousin might look at upgrading to a hex core. I expect he would be bottlenecked in some games with the current CPU.

 

[Vishera]

There are also some great buys on first generation Ryzen CPUs right now and your cousin might look at upgrading to a hex core. I expect he would be bottlenecked in some games with the current CPU.

How badly do you think? If he's only looking at a 15-20 FPS delta between the 1200 and a 1600/2600, in a handful of games, he doesn't care.

 

[trents]

I think he should use the system for a while and see if it meets his needs before putting out any money on a more potent CPU. Good buys on first generation Ryzens will be available for a good while yet. It's kind of hard to speculate when we don't know what games he likes to play and if any of them are heavily CPU dependent, like GTA 5 for instance.

 

[EarthDog]

It won't hold the GPU back... but games that can use more cores will be slower.

I agree to use it and see.

You can also look at techspot and see if there are reviews on the games he plays as they test across multiple cpu's.

 

[mackerel]

Just run it as is. The CPU will mean the GPU wont offer all it can, especially if high frame rates are the thing. But if they're playing on a 60Hz display, just turn the settings up to max and enjoy.

 

[Vishera]

Just run it as is. The CPU will mean the GPU wont offer all it can, especially if high frame rates are the thing. But if they're playing on a 60Hz display, just turn the settings up to max and enjoy.

He was planning on buying a high refresh rate display. Dude's only 16 and already wants to move on to 144Hz. God help his wallet.

 

[mackerel]

144 Hz 1080p displays aren't expensive any more... well, as long as you don't care for G-sync. I don't know how all games will behave, but that CPU wouldn't normally be chosen for that role. Still worth a try and see how far he gets.

 

[Vishera]

144 Hz 1080p displays aren't expensive any more... well, as long as you don't care for G-sync. I don't know how all games will behave, but that CPU wouldn't normally be chosen for that role. Still worth a try and see how far he gets.

For a 16 year old working part time for minimum wage? That's like an entire paycheck dropped on a monitor.

I'll tell him to go ahead and put the system together and try it out, and keep the CPU upgrade in mind for later should it become necessary. Thanks guys.

 

[trents]

Can he be trusted to assemble the system himself? How tech savvy is he?

 

[Vishera]

That's...actually a good point. Not very. He's like a console gamer that knows enough to know why the Xbox One X gives you better performance, but not really know much beyond that.