I3-2100 and GTX 670/680: Will the CPU bottleneck the GPU hard?

[cyberarya]

I'm looking to upgrade my measly Radeon HD 6670 into something more robust in my system and after some good success when cashing out of D3, I can get either a 670/680 to replace it. However, I am curious whether the I3-2100 will bottleneck the GPU overall. I've heard people "saying it will" but they have had no proof to substantiate their claims. Just curious if it would bottleneck, thanks!

Spec:

• i3-2100
• Radeon HD 6670
• AsRock H61iCafe
• 8gb DDR3-1333 Crucial Ballistix
• CM 500w PSU (this was a cheap rig, don't hate on the crappy PSU which I will replace if necessary)

I'm not using an SSD at all atm so I don't know whether that will factor into any bottlenecks or not.

[BicycleMafioso]

No. Your CPU will not bottleneck a single GPU. It may become the weaker link, but it will be more than enough for most/all games. It will only be the bottleneck, when it alone will force the GPUs usage so low that the specific GPU being irrelevant beyond X in GPU intensive games, and this will not happen.

HD7870, HD7950, GTX 670 considering your PSU would be wise.

[Ron Burgundy]

i have no proof to back up my claims.

you want to put one of the best gpu's on the market into a very average (even below average build) and expect something amazing to happen, it won't. it's a waste of money and yes u will be bottlenecking urself very badly. even if u did decide to upgrade the gpu to a gtx 670/680 u would have to upgrade ur psu to a 550w min but 650 is recommended.

[VAenx]

you cant cash out with D3 all you can do is buy other blizzard games and stuff btw

[Deleted]

yes you can you can have the funds put into paypal

[Jerom]

Don't listen to people who will tell you that it will bottle neck your GPU, it's true but not as a big of a deal as they want you to believe. Strictly speaking for gaming I3 - 2100 is very good CPU here is a review from Tom's Hardware http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...mark,3120.html where they benchmarks 2100 with Radeon HD7970 which is roughly equal to GTX 670/680 we can see that games like BF 3 works the same with i5 or i3 while other games show just a minor fps in difference. To be crystal clear, different games have different demands from your computer, some demand graphical power some demand processing power. In most of the cases i3 - 2100 performs really well, in other it will perform less than perfect but still will put up a good fight.

A word of caution, everything I've said applies only to gaming, if you want to do video/audio recording/editing you might be unpleasantly surprised. And lastly, i3 is just dual core processor if you plan to multi task (willingly or unwillingly - like antivirus deciding to scan or windows decides it is a good idea to download and install updates now) while gaming your will get a performance hit and I'd suggest down the road upgraded to i5- 2400 or i5 -3450/3550.

[Nerph-]

you cant cash out with D3 all you can do is buy other blizzard games and stuff btw

So misinformed...

You can have your cash sent straight to paypal (for a 15% fee per sale if I understand it correctly), and from paypal you can send your money to your bank, so yes, you can cash out from D3.

[cyberarya]

Really appreciate the comments. So it sounds like that it would be a doable upgrade. And to answer who said that its not worth it to upgrade the gpu in such a low end rig, I do plan on trying to get this gfx card upgraded first and then down the line upgrade my CPU. And as for gaming, I do everything from FPS/MMO/RTS/RPG games on my computer. I'm not looking to get INSANE graphics on my games (more than is honestly needed.). Not to mention that I do game on a 1680x1050 monitor so I'm not going for full HD. As for thanks, really do appreciate the feedback Jerom and Tetrisgoat.

[DeltrusDisc]

i have no proof to back up my claims.

you want to put one of the best gpu's on the market into a very average (even below average build) and expect something amazing to happen, it won't. it's a waste of money and yes u will be bottlenecking urself very badly. even if u did decide to upgrade the gpu to a gtx 670/680 u would have to upgrade ur psu to a 550w min but 650 is recommended.

Completely untrue, as proven by Tetris and Jerom's comments.

An i3, while the "lower" Intel i-core processor, is still quite a strong process, being a 2 core, 4 thread CPU with a frequency of over 3GHz which we know with Sandy Bridge is actually pretty strong. No, average of below average would be a Sandy Bridge Gxxx CPU, and even those are fairly strong, though are not optimal for gaming. The OP would see great results with a stronger GPU for sure.

[n0cturnal]

i have no proof to back up my claims.

you want to put one of the best gpu's on the market into a very average (even below average build) and expect something amazing to happen, it won't. it's a waste of money and yes u will be bottlenecking urself very badly. even if u did decide to upgrade the gpu to a gtx 670/680 u would have to upgrade ur psu to a 550w min but 650 is recommended.

Funny how I run a overclocked i5 2500k and a overclocked gtx670 on my 450w psu.

[Musta Kyy]

Funny how I run a overclocked i5 2500k and a overclocked gtx670 on my 450w psu.

Same here, but it comes down to if you have a good or bad brand PSU, some cheap 450W PSUs are just terrible, thats why the recommended wattages are often 100-200W higher than really needed.
Before I bought my 560Ti last year I checked some benchmarks for my PSU and for 560Ti maximum power draws and realized that Im more than fine with my Corsair VX450.

[Gouca]

A proper 450W PSU can take care of a GTX 680 system

Guru3d:

System in IDLE = 144 W
System Wattage with GPU in FULL Stress = 307 W
Difference (GPU load) = 163 W
Add average IDLE wattage ~10 W
Subjective obtained GPU power consumption = ~ 173 Watts

Add 100W for extreme overclocking (i3 2100 doesn't OC though), 407W system drain < 450W PSU.

And no, i3-2100 is not a bottleneck to any GPU.

[Drunkenvalley]

It can be a bottleneck in the most ridiculous of things, but it's a useless concern imo. To me it's like being concerned it'll affect the weather.