Ryzen 5 3600X vs Core i5-9600K vs Core i5-10600K vs Ryzen 7 3700X Bottleneck: RTX 3070 Analysis

Im building a second pc with some of my old parts. Will a asus gtx 960 turbo 4gb bottleneck a ryzen 5 3600x too much? 16gb of ram and an ssd aswell. I know the card is dated and was working well with most games except COD MW, which was my reason for updating the gpu. Thanks for reading. I already own the GPU.

Yes so you could go much lower with the CPU if you wanted to save money and don't need the increased CPU performance for non gaming tasks. 960 4GB is like 5 years old so a 5 year old CPU would already be enough.

its not going to be my main gaming pc as i have a 5700xt i5 build already. do you think the setup can play most games on medium settings? only reason why i dont want to get a weaker cpu is in a few years ill probably replace the 960 and get a better gpu. just wondering for right now how it will do

Yeah, it'll totally bottleneck it. An RTX 2060 will bottleneck it as well though, so just use the gpu you have if it's good enough for you.

If you haven't bought the CPU yet, you could go with a ryzen 3 or a 1600af/2600.

dang the cpu is that good. I just bought a 5700xt to pair with my i5 4690k and its working pretty good. the only reason i cant use the 5700xt withthe new gpu is that im building a Mini itx pc and that massive card will not fit lol.

I don’t know a lot of pc stuff, so you might need a second opinion but 4g of vram seems like very little and is definitely not future proof

i already own the gpu sorry I will edit that in

Its not ideal but low settings are your friend. Upgrade to say a 570 ASAP

I already own the gpu im trying to see how much im limiting the cpus potential

I am looking to upgrade my cpu soon and I am afraid that my gpu will bottleneck the cpu. Do you guys think that it’ll be fine or do I need to upgrade my gpu too? If i need to, what gpu will work well with the 3600x?

The 3600x is more than good enough for a rx580. I believe it is good enough for a 5600xt or 5700xt.

Can confirm. Rocking a rx580 myself and its solid all the way around.

Forgot to include that i have the same cpu..

Youre going to have a grand time my friend

You generally want your GPU to be the limiting factor in gaming.

It is impossible, outside of maybe some extreme corner cases, to upgrade a component and have the overall effect on performance be negative.

Hi guys. I'm planning to upgrade my gpu from gtx 1660 ti to rtx 2070. Will my R 5 3600x bottleneck rtx 2070?

I've upgraded from Radeon 570 XFX XXX to this GPU and it doesn't seem to improve FPS on AC Odyssey, modded Fallout 4 and Destiny 2. When I'm running those games the CPU usage hops around 70-99%. I just wanted to get input if this is normal. Thanks a lot for the help!

CPU- Ryzen 5 3600X 3.8 GHz 6-Core

Cooler- Corsair H150i Pro

Radiator Fans- ML120 Pro RGB

Mobo- MSI B450 Tomahawk Max

Ram- 2 Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 2x8 gb DDR4-3200 CL16

GPU- Asus Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB STRIX Gaming OC

PSU- Corsair RMx 850w 80+ Gold

No it cannot be a bottleneck and no it isn't normal , can't really help sorry , all i know is that that ain't normal

Maybe check to see if anything's running in the background? I doubt ac odyssey or destiny 2 would fully saturate 12 threads, open task manager and check what's using your cpu

hmm just checked the task manager and when not running any game the usage of CPU is only 10% but the memory is at 40% and I have 2x8 gb. Do you know if is a lot of memory usage when it's Idle? Got like 3 tabs of web browser, spotify, discord and steam opened.

If your CPU usage is at 99% and your GPU usage is low, then yes it's a bottleneck, but the 3600X should not be bottlenecking a 5700XT in most games.

im playing AC Origins on Ryzen 3100, the CPU is 70-80% which is normal. The CPU going to 100% for short periods is fine, it might be caching map and objects. If in game you are just standing in one space looking about, the usage should be 70-80%. Install MSI afterburner and set it to show all threads so you can see better how exactly it is utilised. Might be you have other tasks running in background besides the game?

mine is around 80-100% when standing still in a mildly crowded area but benchmark videos with AC Odyssey with my same combo has the CPU running only at 40% and thanks for the suggestion i'll try to download it and i'm not really running other stuff besides a web browser, steam etc. normal gamer stuff and the CPU usage when not running a game is only 10%.

Before changing anything, I would try a reinstall of Windows with up-to-date BIOS, GPU and chipset drivers installed. It could be a software/OS issue causing your issue.

I have a 3600 (non X) and a Gigabyte RX 5700 XT and it is such a wonderful combo that can crunch through almost anything. You should not see bad performane with this combo.

it is not normal, u have very bad 5700xt, u should go for sapphire nitro+ or powercolor red devil ones.

Do you mean I got a defective GPU? or the STRIX brand is bad? Thanks for the help.

hello , so i want to buy an rtx 2080 super but i dont really know if my pc can handle it

pc specs :

Ryzen 5 3600x

1 stick 16 gb ram 2600 hz

Aorus B450 pro

550 psu

512 gb ssd and 1 tb hdd

and i big ass cooler cuz ive had cpu temeprature problems before

would i need to upgrade my whole rig at this point ?

Prolly want to get 3200 ram I run 3600 and a 2070 super

You will never ever bottleneck a modern high-end GPU with a modern high-end CPU unless you're playing 1) very CPU intensive games, or 2) non-GPU intensive games at low settings and resolutions with Vsync off resulting in extremely high framerates.

My 3700x bottlenecks my 2080 super at 1440p in alot of games when over 120fps modern warfare division 2 pretty much any CPU heavy game it's pinging

Depends on the game/resolution/settings/card in question

If the cpu is at 100% and the gpu is at 100% at 1440p ultrawide.

Probably not, tho we still don't know the exact performance of those cards

We can’t test what we do not have, we won’t know for sure until they release.

Who knows? We are all in the dark, we know nothing about those cards.

Which one? 3080-3080ti not exactly, GPU at 1080p will be limited by cpu performance. If you play at 4K it doesn’t matter. If you are planning on buying $1000 GPU and play at 1080p you should consider buying faster cpu it matters more.

Yeah it probably will at 1080p for most games and 1440p for some games

Just saved up and purchased an RTX 2060 Super. I am currently using an i5-8400 processor and expect bottleneck issues, and plan on upgrading to an i5-9600K since I don't have enough to replace my Intel motherboard. Will the 9600K solve any bottlenecking issues I encounter with my current CPU? Thanks.

A motherboard that came with my prebuilt and an i5-8400

They will work perfectly together. They are well matched.

No point in getting a 9600k if you don't have a mobo to support an OC and a cooler to handle the temps. So you're going to be throwing more money down than you'll want for a pretty insignificant performance amount.

Assuming you can't OC the 9600k at all, it's like 15% faster at base clock speeds, which probably isn't worth it at this time.

The 8400 is a fine chip and it's probably not going to be your bottleneck anyway.

Obviously it’s not perfect, but it gives an idea of what card is a good pairing with I5 9600k for gaming.

Thanks :)

You came to the right place lol.

9600k at 5.2GHz, 5.1GHz when AVX is active. 1080TI, overclocked on a curve, mostly running 2000-2012 MHz on the core. 6000 on the memory.

Playing on a 1440p240 monitor. All games in 2560x1440.

I get 300-400 fps in CSGO (fps_max 400), completely zero issues. Can rarely drop to 270. 50% CPU usage, 50% GPU usage.

220-380 fps in Valorant. Drops below 240 in firefights with abilities. I also talked to a Valorant dev, they're saying that my fps is what's expected from my overclocked CPU. GPU doesn't even boost to its max clocks in this game, completely CPU-limited. I can make my GPU to boost higher if I set the graphics settings to maximum, but FPS is completely the same.

I also play Overwatch, 270 fps on average, drops to 220 rarely, usually 240-300 fps. 85% GPU load, 90% CPU load.

I have Warzone but haven't played it, if you really need it, I can benchmark it. I also have Apex and PUBG which I don't play.

80-100 fps in Witcher 3, but that's completely GPU-limited.

Basically, for 1080p a 1070/2060 will be enough. For 1440p you might want to get a 1080-1080ti/2080-2080S.

Keep in mind that right now is a terrible time to buy a new GPU.

Bench AC Odyssey lmao. 100% CPU usage 60% GPU usage is very likely.

[email protected] 1.37

That's a hot boi. what cooler you running?

Thanks so much for the info. Your right, I don’t think it’s worth upgrading g card during current world events. I think I’m just gonna sell my rig in a few years, and build a new one.

I can’t help but notice your name, I think you’ve helped me out before idk. Do you browse r/overclocking , and r/techsupport a lot?

My graphics card currently is a gtx 1080ti, I've been gaming on 1440p since I got my 9600k late last year. Is this CPU okay for another 2 or 3 more years? My intent is to get a top end card in the future (like the rtx 3080 or whatever it is 2 or 3 years later) since i'm gaming at 1440p.

I've noticed that some of the RPG games I play like AC: Odyssey or Kingdom Come Deliverance are maxing out all 6 cores of my CPU (as per task manager) while keeping my graphics card at 85 to 95% (as per MSi afterburner) though there are times where it also maxes out at 100% gpu usage.

My frames aren't so bad right now, on quick/rough 'benchmark' i did, those 2 games for example i'm getting 60 to 80 fps on the highest presets

A lot can happen in 2-3 years. There really is no way of knowing if that cpu will be good for high end gpu's in the forseeable future. Either way, it might age well to an mid-level cpu.

Only games which are CPU heavy may hold you back. So imo I would say you are fine for the next few years.

I'm on the 8700k and intend to keep it for another 2-3 years myself. Got a 1080ti that I will be upgrading relatively soon tho.

As a gamer you care about smooth and responsive gameplay. Usage % doesn't affect your experience anyhow, so don't think that much about it.

Also, try RTSS framerate limiting to stabilise frametimes. Ideally, you want neither your CPU nor GPU above 90% during the gameplay.

Bottlenecks depend on how your using the hardware, 9600k can be a bottleneck if the workload is too CPU heavy since it’s only 6c/6t. OCing can help get more out of it before needing a higher tier chip

For most games it’s fine, it got just enough cores currently. And the clocks are some of the highest at default speeds, not going to let you down but look into OC, get a good cooler, and some good TIM

This. Bottlenecks are software dependent. Certain games and settings will see more frames with a better chip or faster clock. People use bottleneck as a catchall term for what cpu's and gpu's make sensible combos or not but there's more going on than that. This is a good combo. You could still technically bottleneck. Probably not a big deal. There are CPU intense games like Total War the 9600k would bottleneck even on a GTX1080. The flat out no's are wrong plain and simple.