Best CPU for 4K gaming 2080ti @ 60fps

[Rubycube99]

I currently have i5-8400 and a recent benchmark says it's causing a 30% benchmark. Unacceptable! 😉

Not looking for the best going, just the appropriate jump to shave off that bottleneck.

Any suggestions?

 

[Oussebon]

What benchmark? It's probably talking utter garbage. Based on the fact it claims there is a bottleneck in % form...

The performance difference between any half decent CPU at 4k is generally minuscule.

What games are you playing at 4k?

 

[Slasken]

Ryzen 3600 - 3700x are fine for 60 fps gaming.

 

[Oussebon]

So's an 8400

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Hi. I have to agree its not worth an upgrade. As display resolution goes up the GPU becomes more of the bottleneck. Your only drop in upgrade option from what you have is an 8700K, but the gains will be negligible.

Your other option is to spend out on a whole new motherboard and CPU combo, and I doubt you'd notice a difference if you played it side by side with your current set up.

What benchmark are you talking about anyway?





https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/intel-i5-8400-review-the-best-new-gaming-cpu-in-years/

 

[Rubycube99]

Thanks for the responses!

- I mostly play Heroes of the Storm but I want to be proofed for any decent next-gen/AAA/ray-tracing game like Cyberpunk
- Benchmark was from Tomb Raider, where it says GPU bound 65%
- Also another site which I can't remember said something like 30% CPU bottleneck, where anything above 10% is an official bottleneck
- Happy with my 4k 60fps g-sync, but hitting that 60 with 2080ti isn't always guaranteed

 

[Zoid]

Thanks for the responses!

- I mostly play Heroes of the Storm but I want to be proofed for any decent next-gen/AAA/ray-tracing game like Cyberpunk
- Benchmark was from Tomb Raider, where it says GPU bound 65%
- Also another site which I can't remember said something like 30% CPU bottleneck, where anything above 10% is an official bottleneck
- Happy with my 4k 60fps g-sync, but hitting that 60 with 2080ti isn't always guaranteed

Percentage bottlenecks aren't really a thing, so if there's a site saying that an i5-8400 is a "30% bottleneck" on a 2080ti, ignore it.

Resolution and graphical effects like ray-tracing are GPU-bound, so CPU won't matter for those. The GPU handles fancy pretty visuals, and the CPU handles things like physics, AI, etc. (that's a massive simplification but you get the idea).

What performance were you getting in Tomb Raider? The best way to measure whether or not you have a bottleneck is to just monitor your performance in -game using something like MSI Afterburner. If you are seeing that your CPU is constantly maxed out at 100% utilization while you are getting less than desired performance, then that is when you want to think about a CPU upgrade. If not, it's not causing a bottleneck.

 

[Oussebon]

Obviously this doesn't show things like 1% lows and it can vary game-to-game, etc etc etc, but as an illustration of the relative difference between a 'good' CPU vs a 'great' CPU at 4k:

Intel Core i9-9900KS Review - Impressive 5 GHz

The Core i9-9900KS is Intel's new consumer flagship processor. It runs at 5 GHz boost no matter how many cores are active, which translates into 10% application performance gained over the 9900K. Gaming performance is improved too, but pricing is high, especially compared to what AMD is offering.

www.techpowerup.com

That's like a 2% performance difference average between an i5 8400 and an i9 9900KS

Websites claiming to give automated analysis of your CPU/GPU bottlenecks should be ignored as it's essentially made up. Even some sites that seem like benchmarks like Userbenchmark are at best junk and at worst misleading.

As for TR (ROTTR? SOTTR?) being GPU bound 'only' 65% of the time, it depends what that means. If it means that the game runs at (e.g.) 90 fps 35% of the time and that is when you are CPU bound, there's no need or real benefit to eliminating that CPU 'bottleneck'. Especially when you're on a 60hz monitor. Because it's not the CPU causing choppy gaming.

As for future-proofing versus next-gen titles, the best way to do that is to wait for next gen hardware.

If the gaming experience itself is fine - and if most of the framerate drops you get are GPU-related anyway (as they would tend to be at 4k) - stick to your current system and wait for future games to actually be a problem before buying new stuff. By which time there will be newer stuff to buy.

Edit: typo

 

[Rubycube99]

Thanks everyone, really appreciate the answers.... you saved me wasting a few hundred quid!

I'll put it into some sweet 2.1 speakers instead.

Peace xx

 

[Oussebon]

Enjoy the speakers 🙂

 

[Rcher4lifE517]

I was wondering what a good graphics card would to go with in a pre build setup the total budget for the pc is $1000. Id like 4k if possible

 

[Oussebon]

Probably best to stick to a single topic (the other one you made here: https://forums.pcgamer.com/threads/...ld-like-some-peoples-advice-please-help.2946/) rather than hijacking this one. I'll reply in the other topic.