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Best CPU for MSI GTX 980 Ti Gaming

Which CPU series is the best for a GTX 980 Ti?

  • 4th gen i5

  • 4th gen i7


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Hi all,
I will buy an MSI GTX 980 Ti Gaming soon, and I would like to replace my CPU for it as well. Which is the best (and the cheapest) solution (just for gaming), which I can reach 100% of the GPU performance with? Is a stronger i5 enough, or do I need an i7 (for example i7-4771)?
Thanks,
hazazs
 
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I don't think you have to replace it. Just overclock the hell out of it and you're good to go. I'm getting a GTX 980 (not Ti though) and I'll be keeping my Core i7 920. With 4.2 GHz, I think it still has enough grunt to run GTX 980. Seeing how you have a way newer CPU, you should be fine. Just OC it. Investing in a decent cooler or AiO is still a lot cheaper and would bring you tons of power.

But that's how I'd do it, well, how I am doing it ;) For me, only logical way of upgrading is 6 or even an 8 core +HT and I think the same applies to you...
 
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I don't think you have to replace it. Just overclock the hell out of it and you're good to go. I'm getting a GTX 980 (not Ti though) and I'll be keeping my Core i7 920. With 4.2 GHz, I think it still has enough grunt to run GTX 980. Seeing how you have a way newer CPU, you should be fine. Just OC it. Investing in a decent cooler or AiO is still a lot cheaper and would bring you tons of power.

But that's how I'd do it, well, how I am doing it ;) For me, only logical way of upgrading is 6 or even an 8 core +HT and I think the same applies to you...

"Sadly" I have a non K version of i5-4570 right now, so OC is not a possible way. The B85 chipset on my MOBO hasn't any OC potential either. That is why I thought that the only logical solution (and a logical step from i5) is buying a non K i7. But maybe I'm wrong.
 
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your i5-4570 good enought, you dont need to upgrade your cpu, it wont throttle with gtx 980ti.

My second gen i7 2600k, still good enogught for the gtx 980ti.
 
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upgrading to an i7 won't give you any gains in performance to justify the price IMHO. You would be better off upgrading your MB and CPU and OC'ing, but I don't think that would be worth the cost either.
 
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I've tried Killing Floor 2 running Core i7 920 at stock and could hardly notice any difference between that and the current 4,2GHz OC. It may be different in other games, but I just keep it at 4,2GHz just because I can and gives we warm and fuzzy feeling. Mostly warm since it's churning out heat like mad, but hey XD
 
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Thank you guys, but then I have a question:
Why are i7 processors in recommended system requirements at some games? Just for marketing purposes to buy a new one?
 
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Thank you guys, but then I have a question:
Why are i7 processors in recommended system requirements at some games? Just for marketing purposes to buy a new one?
Mostly because some game companies just advertise the need for the extra threads as a reason for the i7. In reality they make little to no difference in most games (very few exceptions from my experience) and can sometimes even hinder it. Its mostly like saying "We support extra threads" in some cases or the company is just saying to put in the higher clocked CPU (Since the highest i7 for instance is higher than the fastest i5 at stock). An i5 is plenty and I do not see much if any reason to upgrade your current CPU as someone stated above you can still be on something like an i7 920 at 4.0ghz and run every game possible at ultra with no problems.

If you do want to upgrade though, I would get a nice Z97 motherboard and an unlocked i5. Bump it to 4.5ghz and keep it for the next 5+ years!
 
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I voted for i7, if you can afford a GTX980ti! :p
 

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Personally, I don't think you'll need to upgrade your CPU at all. It should have no trouble feeding your 980Ti.
 
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If you do want to upgrade though, I would get a nice Z97 motherboard and an unlocked i5. Bump it to 4.5ghz and keep it for the next 5+ years!

It's OK, but for example a Z97 MOBO and i5-4670K cost more than i7-4771.
 
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4790k, or wait for 6790k and go DDR4 too. Stock speed is 4GHz on both.
 
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It would be fine at stock speed @4ghz, wouldn't it?

Well, nothing would be wrong with it, but it's an expense that simply isn't needed, especially if your board cannot overclock.
 
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Why some games recommend (insert random component) is because there may be underwater deals with Intel, there may be a very slight performance advantage on an i7, or because recommended specs for games are generally a list of supremely coated bullshit.

99% of the time, it's the latter.

Don't get an i7 for gaming, it's a total waste. Don't upgrade your i5 right now, you aren't bottlenecking anything. I have an i5 3570k sitting at stock in 2015 and not bottlenecking in any game I can play. I've had an SLI setup on this CPU and no bottleneck either.

In the near future (and already in some select games) multithreading is definitely getting used more and more, as consoles now also work with 8 threads it is economically viable to start building games for it. TW3 is a good example. But even then, 4 physical cores is still the optimal choice. The additional cores or threads will mostly be used for other threads outside your game, allowing full performance for the game threads.

If you use FRAPS (but, on Nvidia, you'd probably go for Shadowplay which is far less cpu intensive) an i7 shows its value when recording in-game. Other than that, keep money in your pocket.

CPU performance has been taking baby steps forward ever since Sandy Bridge (2xxx), no need to upgrade at all if you have i5.
 
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The reason I thought that the CPU is the weakest point in my rig, that it has "only" 7,6 in windows experience index. Memory has 7,8 and VGA has 7,9.
On the other hand I have read, that an overclocked i7 doesn't reach 7,9 either.
 
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Don't trust those numbers, trust your own experience with your rig. If you experience a bottleneck with your cpu, it is time to think about upgrading. In general though, these days CPU is the very last thing that could bottleneck a system, especially for gaming. Same goes for system RAM - DDR4 for example is not worth investing in at all for regular systems.
 
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Don't trust those numbers, trust your own experience with your rig. If you experience a bottleneck with your cpu, it is time to think about upgrading. In general though, these days CPU is the very last thing that could bottleneck a system, especially for gaming. Same goes for system RAM - DDR4 for example is not worth investing in at all for regular systems.

And how could I experience the CPU bottleneck? I mean, If a game has FPS drops, how do I know what causes it (CPU or VGA)? Should I monitor my CPU usage, and when it is 100%, then I will know I have to upgrade?
For example: At the moment I have i5-4570, 8GB RAM and R9 280X. When I played Assassins Creed 3 (fullHD, max settings) it runs generally with fix 60fps, but sometimes only with 30-50 (mostly in the thickit forest or in the city with lot of NPCs. In this case what component should I upgrade? Or is the game simply not well optimalized?
 
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The reason I thought that the CPU is the weakest point in my rig, that it has "only" 7,6 in windows experience index. Memory has 7,8 and VGA has 7,9.
On the other hand I have read, that an overclocked i7 doesn't reach 7,9 either.
That is not a good assessment of performance. In gaming most of the time what matters is the core to core performance and the first two cores are usually the most important. You can actually get even a chip like the Pentium G3258, overclock it to 4.5ghz, and not get a bottleneck (Or much of one) on it (Which its a dual core chip). That being said games are starting to want 4 cores so its better to at least have 4 cores available which means i5 territory.

The real difference between an i5 and an i7 is hyperthreading (Not including clock speeds and a few implementations for devs) which really does not help gaming much at all. Your better off with an i5 o nthe ZXX platform for gaming (Like what you currently have) than investing in an i7 unless you have a need for the threads in something like Adobe. If you really want an i7, I would more suggest getting a X99 platform 6 core (Like the 5820K) because you get 6 actual cores and 12 threads which would be more beneficial in the long run (I am not saying you need to get one, just saying if your going to upgrade I would say go for a bigger upgrade).
 
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I'd recommend a Xeon Processor.
I bought a E3-1230 v2 back in the days. It's basically an i7. Only differences are: iGPU deactivated (hence less TDP), no OC.
But since I didn't plan on overclocking the cpu anyways (and there is still no need to do so) I basically got an i7 for two thirds of the price (200 vs 300 €), which was by far the best performance/€ you could get at that time.

Pretty sure the performance/€ situation hasn't changed all that much.
 
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Xeon is a very good choice as well if you want hyperthreading on a gaming system. Great price/perf ratio.

A CPU Bottleneck shows as cpu utilization= 100% while GPU utilization is NOT 100%. This is the simplest scenario. But it is not easy to detect because some games are like you say, badly optimized and can make you draw the wrong conclusions.

My rule of thumb: never upgrade for a single game, always get another game as a 'second opinion'.
 

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System Name Tower of Power / Sechs
Processor i7 14700K / i7 5820k @ 4.5ghz
Motherboard ASUS ROG Strix Z690-A Gaming WiFi D4 / X99S GAMING 7
Cooling CM MasterLiquid ML360 Mirror ARGB Close-Loop AIO / CORSAIR Hydro Series H100i Extreme
Memory CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4 3600 / G.Skill DDR4 2800 16GB 4x4GB
Video Card(s) ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 Ti / ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3070 V2 OC Edition
Storage 4x Samsung 980 Pro 1TB M.2, 2x Crucial 1TB SSD / Samsung 870 PRO 500GB M.2
Display(s) Samsung 32" Odyssy G5 Gaming 144hz 1440p, ViewSonic 32" 72hz 1440p / 2x ViewSonic 32" 72hz 1440p
Case Phantek "400A" / Phanteks “Enthoo Pro series”
Audio Device(s) Realtek ALC4080 / Azalia Realtek ALC1150
Power Supply Corsair RM Series RM750 / Corsair CXM CX600M
Mouse Glorious Gaming Model D Wireless / Razer DeathAdder Chroma
Keyboard Glorious GMMK with box-white switches / Keychron K6 pro with blue swithes
VR HMD Quest 3 (128gb) + Rift S + HTC Vive + DK1
Software Windows 11 Pro x64 / Windows 10 Pro x64
Benchmark Scores Yes
I'd just buy the 980 ti and try it out on your current rig. Then test it out with your games. If it plays everything around or above 60fps, and I'm sure it will because you are only using a1080p 60hz monitor. I wouldn't worry about upgrading until DDR4 is more main stream. That card shouldn't have a problem with any Intel i5 quad core processor over 3ghz. Higher is always better, but even at 4ghz you're only taking about 2 to 3 frames extra. Now, if you had a dual core then I would suggest getting a quad core i5 or i7. I saw a big performance boost when I went from an i3 4150 to an i7 4770 non k in all of my newer games with my GTX970 GAMING. I wanted the ht cores for compiling code, and not for gaming was the only reason I didn't pick an i5. :toast:
 
Joined
Dec 31, 2009
Messages
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Benchmark Scores Faster than yours... I'd bet on it. :)
A CPU Bottleneck shows as cpu utilization= 100% while GPU utilization is NOT 100%. This is the simplest scenario. But it is not easy to detect because some games are like you say, badly optimized and can make you draw the wrong conclusions.
That isn't always true though. That would be true in a lot of extreme situations... say 980ti and a Athlon 64/P4... BUt not with any halfway modern processor. I have seen plenty of times where my CPU isn't running 100% and my GPU is pegged (like it normally should be with most modern games at 1080p) and overclocking the CPU yields higher FPS. This happens quite a bit with 2 GPUs. Overclocking will yield more FPS in a lot of titles in that situation (not the OPs but... figured it was worth the mention).

Test it with a few titles and see for yourself. :)
 
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