I've looked online and cannot find a definite answer, so I thought I'd ask. I just ordered a GTX 970 as I wanted a better GPU for Fallout 4 and stuff like Skyrim modding. However, I still have an i3 3220. I only play at 1080p, I don't see that resolution changing anytime soon - high res doesn't matter to me, only smoothness. And I'm not likely to push graphics up to insane, ultra levels unless it yields 60fps majority of the time. I'm likely not going to buy another CPU for a year or so. Am I going to see any slowdown or 'bottlenecking' from my CPU? Realistic answers please.
The lack of CPU cores in some of the CPU intensive gamers may present an issue, but for the vast majority, your CPU should be fine.
It's mostly stuff like FO4 and Skyrim are the biggies. I'm expecting some slowdown with FO4, but I still expect to run it pretty smoothly. Skyrim though with that 3.5GB ram problem should be fine. I don't plan on running many games that need stupidly powerful CPU cores anyway. I could get a used 3570 next year when everyone is getting rid of them for Skylake, which would be cheaper.
You can pick up a 3570K for between £80 and £90 now. They won't get that much cheaper for a substantial while yet.
Yes it will. I used to run a I5 2400 locked and it savagely bottlenecked my 670s which I ran in SLI. Games like Crysis 3 really suffered, mostly due to the lame clock speeds of the 2400. I upgraded to a FX 8320 and even at stock my minimum FPS doubled on some levels. If only I could have overclocked the 2400... Your situation will be made worse of course due to the fact that you're missing the two extra cores. I know people rant on about how amazing I3s are and how they are able to outclass the FX 6300 in games but most of it is twisted misinformation and I would still take the 6300 over any I3. Time for an upgrade perhaps?
SLI 670s is a completely different beast to a single 970. I'm not saying you're wrong but I can't see an i3 being too much of a bottleneck except for really intensive CPU games. Yes a 6300 will match or outperform it but not massively. Also, I seriously doubt swapping an i5 2400 to an 8320 (alone) doubled your minimum FPS. He is fine for now, until he can afford an upgrade to an i5
I would have thought the 970 would be quite comparable to 670 SLI? It wasn't just upgrading to the 8320 that made the difference no, not at stock. However, once I had overclocked the 8320 to 4.7ghz it peed all over the 2400, running a measly 3ghz IIRC. And that's the issue with these I3s and locked I5s. Intel put a really lame derpy clock speed on them and you're stuck. So you'll suffer in games that only want a couple of threads at high clocks and also games that are multi threaded AND want clock speed. Crysis 3 is a very odd game. Some levels are GPU intensive and only really want a couple of cores but some are very highly threaded and rely quite heavily on the CPU, hence me going from unplayable FPS to very reasonable FPS.
