Will an i3 4150 bottleneck and reduce FPS? What about an i7 4790k?

I currently have an i3 4150 that I bought to use with my Oculus rift cv1. It works fine for most games, but usually runs in ATW mode meaning there is an obvious bottleneck.

Should I even attempt to play with an i3 4150 when I get a pimax? I currently don’t have a lot of money and can only afford to upgrade my cpu to an i7 4790k… will that make a big difference?

I have a 1080 gtx that I bought two years ago in anticipation that I would need a new system (I didn’t have a GPU for two years and my last gpu wasn’t good enough for the cv1. I was going to buy the i7 4790k but decided not to because the performance was acceptable for most games with the i3 4150).

I am planning on mostly playing old games (Doom 3 BFG, Half Life 2 VR, Skyrim VR, the VorpX supported games) but I might play newer games released next year. Will the 1080gtx and i7 4790k be able to handle the pimax and play those games smoothly?

I’m not expecting the newest and most graphic intensive games to run smoothly or be even playable but I have very high expectations that the old games will run at least at the fps of the final refresh rate of the headset. Is this unrealistic?

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I’m sure an i3 will reduce your FPS in some games. How much? I think it depends on the game. A 1080 will probably be OK, but you may need to reduce the in-game graphics quality. Again, it will depend on the game.

I currently have an older, somewhat slower i7 and a 980Ti. I plan to make do, until the 1180Ti is available (probably late this year or early next year). Until I upgrade, your system performance will probably be roughly comparable to mine.

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I have an i5 6500 & did pick up an i7 4790(no k). If you can find one used cheap would reccommend doing that upgrade for better experience.

But there is no harm in waiting & trying before deciding.

It shouldn’t affect your framerate anymore than it currently does as the pimax upgrades will almost entirely be GPU dependent as its “just” higher res screens. BUT i dont know if pimax will have ATW so you don’t have that to rely on, so it could end up much worse than what you currently experience

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YES , it makes an huge difference, especially on a high end GPU like the 1080 , if you plan to move on serious VR experience, forget the i3 and Ryzen3, they slow down the medium to high end cards A LOT

When I was working in the lab, I had the chance to test almost any type of hardware and the low end CPU’s made really a big impact on the upper-mid to high end GPU’s, even more than faster ram modules did, and it was easily visible running a 3DMark, with numbers as much lower than 30% on the same GPU.

My advice is, go for the best CPU you can afford for the money, even a high clock Ryzen5 is far better than i3 for removing the bottleneck on a GPU like the 1080, if you was having…say a GTX 1050, things would not have been so dramatic and different…but on a 1080 it is entirely another matter.

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True especially with dx11 titlles. Once dx 12 & vulkan gain more adoption cpu bottlenecking the gpu will be considerably less to none.

Damnit. I have a 1080ti but a i5-3570K, not overclocked (yet). Would that negatively impact my 1080ti experience?

As a recent 1080 ti owner with an i5 6500 haven’t noticed an issue but only had it a week. :wink::beers:

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Somewhat. It’s better than an i3, for sure. It will mostly depend on the particular games you want to play. You’ll likely need to reduce the in-game graphics quality a bit.

The thing is, because of the high resolution and FOV, an 8K will be very demanding, especially if you want to play games at the highest quality level with a 80+ Hz refresh and a good level of super-sampling.

I have an older i7-4770 at 3.4 GHz, 16 GB ram, and a 980Ti, which I plan to replace with an 1180Ti, once they are available. Even then, I’m concerned that I’ll need to upgrade my CPU (and motherboard) to get the kind of performance I want.

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Thanks. I guess I’ll just wait for my 8K and see if there’s a real need to upgrade then.

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I think that’s the smart approach. :+1:

I’ll do the same thing with my 980Ti. If I can’t stand it, I’ll get a 1080Ti or an 1180 (depending on what’s available). The only game I really care about at this point is Elite Dangerous and I’m sure I’ll be able to play it on my current system. The question is: At what quality settings?

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I don’t understand why Elite is so demanding on GPU, it’s so simple compared to other games in terms of what’s going on in front of you.

I have 6600k oc 4.4 ghz with 1080ti and works fine for me. I ll wait for next gen cpu since upgrade now would mean new motherboard as well.

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Guessing with the 6600k it’s an i7? The i7 7790 i picked up was a steal. Around here the average price is $250 to $300 used. Got it for $150 with 16g ddr3 1600. (Didn’t know the price included the ram) :heart_eyes: but looks like tye z97 itx board might be a dud. Grrr. Lol

Thats dam good price . I live 20 minutes from microcenter store and they usually have good deals on cpu/ mobo combos…open box etc. …going to wait till 8k shows up at doorstep and see how performs with setup. Im sure your enjoying that 1080ti helio!

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@John1080gtx If I was in your hardware position I will change whole mobo , ram and CPU for brand new mobo with Z370 chipset + 3000hz ram + i7800k , with this rig you can even double your FPS in some games with heavy math/phisic e.g sim games .

Its not worth to buy used i7 4xxx series as you still stay with low OC and slow ram

An old i3, no I woulnd’t bother.

My i5 4690k was limiting my frame rate stability significantly on the 980ti, Upgraded to an i7 4790k which was a little bit better but not by a lot, then I popped in a 1080ti, which did allow cranking some settings but I still limited hard on the CPU

Didn’t unlock my 1080ti until I completely swapped it all for an i7 8700k with 16GB of 3200mhz RAM.
VR really likes an updated platform and there new features outside of just cores and clocks on ddr4 chipsets and cpu’s VR take great benefit from.

And an i3 has neither cores nor clocks.
I would hazard a guess your CPU is holding back at least 60% of your GPU as is.

The 1080 ti costed $1072 with taxes Canadian. The cpu & ram was the steal at $150.

Yeah…figured 1080ti would be some serious coin…but it is beast of a gpu…

It affects the most important FPS for VR. Minim framerate. I went from an allready pretty fast i7 3770k that was overclocked to 4.6ghz to a i7 8700k that is running at 5.2ghz (pretested chip). The difference is not night and day but it is a difference even when using a Vive with supersampling. It’s powering a Titan X (Pascal).

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