On Core i5 bottlenecking

Sure, a good Core i5 is going to be more than you'll ever need for regular gaming.

That is until you actually decide to play one of a huge variety of surprisingly CPU intensive games.


For reference, I have a relatively high end Core i5-4690 paired with an EVGA GTX 970 FTW with a 1080p 144 Hz monitor and according to post after post online I should never run into any CPU bottlenecks because single core performance doesn't get much better and games don't really use that many threads. Right?

Anandtech's benchmarks say that my processor is the best CPU based on the Haswell architecture or earlier to run a game like Battlefield 4 with a similar GPU to mine.

Tom's hardware remarks:

"Top-end CPUs offer rapidly diminishing returns when it comes to gaming performance. As such, we have a hard time recommending anything more expensive than the Core i5-6600K"

TechSpot benchmarks show no significant difference in Battlefield 4 performance with a 290X between a core i3-3220 and a core i7-4960X.

Logical Increments still recommends a similar caliber CPU to mine (Core i5-6600) for GPUs a decent bit more powerful than mine such as a R9 Fury.

And /r/buildapc notes in their wiki:

"[i5s] are currently the most popular CPU for high end gaming as the performance benefit of an i7 is negligible and not worth the price increase for many people."


After reading these comments from a large variety of very reputable sources in the PC building community one might be inclined to purchase a $200-$250 Core i5 rather than dishing out another $100 for a "negligible" performance improvement in "high end gaming".

The problem is that in everything I've tested in extremely popular games such as Battlefield 4, Rainbow Six Siege, Grand Theft Auto V, and Civilization V prove that my processor is woefully inadequate for the task.


Some anecdotes from my experience include Battlefield 4 running at roughly the same frame-rate (within 5%) running at the minimum preset verses the high preset. Looking at the Rivatuner overlay I see that on minimum settings my GPU is running at <60% usage the entire time. This is the clear marker of a CPU bottleneck.

Playing Rainbow Six Siege results in similar trends. I am unable to push the frame-rate of the game above about 125 Fps at 1080p regardless of the settings I choose. Another notable symptom is the fact that all four cores of my Core i5-4690 are pinned at 100% CPU usage the entire time I'm playing the game.

Civilization V takes its sweet time to process the AI once you get a few turns into a game.

Also, Grand Theft Auto V which was released initially in 2011 refuses to run over 100 Fps on my computer no matter what I've tried.

God forbid I try to download something in Steam when I play Battlefield 4 because instead of 100-150 Fps, I'm suddenly running a stutter filled mess at less than 45 Fps.


I've attached some screenshots in Rainbow Six Siege below with a RivaTuner overlay.

I also have reports from others like /u/UN1203who remarks that:

"Hey so the results are in and I have to say I was wrong, and you might be on to something. I was seeing FPS scaling all the way up to my max overclock of 4.8ghz on a 6600k. Here are the pics for you.
2.5ghz
3.5ghz
4.8ghz

I could not get back to the same spot for screenshot 3 because the map had changed, but I picked the spot on the map where my sustained fps was the lowest.
Ultimately I don't really remember what it was like to play BF4 at anything under 4.4-4.5ghz and I didn't figure it would scale at all after the 3.9ghz your chip puts out but it certainly does. So it looks like it's upgrade time for you my friend. Get more cores or get to overclocking... If cost is not a major concern for you as you say, wait for the broadwell-e to drop, put that bitch under water, and let her stretch her legs at 4.5ghz+, that will be an absolute monster. And with BF5 coming out soon you will want all the firepower you can get."

I'm stuck with this huge disparity between the information I'm given and the results I'm experiencing and finding the solution for this beyond my knowledge. I see massive stagnation in the high end enthusiast processor market with Broadwell-E failing to improve the performance per dollar rate over Haswell-E and even failing to improve maximum performance when overclocking according to a decent number of reports.

I guess I'll try upgrading to a core i7-5820k and hope that does the trick and I'll let you guys now how that turns out.

Thanks for reading.

Edit:
Some people are asking for a full spec. list so here it is:

Intel Core i5-4690
Gigabyte GA-Z97-HD3P
EVGA GTX 970 FTW
Windows 10 64-bit Professional
HyperX 16GB 1866MHz DDR3
Samsung 850 Evo 512GB
Acer GN246HL 1080p144Hz
Roccat Ryos MK Cherry MX Black
Coolermaster Recon
Blue Yeti
Fiio E10K
Sennheiser HD598 Special Edition

Edit 2:

I've read comments talking about how clearly I'm an idiot and there must be some other program in the background ruining my performance, Windows 10 is the spawn of Satan and idles the processor, and that I should just be happy getting around 100 Fps and just give up on expecting a locked 144 Fps on new games. I love how people love to condescend and spout "user error" on anything that makes them consider some other person's reality.

My response is simple, I'm not content with "good enough". I want and expect great performance with great hardware and I value smooth and responsive game-play above all else.


I understand that adaptive-sync will help but 100 Fps is 100 Fps. I want 144 Hz or higher.

I'd also like to clarify that BF4 stuttering while downloading from Steam is entirely due to CPU usage. I'm downloading to a different drive, my internet is fast enough, and I have more than enough RAM.