Will RTX 2070 work with my i5 6600 processor?

[Papahyooie]

I'm sorry, but it's you who is wrong here.
A bottleneck happens when one component holds another one back (it cannot feed it fast enough). The scenario that you keep referring to is not a bottleneck: today's GPUs simply cannot deliver 144fps in most tiles, period. No CPU bottleneck involved.

I play all of my games at greater than 144fps every day. I don't want to make this personal, but you don't know what you're talking about.

Can today's GPUs get 144hz in most titles at 4k? No.
Can they at 1080p? Abso-freaking-lutely.

So again... you simply are not accounting for the situations where a bottleneck can occur. You are wrong. Plain and simple. And as such, you are misguiding the OP.

 

[Vayra86]

Hello I've ordered an RTX 2070 and I'm wondering if it will work properly with i5 6600 processor, I've heard that hardware can bottleneck and I'm curious to see if this will happen and what affects this has on gaming, I'm quite new to PC's so any advice would be helpful.

Yes. Anything over GTX 1070 performance means you lose some of it due to lacking CPU grunt, broadly speaking. 4C/4T also does not suffice for stable frametimes, in other words, games can stutter.

Whether this is a problem comes down to your desired performance /FPS target per game; and how much you like actually using what you've paid for. A rig that is well balanced between CPU/GPU/RAM/Storage is more cost effective than one with a fat GPU but lacking CPU. The upside to lacking balance is that you can easily move a faster GPU to a new rig. No need to upgrade all at once.

 

[lexluthermiester]

4C/4T also does not suffice for stable frame times, in other words, games can stutter.

Depends greatly on the game and quality/driver settings selected. However, an i5-6600 is not an ancient CPU. If my X5680(which is two architectures older) can keep a 2080 fed with data at 120hz, an i5-6600 will work fine with a 2070. The OP has already been given good advice about recommended settings.

 

[ppn]

4/4 means 66% gpu load in many titles. yes 6/6 will probably keep it fed. 120 fps is doable only in esports I guess. there will be a limit, for example with 4/4 drops to 40 fps in some places and i could improve it to 50 fps 1080p medium settings stuck on 40% gpu load, to get 99% load had to run on 4K.

 

[Vayra86]

Depends greatly on the game and quality/driver settings selected. However, an i5-6600 is not an ancient CPU. If my X5680(which is two architectures older) can keep a 2080 fed with data at 120hz, an i5-6600 will work fine with a 2070. The OP has already been given good advice about recommended settings.

Does not depend on driver or quality settings at all but on engine and game logic you can never get around. In the vast majority of games and especially in newer titles since 2016-2017 anything that can, will be offloaded to GPU The things that can't, tend to struggle when there are only 4 threads available at any one time. This is not new. It should not surprise you anymore nor should it be a discussion.

A 6600 is not only a bottleneck in the sense that a 2070 can push way higher frames with a faster CPU in the exact same setting, but it also lacks the threads when the CPU load gets higher and especially in regular use case system that has multiple other background processes besides the game going on. Again, this isn't news and its time to accept that quads are well below optimal for ANY gaming rig.

Yes, any. Even with midranged GPUs you can and will feel the impact of lacking thread counts. Its not rocket science; consoles have been using more threads for quite some time now, and like VRAM demands, thread count demands have also risen to console levels; 6GB is recommended nowadays, and 6 threads are no luxury. Will it run with less? Yes. But not smoothly and it is irrelevant it works 'in many games', the moments you get annoyed is when it won't work well in a few of them with GPU grunt to spare. And it gets worse, not better, over time.

Your X5680 has a different 6c12t thread count and is not comparable in the slightest. You have literally 3x as many threads to get work done. I speak from the experience of a quadcore Intel user in 2016. I can show you a bench to underline this (been done quite a few times already, mind, but you must have missed it)

Sub 60 fps. GTX 1080. 3570k @ 4.3 quad versus 8700k 6c12t, below. Tell me again there isn't a bottleneck Note the thread load as well; the 8700K has five major loads on a core (I omit the HT 'cores' in RTSS), not four. Take special note of the two deep caverns in bench number one - they vanished in number two. Note also that despite sub 100% loads per core, FPS is still heavily limited.

Besides, about 'generations', the only meaningful bonus the 6600 has, is DDR4. Architecturally there isn't much since Haswell to matter for a tangible gap in IPC. And higher clocks will never compensate for a lack of thread count when those threads are ever needed concurrently. Which is what is happening today.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Does not depend on driver or quality settings at all but on engine and game logic you can never get around.

Nonsense. While the game engine does factor in, an i5-6600 is not currently troubled greatly by many games. The rest of your comment is tailor-made to support your point, simply not objective. Additionally, your pictured examples don't match each other and don't identify the CPU's being tested. Dubious at best.

 

[Vayra86]

Nonsense. While the game engine does factor in, an i5-6600 is not currently troubled greatly by many games. The rest of your comment is tailor-made to support your point, simply not objective. Additionally, your pictured examples don't match each other and don't identify the CPU's being tested. Dubious at best.

Hey, if you want to live in a 4 year old reality, suit yourself man. But you can pick up any bench elsewhere and see similar results.

These screens are my own, so you'll have to excuse me for not writing a full review around it. What you do have is the timestamp in the filename of these screens. Pre and post upgrade, jan 2018. The performance uplift however is being enjoyed daily whether you believe it or not

This is probably also entirely not objective and tailor made

CPU-Tests 2025: Benchmark-Bestenliste mit Ryzen 9800X3D

CPUs 2025 in der Rangliste und Bestenliste jetzt NEU mit Ryzen 9800X3D: Benchmarks zu Prozessoren von AMD und Intel. Welche CPU ist am schnellsten?

www.pcgameshardware.de

Or this - note the remark made below it

Or this; note the GPU and how the gap between avg and min FPS fades beyond 4C/4T = stable frametimes.

I think we're done here.

 

[lexluthermiester]

This is probably also entirely not objective

Of course it isn't. There's nothing identifying what it is, where it came from and what the test parameters are. Context is important and you're failing to provide any.
These were posted in the other thread, but they apply here as well.

Those are actual benchmarks that have been run comparing the i5-6600(or close to it) to other CPU's and with specific GPU's. They provide proper context to reach an informed conclusion.

Conclusion: Yes, the i5-6600 is starting to age a little bit, but it is far from being useless for gaming. It still provides good performance in most games and certainly enough to keep an RTX2070 on it's toes most of the time.

 

[Vayra86]

Of course it isn't. There's nothing identifying what it is, where it came from and what the test parameters are. Context is important and you're failing to provide any.
These were posted in the other thread, but they apply here as well.

Conclusion: Yes, the i5-6600 is starting to age a little bit, but it is far from being useless for gaming. It still provides good performance in most games and certainly enough to keep an RTX2070 on it's toes most of the time.

Yeah, that looks absolutely amazing, you speak of realistic and verifiable and you bring a slew of questionable 'Tubers. So this... is what your preferred gaming looks like. Dirt Rally and RS6 Siege... really? They run on a toaster. And then came GTA...

Wooopsie!

Like I said, we're done. If you like your pop in, do take a quad.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Yeah, that looks absolutely amazing, you speak of realistic and you bring a slew of questionable 'Tubers.

They're better than anything you've offered. Prove up with with something that has merit.

You're nitpicking over GTA5 in-game glitches that happen to everyone from time to time, regardless of platform.

Like I said, we're done.

Yes, you are.

 

[Vayra86]

They're better than anything you've offered. Prove up with with something that has merit.

You're nitpicking GTA5 in-game glitches that happen to everyone from time to time, regardless of platform.

Yes, you are.

100% load is a game glitch, righto! All I did was fast forward to the first moderately CPU heavy game. Its called knowing where to look.

 

[cucker tarlson]

lol,of course it'll bottleneck a 2070.this cpu will struggle to hit 60 or even 50 fps in a lot of modern games.

you guys and your fancy charts.you can always find one that will suit you on Iamrightyourewrong.com

I played with a few 4c/4t and a few 4c/8t intels and a gtx 1080 needs a 4790k at least.

And fps is not the whole story,cpus tend to produce stutter when the usage is very high.

 

[Bill_Bright]

A bottleneck happens when one component holds another one back (it cannot feed it fast enough).

Or it cannot accept/process what it is being fed fast enough.

 

[Vayra86]

lol,of course it'll bottleneck a 2070.this cpu will struggle to hit 60 or even 50 fps in a lot of modern games.

you guys and your fancy charts.you can always find one that will suit you on Iamrightyourewrong.com

I played with a few 4c/4t and a few 4c/8t intels and a gtx 1080 needs a 4790k at least.

And fps is not the whole story,cpus tend to produce stutter when the usage is very high.

No no, people with a broadwell 6c12t have better hands on experience than those actually using the quads Isn't it obvious?

Just another day with Lex History repeats

100% load is a game glitch, righto! All I did was fast forward to the first moderately CPU heavy game. Its called knowing where to look.

You can laugh as a 'tit for tat', but take some time to let it sink in. Your saying glitch, when the actual screenshot and the entire sequence is lacking assets and textures, while the exact same run on a CPU not at cap, does not. In a 2015 game, mind. On top of that, if this really was 'a rare glitch', wouldn't that warrant running the bench again? And if not, what does that say about your source?

We already knew that a large number of games are light on CPU and heavy on GPU by comparison; this has been the status quo since the PS3 onwards. But there are exceptions, and a large number of those are specifically games you'd buy a PC for. (Grand) strategy, simulations, city builders, and large, moddable, open world content. And each and all of them will suffer heavily. You say examples without merit (*sigh*) - I say these are the precise examples that count, because these are the unique selling points the PC gaming library has to offer.

They're better than anything you've offered. Prove up with with something that has merit.

Merit? Check any of the other benches I linked... We aim to please. But, please do open your eyes then.

You're not entirely wrong. The i5 6600 is not useless, you can play many games on it, and well. But keeping a 2070 on its toes, it for sure cannot, and it will also never be a painless experience across a wide variety of games.

 

[cucker tarlson]

No no, people with a broadwell 6c12t have better hands on experience than those actually using the quads Isn't it obvious?

980ti/1070 - 3770k
1080-4790k
1080ti-7700k

end of story.I'm not even including 4 core cpus.a locked 6 core can experience problems with a 2070,let alone a locked 4 core.

 

[bug]

Or it cannot accept/process what it is being fed fast enough.

Yeah, it works the other way around, too.
Which basically means that unless all your components are perfectly matched, you have a bottleneck somewhere in your system anyway. Thus the real problem is not whether you have a bottleneck (you most certainly do), but if that bottleneck is hold you back significantly. And "significantly" means something else to each one of us.

 

[Bill_Bright]

And "significantly" means something else to each one of us.

To me, that means if it is something I can "perceive". If it is only something that shows up on a benchmark tests, that is not significant.

 

[dirtyferret]

They might be lurking and taking in the info.

Or they simply wanted to start a flame war. I've scene a lot of one question and done accounts in the forums lately like the OP

 

[lexluthermiester]

Merit? Check any of the other benches I linked... We aim to please. But, please do open your eyes then.

Those were edited in quite a while after I posted my responses.

You're not entirely wrong.

I know full well I'm right, I've tested such setups first hand.

The i5 6600 is not useless, you can play many 99% of all games games on it, and well.

Fixed that for you.

But keeping a 2070 on its toes, it for sure cannot

I have already shown information that contradicts your opinion. When you have actually tried such a combo and run the benchmarks yourself, then you can talk about whether or not it will. You have not, so you can not.

Just another day with Lex History repeats

Are you done with the personal jabs? You've more or less admitted you know you lost this little debate. You always resort to insults when you have. You're done here. And before anyone says that I'm reacting out of pride/ego I would ask you to consider the following;
The OP came here asking a question and has been given much in the way of opinion. Hopefully, useful and helpful information has risen above the rest and has helped the OP understand the reality of their situation.

@Magicdragon
Your system as it is will be fine for a year or 2 and you will get an good experience. However, while that i5-6600 is a good CPU, it is starting to show it's age and it's time to start planning an upgrade. If/when you decide that's what you would like to do, please let us know here or start a new thread. There are those here that will be happy to offer you objective help in suggesting parts that will meet your needs for years to come.

Or they simply wanted to start a flame war. I've scene a lot of one question and done accounts in the forums lately like the OP

That is possible. It has been going on. Still, I prefer not to make that assuption of the threads that seems to be asking for actual help. Some of them seem to be blatantly starting a fight, but this one just isn't giving off that vibe.

 

[Vayra86]

Or they simply wanted to start a flame war. I've scene a lot of one question and done accounts in the forums lately like the OP

Success

Those were edited in quite a while after I posted my responses.

I know full well I'm right, I've tested such setups first hand.

Fixed that for you.

I have already shown information that contradicts your opinion. When you have actually tried such a combo and run the benchmarks yourself, then you can talk about whether or not it will. You have not, so you can not.

Are you done with the personal jabs? You've more or less admitted you know you lost this little debate. You always resort to insults when you have. You're done here. And before anyone says that I'm reacting out of pride/ego I would ask you to consider the following;
The OP came here asking a question and has been given much in the way of opinion. Hopefully, useful and helpful information has risen above the rest and has helped the OP understand the reality of their situation.

@Magicdragon
Your system as it is will be fine for a year or 2 and you will get an good experience. However, while that i5-6600 is a good CPU, it is starting to show it's age and it's time to start planning an upgrade. If/when you decide that's what you would like to do, please let us know here or start a new thread. There are those here that will be happy to offer you objective help in suggesting parts that will meet your needs for years to come.


That is possible. It has been going on. Still, I prefer not to make that assuption of the threads that seems to be asking for actual help. Some of them seem to be blatantly starting a fight, but this one just isn't giving off that vibe.

Like I said, 4 year old reality. Enjoy... The info is there, including those examples that completely counter your statements, which, as usual, don't fit your narrative so you resort to arguments about tone of voice Like I said, history repeats, you don't even see it. You've still failed to respond to those, btw. And they immediately kill your 99% of games are OK statement. The only OK games are those that don't lean on CPU, which your youtube links are chock full of, and the odd ones out are 'a glitch' to you .

Its in-depth (me) versus blanket statements (you) about this setup. Up to readers what tickles them, indeed. But your high ground about knowing what's what is so misplaced, its funny. You barely game enough to know what is really happening and you're oblivious to it. Anyone who does, can spot this easily, and its a pattern with you. You're now on the multiquote spree again. Take a step back, and take the time to look at the examples given. No need for any further responses, just try to learn a thing or two. I'm not the only one saying it, either.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Next year we will see a thread with "will a 7600k bottleneck/work/hold back a RTX 3070" with a 1 and done post as well.


will a 6600k bottleneck a 2070 yes... will a 6600k work with a 2070 yes ( pretty sure it would work with a dual core from 2011 so what does that matter ).... will most games play just fine yes....

 

[bug]

To me, that means if it is something I can "perceive". If it is only something that shows up on a benchmark tests, that is not significant.

100% agree, but "perceive" also differs from one man to another. Not to mention the placebo effect.
Life would be so much simpler if we were all robots/cyborgs functioning using well defined protocols

 

[Bill_Bright]

100% agree, but "perceive" also differs from one man to another.

The "range" of perception among humans is actually pretty narrow. Reaction times, on the other hand, vary widely.

Not to mention the placebo effect.

Yeah, it is amazing how the mind can fabricate what we want to believe even when it is not there. I would like to think that over the years, at least with computers, networks and other electronics, I've trained my mind to be objective and to stick with the facts so I cannot be influenced by the placebo effect.

 

[bug]

The "range" of perception among humans is actually pretty narrow. Reaction times, on the other hand, vary widely.
Yeah, it is amazing how the mind can fabricate what we want to believe even when it is not there. I would like to think that over the years, at least with computers, networks and other electronics, I've trained my mind to be objective and to stick with the facts so I cannot be influenced by the placebo effect.

I make no such assumptions. I either measure what I think I perceive or I simply don't care and just go with it

 

[PLSG08]

Most of the time I think it really depends on the game you usually play to really see if your procie would hold your frames back or not.

Back then I was on an i5 7400 + RX 480 and i was getting around an avg fps of 80 fps on R6:Siege with the game chocking when you open another window while playing. When I switched to my R5 2600 (Still with the RX 480 at the time) the problem disappeared and I got an average of 140+ fps. R6 is known to be really processor heavy so yea I did expect that to make the difference.

Most games WILL run fine on a 6600 + 2070, BUT if you want higher frames or be able to multitask while gaming, a good procie upgrade would do wonders. You don't even have to get the latest Ryzen or Intel i7 9th gen, a 6th/7th Gen i7 is still plenty of horsepower and you can find those around for second hand.

Even my lil bro is experiencing choppy FPS when discord is open while he's playing R6.