Just recently, we reviewed the Zotac GTX 1070 AMP! Extreme graphics card. We used an Intel Core i7 6700K for that review and some gamers might be wondering if they can use a cheaper CPU like the Intel Core i5 6500 and still get a high level of performance. Unlike with what we did in our GeForce GTX 1080 CPU performance preview, we will now be testing at 1080p and at 1440p. Unfortunately, our Intel Skylake test system had a problem and we had to use an Intel Broadwell-E (LGA 2011-3) test system. The CPU used is Core i7 6900K which has 8 CPU cores with Hyper Threading. We configured in the BIOS the number of active CPU cores and Hyper Threading to simulate different performance levels of CPU.
We would like to thank the following:
1. Zotac for lending us the Zotac GTX 1070 AMP! Extreme
2. ASUS Philippines for lending us the ASUS PG27AQ
How We Tested
The PC we used for testing is shown below.
Processor: Intel Core i7 6900K
Graphics Card: Zotac GTX 1070 AMP! Extreme
Motherboard: Gigabyte X99 Ultra Gaming (F5 BIOS)
Memory: Kingston Hyper X Savage 8GBx4 DDR4 3000 @ 2,133 MHz
Power Supply: Thermaltake Tough Power 1000 watts
Driver: GeForce 372.70
Operating System: Windows 10 64-bit
Frame rates and frame times of a 60-second game play were recorded using FRAPS. The test results are the average of 3 benchmark runs.
Maximum image quality settings were used for all the games.
Here are the areas of the game that we benchmarked:
The Witcher 3 – Novigrad
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided – Prague
Test Results
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is another great-looking game which was just released last August 24, 2016. Like what we have already shown in our performance review of the game, a modern quad-core CPU like the Core i5 6500 will do for a high-end GPU especially if you will play at 1440p.
Some review sites make The Witcher 3 appear to be a game that is not demanding on the CPU. Our tests with GTX 1070 at 1080p show there is a huge difference between a quad-core CPU with Hyper Threading enabled and a quad-core CPU with Hyper Threading disabled. However, like with Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, all the CPU configurations delivered almost the same performance at 1440p.
So, what is the right CPU for GTX 1070?
First of all, we would like to make it clear that we are not recommending you should buy an Intel 8-core CPU with Hyper Threading for gaming. Its performance advantage over an Intel 4-core CPU with Hyper Threading is not big enough to justify the big price difference. Also, the 8 CPU cores’ performance advantage gets reduced to almost none when you increase the game’s resolution to 1440p.
This is just a preview but we can already confirm that it is not true that Hyper Threading is useless for gaming. Also take note that the CPU configurations used in our tests have 20MB L3 cache. We have already shown before that the L3 cache helps in gaming and it would be interesting to see the gaming performance difference among Core i5 6500 (6MB L3 cache), Core i7 6700 (8MB L3 cache), and Core i7 6900K (20MB L3 cache). Once we have finalized our new test system, we will do a CPU performance test on Radeon RX 480 to all the way up to GeForce GTX 1080.
If you are building a gaming PC now with a high-end GPU like GeForce GTX 1070, we think you should be fine with a Core i5 6500 or a Core i5 6600 especially if you will play at 1440p.
6 Comments
Can you guys do this kind of tests, for entry level specs eg: i3 6100 gtx 1060 or upcoming 1050 @ 1080p. Would be a good help to budget gamers out there 🙂
yes, thr next build guide will feature a benchmark guide also featuring the core i3 6100 and a gtx 1060
Wow, that was quick!
when is the next build sir?
Hi. please make a review for older processors like sandy bridge and ivy bridge if it can cause optimize the latest GPUs
Will try but Ivy Bridge is the oldest we got right now. 😀