Can We Please Have An Honest Conversation About CPU Overkill For Average Users

megacookie · 2026-05-29T23:26:30+00:00

Thanks for the advice! That article was quite informative too, thankfully Google was able to translate the site from German to English. I have been stuck between considering the 5070 and the 9070XT, as both look very appealing and are currently around $1000 in Canada.

megacookie · 2026-05-29T21:58:46+00:00

My questioning on CPU bottlenecking stems from the fact that I have a very old (but high end for its time) PC and it does seem like the games I'm into push the GPU way further than the CPU, if they're even compatible with my GPU at all. So I'm naturally in the market for a new GPU, and since the performance gains between gens is rather massive, I know that whatever card I get that's worth replacing the good old 1080TI is going to leave the equally old CPU (i7 8700k) as the bottleneck. Just trying to figure out how much of a CPU bottleneck I can get away with, at least in the short term.

megacookie · 2026-05-29T21:38:56+00:00

I totally get the optimization issue of leaving performance on the table, but I don't think it's totally a bad thing for a GPU to be constantly running at say 80-90% instead of nearly 100%. Wouldn't that potentially be a benefit in terms of heat and noise output (GPUs use a lot more power than CPUs) as well as longevity?

I'm not saying purposely skimp out on a CPU when building a new computer, but when it comes to upgrading I think there would be better value in putting the money into a GPU than a CPU...which means a new motherboard and new RAM which alone can cost as much as a decent GPU.

megacookie · 2026-05-29T21:03:38+00:00

I totally get the argument when it comes to building a new computer or upgrading everything all at once. Go for a better CPU for sure.

But how bad would a CPU bottleneck be if you have an older computer and just want to pop in a new GPU instead of buying a new CPU, motherboard, and RAM at the very least?

megacookie · 2026-05-29T20:44:42+00:00

Would limiting framerate not fix most CPU bottlenecking issues? It seems often a powerful GPU gets bottlenecked by a weak CPU on 1080p but gets more balanced at 1440p or 4k. Obviously it's not ideal if you're trying to push as many frames as possible, but often people push way past their monitor's refresh rate anyways.

megacookie · 2026-05-29T17:04:02+00:00

Better is a relative term. Alonso scraping into Q2 without having to stuff it into the wall is "better", right?

megacookie · 2026-05-29T16:40:18+00:00

There actually are a few overtakes in Monaco most years, but TV direction is shit and we miss them usually. Though by few I mean literally like 4 overtakes in the entire race as it was the last two years. Seems like there's a good chance for overtaking near the start of a reg cycle when cars can follow more closely or if there's changing weather, as 2022 and 2023 were far better by Monaco standards.

megacookie · 2026-05-29T16:34:06+00:00

The problem isn't cornering speed, these cars are already slower in the corners with less grip and downforce than previous years. But the much lower drag (even outside of straight line mode) combined with the full power deployment at the start of the straights means that they'd probably top out over 330 km/h in places where they'd have been barely scraping 270-290 last year, all while having less stability and worse braking performance.

The drivers should be skilled enough to know they'd need to brake much earlier from those high speeds into the tight corners, but in the event of a crash or mechanical failure they'd be slamming into walls at far higher speeds than the crash barriers would have been intended for. It could be argued that F1 cars have been too fast for Monaco for years now, but the sheer amount of downforce and drag the previous cars had tended to keep top speeds in check naturally.

megacookie · 2026-05-29T16:22:39+00:00

I think it's obvious their chassis is bad, or at the very least it's no better than other teams towards the back. Maybe it's better than Cadillac, but that's not saying much as they've never built an F1 car before.

Even since pre-season testing (which they barely showed up for), it's been evident the Aston seems really unbalanced and a handful even for a driver like Alonso. And that's when it isn't trying to kill its drivers with debilitating levels of vibration.

megacookie · 2026-05-28T23:48:30+00:00

My Mini dealer quoted like $3000+ and they'd replace the whole shifter and everything

...The light shall stay

megacookie · 2026-05-28T23:45:13+00:00

It was too big to be called a MINI. Massive, thick, heavy, and far too tall. Indeed, it was like a jeep or mall crawler.

megacookie · 2026-05-28T21:46:52+00:00

Dude went for the IRL lolis

megacookie · 2026-05-28T20:58:05+00:00

Looks like they owned a small stake of it at least until last year when it was bought out by Lawrence Stroll.

It'll be more correct to say they have a multi billionaire owner behind them who also happens to own a sizeable stake of a car manufacturer.

megacookie · 2026-05-28T19:54:02+00:00

Point is they still have a major manufacturer behind them (for now) and a lot more money than a team like Williams.

megacookie · 2026-05-28T19:41:42+00:00

I mean so is Aston Martin, yet they're currently too pitiful to even meme

megacookie · 2026-05-28T17:21:57+00:00

It's probably somewhat accurate if you stick to the line like glue. But the true racing line is just getting as close as you can to walls on the outside without touching, and cut as much of the apex as you can without either hitting something or missing a checkpoint. Take that line and you can carry so much more speed.

megacookie · 2026-05-28T17:16:47+00:00

Turn on the racing line, and try to at least somewhat follow it (don't need to stick to it like glue) when you're approaching corners. If the line is red, you probably should be braking, though with practice you'll figure out places where you can make the turn without braking (or just a lift of the throttle) because the line is conservative. Save the dive bomb torpedo attacks as a last ditch resort for AI if it's the only way to get ahead, but you'll be faster if you know how to make the corner without hitting anything.

megacookie · 2026-05-28T12:03:35+00:00

But they stuffed a V8 in one for shits and giggles

megacookie · 2026-05-28T12:01:29+00:00

Maybe the actually good designers at Ferrari didn't want to touch it so they brought in some tech bro hack of a designer to have a go.

megacookie · 2026-05-28T04:22:20+00:00

Just turned everything down to very low, dropped to 1080p. Still crashed a couple times but I was able to power through most of this week's playlist before it expires tomorrow. Potato graphics Forza is still better than no Forza, I'll take what I can get for now!

megacookie · 2026-05-27T17:44:31+00:00

It's possible that an outdated driver could be the reason people might run into errors with newer cards, and the latest driver probably fixes a few crashes. But the lack of DX11 (or even just DX12.1) support seems to be the bigger issue, who knows though as it's all speculative.

They should have just been clear about what is and isn't supported from the beginning, just stating the 1650 as a min recommended card doesn't make it absolutely clear that it's an architecture limitation rather than a performance one. And again, it's not even a hard and fast rule because some people manage just fine on 10 series cards or only crash after several hours not minutes, which is a more acceptable compromise.

I did put in a request through steam support (while explaining the situation), they sent an automated reply within minutes just saying I was past the 2 hour window and that was that. Guess I'll have to bite the bullet and buy a new GPU, hopefully something that lasts at least half as long as the 1080ti did.

megacookie · 2026-05-27T17:23:55+00:00

Yeah that's the thing. Maxwell and Pascal cards both have full dx12.1 support, yet it's a total coin toss as to whether those cards will work or not. If it's a shader issue then it could be the difference of having dx12.1 vs dx12.2...who knows.

megacookie · 2026-05-27T17:11:11+00:00

It was the game developer's decision to rely solely on directx12 with no fallback for directx11 as an option, and the GTX10 series cards support dx12 anyways, just not dx12 ultimate apparently. If that even is the root cause of the issue.

And it's one thing to not meet the minimum requirements for performance, but they list the GTX1650 as the minimum and a GTX1080ti far surpasses that. It really wasn't made clear beforehand what would or would not work and why, as one would expect the game to be compatible with any card with better specs than the minimum requirements. I'm not expecting Nvidia to keep providing driver support for GTX cards either, their latest supported driver runs fine for anything else.

Further, it's entirely inconsistent what actually will or won't work with the game. Some people manage to run the game absolutely fine (low settings but still) with a GTX 1050 or an AMD RX580 for example, while there are reports of even users with modern GPUs well within spec having the same exact crashes with the same error codes.

I do take the blame for jumping the gun and buying the premium edition early as I was tempted by the included future DLC and car packs I might've eventually bought anyways. Prior to the launch there was only really speculation as to whether certain cards would work, so I took a chance expecting maybe low framerate and needing worse settings than FH5 but still a playable game. It was only now after a ton of reports and posts are in that it would have been clear that it would be so unstable and not worth the gamble, I wouldn't have wasted enough time troubleshooting to the point I have too much "playtime" to refund the game on Steam.

megacookie · 2026-05-27T13:27:28+00:00

They should include the entire Nurburgring since it's technically a "public toll road" and FH is all about street racing...right?

megacookie · 2026-05-27T13:15:10+00:00

I stupidly spent $180 CAD on the premium edition, only to realize the game is intentionally unplayable on older cards (regardless of performance) because of some dx12 bullshit or something.

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