Will The Witcher 3 really Bottleneck an i5-2500k?

[chuckster]

I have recently seen though, that The Witcher 3 (and the new Assasin's Creed, for what it's worth) have as part of their minimum specs an i5-2500k. I've been rocking an i5-2500k for a few years now, (now OC'd to 4.2GHz), and it's never let me down, but now I'm doubting whether I should go ahead and upgrade my whole system rather than just the video card as planned. The same specs, however, recommend an i7-3770k for high settings (I assume), which seems to be just about 15% faster overall.

So, do you guys think I'm in trouble? Should I be looking at a total system upgrade rather than just the card? I had planned on waiting for Pascal to mature late next year and then upgrading wholesale. I just can't see a fairly straightforward RPG taxing the CPU so much as to cause a bottleneck with the 2500k.

Here are the specs mentioned, by the way:


    Minimum specs:

    Intel CPU Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz/AMD CPU Phenom II X4 940
    Nvidia GPU GeForce GTX 660/AMD GPU Radeon HD 7870
    RAM 6GB
    OS 64-bit Windows 7 or 64-bit Windows 8 (8.1)
    DirectX 11
    HDD Space 40 GB

    Recommended:

    Intel CPU Core i7 3770 3.4 GHz/AMD CPU AMD FX-8350 4 GHz
    Nvidia GPU GeForce GTX 770/AMD GPU Radeon R9 290
    RAM 8GB
    OS 64-bit Windows 7 or 64-bit Windows 8 (8.1)
    DirectX 11
    HDD Space 40 GB
 

[tp4tissue]

Stop using Noob clocks. Get 4.7ghz easy.  Thats more than 15%

[Ragnorock]

I would imagine the specs don't take OC into account and that you'd be fine. Impossible to tell until you run it though, they don't release more specific req's than that.

#Randompostoutofnowhereafterlurkingformonths

[tp4tissue]

3770 would be a really silly upgrade unless you have another box to put the perfectly fine 2500k into..

Clock vs clock.. the 3xx is only 5- To- 15% faster.. it's NOT a hard 15%

If you overclock an i5 2500k from 4.2ghz to 4.7ghz , that is a HARD 12%

[jdcarpe]

#Randompostoutofnowhereafterlurkingformonths

That's exactly what I thought when I saw your username in this thread.

Welcome back!

[IvanIvanovich]

No... basically they are starting to be smart and making the 'minimum specs' to actually what they usually would have put for recommended. It's all about minimizing support time for people trying to run stuff like that on barely adequate hardware and wondering why game performance is terrible.

[Lain1911]

If you want to play the most recent games I would expect to keep up with high end equipment. I don't think anyone likes to play on low to med settings because they have to. :\

[IvanIvanovich]

Right, but the difference between a 2500k and even a 4770k is pretty trivial really in real life. The only things that are worthwhile to upgrade would be if you want some of the newer features that come with 9 series like m.2... otherwise a huge waste of money.
I do appreciate actually some of the newer games not supporting old or weak modern hardware, it should make the experience better if they can optimize it for a smaller subset of possible hardware. People surely can't expect to game on dual core with gt8800 forever.

[Michael]

Honestly, if you don't want to drop money on upgrading your system for the latest and greatest, you best option is a console. Games are optimized for the entire system and will run optimally for a much longer lifespan than a PC.


I am not saying one is better than the other, it's simply a 'best bang for your buck' option. If you need to worry about a game running on the minimal hardware, then you probably should be gaming on a console.


my 2 cents

[01111000]

No it won't.  It'll probably bottleneck your graphics card though.

The i5 2500k has a lot of overclocking headroom to push it way past their recommended i7 3770.  Get a good cooler and you'll be set.

[noisyturtle]

Hell, you could bottleneck an i5 2500k with Metro 2023, and that came out 5 years ago.

[JaccoW]

Hell, you could bottleneck an i5 2500k with Metro 2023, and that came out 5 years ago.

Great looking game. But with some tweaking it ran on lower end hardware too.

I'll see what happens with my old C2Q Q9550 and 460GTX when it drops. I'll probably have to turn down lots of settings to be able to play it but that makes it all the more glorious once I do upgrade.

[tp4tissue]

Hell, you could bottleneck an i5 2500k with Metro 2023, and that came out 5 years ago.

Great looking game. But with some tweaking it ran on lower end hardware too.

I'll see what happens with my old C2Q Q9550 and 460GTX when it drops. I'll probably have to turn down lots of settings to be able to play it but that makes it all the more glorious once I do upgrade.

by q9xx   we were looking at consistent 3.8ghz oc... up to 4ghz on big air cooler..  almost guaranteed 4ghz with water.

[Novus]

People surely can't expect to game on dual core with gt8800 forever.

You lie 

[tp4tissue]

People surely can't expect to game on dual core with gt8800 forever.

You lie 

Remember 8800gtx 512, hahaha...