Mid to high range AMD GPUs are not the best for lower to mid end CPUs
On some builds below $660 the AMD R9 280x (and some other similar AMD cards) are a recommended pair for the i3 4160. I have found some research which says these powerful AMD GPUs do not perform as well as they should on a lower end CPUs because of DirectX 11 and the lack of good AMD drivers. NVIDIA GPUs do not have the same problem and work better in Dx 11 with less powerful CPUS. I will post links to some articles I have found. The first is all you need to read to understand, but more info equals more proof.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-why-directx-12-is-a-gamechanger
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-ashes-of-the-singularity-dx12-benchmark-tested
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8962/the-directx-12-performance-preview-amd-nvidia-star-swarm/4
Hi,
The 280X and similar cards are very well matched in most games with the i3 currently as few games actually take full advantage of more than a couple of threads on the CPU. You will find that it is much better for most games, for example, to pick up an i3+280X compared to an i5+270X for instance just because the graphics card is the most important aspect of a gaming PC.
Although there is a lot of hype about directx12 increasing performance with lower end CPUs, which is always a good thing, the examples are all cherry picked and I am doubtful as to the gains in most scenarios. which can be achieved.
Basically the cards do perform just fine in combination with ‘lower end CPUs’ (though I wouldn’t exactly class the i3 as low end, it’s more midrange in terms of a gaming build) but there is speculation as to how directx12 will improve it by better using the CPU in titles which are CPU intensive.
Hopefully that clears things up
Thanks,
Mark