Will an i7-4790 bottleneck a GTX 1070 8GB in 2026?

Posted by OverallCandy7093@reddit | buildapc | View on Reddit | 30 comments

Hey everyone,

I just managed to pick up an Intel i7-4790 and an ASUS ROG GTX 1070 8GB for a budget build I'm putting together. Before I buy the rest of the parts (H81/B85 board, 16GB DDR3), I wanted to get some real-world opinions on the pairing.

I’m mainly looking to play narrative-driven and open-world titles like Cyberpunk 2077, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Stardew Valley at 1080p.

My main question is: How bad is the CPU bottleneck going to be with the i7-4790 pushing the 1070? I know these are older parts, but I’m a student and this is what fits my budget right now. Also, just to be clear—I am not looking to upgrade this PC anytime soon. I need this specific setup to last me through my studies without swapping parts out every few months.

Is this a balanced "set it and forget it" combo for 1080p gaming today, or is the i7 going to hold the 1070 back significantly in busier games?

Thanks in advance for the help!

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No-Actuator-6245@reddit

Forget bottlenecks. Those are some cpu heavy games that will make a modern 6 core 12 thread cpu work really hard. A 12 year old weak 4 core 8 thread cpu is going to run poorly regardless of what gpu you pair with it. I can’t say what fps you will get but for example, if the cpu can only deliver an unstable 30fps then that is the most you can get out the system regardless of which gpu you pair with it.

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Ambitious-Yard7677@reddit

As someone who got a chance to use a 4790K recently, I call BS. Cyberpunk doesn't bring it to it's knees nor does RDR2. Can't speak for the 4790 peasant edition, but it shouldn't be THAT bad. Haswell was a pretty decent architecture

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hazexm@reddit

I actually own one paired with RX 6700 XT and it can run Cyperpunk at high settings, but I have to play at a locked 30 fps to get a stable performance.

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Ambitious-Yard7677@reddit

Exactly my point. Let the thing run wide open and you're gonna get wild swings. People complain about it yet everyone does it.

Lock the frame rate so when you suddenly come across more intense area, you'll likely have the headroom to deal with it.

I ran a R9 290X with a Q9505 at 3.82GHz for the hell of it. Ran RE Village... and held 30FPS 98 percent of the time if I locked it. Let it run uncapped and it stuttered it's ass off. It was an very unbalanced combo, but it worked. FO4 ran too, but DXVK was involved. Acted like a speed hack 😅

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cha0ss0ldier@reddit

30fps is not considering a good playable framerate to most people. Thats were the confusion is coming from.

When people say “you’re gonna have a bad time”, 30fps is a bad time

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Ambitious-Yard7677@reddit

Take it you've never had the chance to experience 30FPS vs nothing. Put yourself in that position and you'll change your tune

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cha0ss0ldier@reddit

I never said I was one of those people. I still play console games that are 30fps locked

phantomx14_@reddit

i run my i7-4790 with a 3060, & love it can play spiderman, do my video editing etc. everything i need to do right now it does it easy, on spiderman i play 1440p, so the i7-4790 downs bottleneck as much, & it works perfect, i’m pretty happy with it

VoraciousGorak@reddit

I don't think either of those parts are going to have a good time in 2026.

The 4790K is really good for its age, and that qualifier is doing a lot of work. For RDR2 and especially Cyberpunk, the 1070 will be the weak link. I tried out Cyberpunk on a 4770K and it was... it was fine.

Stardew Valley definitely will work fine.

OP didn't specifically state it was the higher clocked k model. If it is they'll be in for a better time

coolboy856@reddit

Marginally. Both are extremely underpowered

SampleSubstantial327@reddit

j ai une 3070ti aorus master avec un i7 4790k 32gb de ram cm b85 g41 pc mate je joue a tou les dernier jeux sans probleme en 1440p il y a qu un truc qui fait chier c est le tpm

What's in your rig by chance?

9600x/9060 XT 16gb, built it in may-june when prices were normal.

I ended up selling my other 16gb stick a couple weeks ago, got 175€ for it when I bought the 2x16 6000/30 for 110€!

Still stuck on a maxwell card. Least I was fortunate enough to get out from under FX. What a game changer that was.

With that said, a 4790K is way better than a 4 module Vishera. If I could get by on FX, someone with a 40FPS mindset in most situations can get by on Haswell. I've used one, it's not terrible. Stick to PS4 era games and 60FPS was typically the norm. I never had that luxury

lunatik1@reddit

A few years ago I had the i7-4790 and RX 6600 combo; for games like CS2 and Fortnite it will be fine, but with demanding games you'll experience a bottleneck

magicbf1337@reddit

no, its just absolutely minimal bottleneck for that card

John_Mat8882@reddit

I7 4770k at 4.6ghz with 2133 MHz ram, was definitely not pushing a 1070 Ti at 1080p in CP2077. I Remember seeing the card hovering at 65-70ish% back in the day. And also Destiny 2 didn't run beyond 70/80%.

However CP 2077 was yet to release the proper multithreading patch tho.

Asahida@reddit

I played and finished both CP2077 and RDR2 on a i5-4690k /w an RX580. I remember doing my settings so that I could get a decent framerate close to but not quite 60.

So for older games your setup still holds, but for newer games... Gotta upgrade everything or the GPU/CPU will bottleneck the other.

OkSystem455@reddit

Follow through with your plans, build it, and you do you. Avoid overthinking; chances are good that it will serve you well enough if you adapt your quality settings and expectations to match the PC's performance envelope.

Have a Xeon E3-1270 v2/16GB DDR3/RX 470 8GB/Garuda Dr460nized Gaming build that can runTiny Tina's Wonderlands 1080p on LOW/MED/FSR2 mix and get 80+ FPS. Conversely, if running Borderlands 2 Handsome Collection 1080p HIGH natively, it gets 100+ FPS.

If no anti-cheat e-sport titles are on your playlist, you can bypass Win10/11 and go with a Linux gaming distro...recommend a hard look at CachyOS. Have that running on my E5-2697 v2/16GB DDR3/RX 580 8GB; converted from Win10 to CachyOS after seeing the performance outputted by the E3-1270 v2 build. Both are keeping me entertained even though my Ryzen 5 5600/32Gb DDR4/B580 LE/Win11 build runs circles around both at 1080p Ultra or higher.

Make sure your storage is all SSD, and you should be fine. Also look into undervolting the 1070...

Soulspawn@reddit

How much did you pay? Both of these are ancient. Good I hope it was less than $50

S1l3ntSN00P@reddit

CPU doesn't really bottleneck GPU. Bottleneck depends entirely on the individual game, because it has to handle that and not the GPU.

Some games are CPU heavy, some are GPU heavy. Same goes for settings and even individual scenes, some put extra strain on the CPU, others on the GPU. You can even "bottleneck" your 1070 with a Pentium or Core 2 Duo in some circumstances. So the bottleneck will move from one part to another constantly.

For your games, Stardew valley won't be a problem. RDR2 and CP2077 are okay, you'll get decent performance. I would lock FPS at something stable, like 45-60 FPS. CPU bottlenecking the game is worse than GPU imo, because it will usually tank 0.1% and 1% lows and introduce more stutters.

TransmissionAutomata@reddit

I think that cpu of yours can handle the 1070 just fine. It can make use of even better gpus. I'm running a Xeon E5 1620 (somewhat equal to the i7 3770 I think) with an RX 6600xt and 16gb of ddr3 ram. The damn thing is running Stellar Blade at 1080p high settings for 60 fps without upscaling.

The cpu does get stressed the hell out, showing about 40-60% utilization sometimes up to 80%, which is worse than a handheld cpu like the AMD Z1 Extreme, while using 10x more electricity. But does it perform? Yes.

Considered_opinion@reddit

2026 will bottleneck that combo.

HaiseKanekiHoutarou@reddit

No.

Main-Fan66@reddit

For your games no, for half of 2025 and a bit of 26 I had a 1070ti with a 4790 for which ran at 4.2ghz(105mhz base clock and 40 ratio). 90% of the time my gpu was the bottleneck. My guess is only e sports games at performance graphic options(like fortnite, rocket league etc) the cpu bottlenecks.

Of you can afford it definitely get the k variant, I've seen 4790k+mobo+cooler+ram combos for 300aed(85ish usd). Also get some decent ram, ddr3 2400 is still very cheap, 16gb for around 30usd, more common hyperx Fury(got my kit to run at 2100mhz) for 15usd.

For overclocking you will need a decent board, so combos are ur best option really but shouldn't be hard to find either.

Pork_Crusader_GR@reddit

It’s around 35-30% faster than the 6100 And as someone who owned it , it was terrible enough

AisMyName@reddit

unrelated -- I had a 4790k. that was a great chip in its day.

AtlQuon@reddit

All parts are going to be the bottleneck for gaming, it is fairly well balanced already but a 13 year old CPU will only run as well as it can. You are asking a lot to have a 4th gen run Cyberpunk, but with the right settings and a bit of help from FSR (it does not have DLSS options) you should have a decent experience. Low settings and hope it hits 60.

HankHippoppopalous@reddit

On the good news front: Stardew is gonna run GREAT. Also, nothing in this system will be a bottleneck. Its well balanced.

On the bad news front: The reason its not bottlenecking is because its perfectly balanced and will struggle to run anything you've listed (Except Stardew)

Nothing is "holding back" a 1070 except the cruel passage of time.