Fallout 4 CPU Bottleneck Question

[Phyrre56]

I trust the members of this forum to answer this sort of question, so here goes. 

 

I have an older gaming PC. I built it almost 4 years ago. I'm currently rocking: 

 

i5-2500k overclocked to 4.5Ghz

Radeon HD 7850 2GB

8GB RAM

 

This setup laughed at Fallout 3, and did great with heavily modded Skyrim as well. Based on what I've read though, I think it will really struggle with Fallout 4. 

 

I understand that to enjoy a mostly Ultra-setting 1080p Fallout 4, I need a new video card. That much is obvious. But will this i5-2500k CPU seriously bottleneck a newer video card and potentially defeat the purpose? 

 

If I can just drop in a modern video card and go, I might do that. If I would need to replace the motherboard and CPU as well, then the upgrade would be getting pretty pricey. 

 

Thanks in advance for your thoughts

[DanielCoffey]

It is a quad-core processor at 4.5Ghz - it will be more than fine. I would spend the budget on a GPU and SSD. Steam will allow you to split your games across multiple locations so you can have a smaller SSD dedicated to "my current game".

[Nebulous112]

Check out Tech's recent response in the Fallout 4 General and Mod Discussion Thread.

[Phyrre56]

Thank you, I never would have guessed that the game requires more than 8 GB RAM beyond the OS. I'm so used to the previous generation of Bethesda games that seemed to go out of their way to NOT use RAM.