Will an MSI GTX 1060 Bottleneck an AMD Phenom II?  

The GPU will not bottle neck the CPU, by current standards that CPU is actually really weak In fact your CPU/Motherboard are the limiting factor here (The board supports PCIe2, and this is a PCIe3 card), so it may actually bottleneck the GPU (Some people say 2.0 doesn't bottleneck 3.0 cards, but I am inclined to disagree). And as far as your heat question that depends on what temps it shows when you are playing games and what kind of cooling you have in your system.

If you are looking for a quick cheap upgrade it will do... that CPU is barely stronger than the one you currently have (core for core, and having 4 extra won't really make a difference at this point in time), but if all you do is farming simulator it will perform just fine But if you ever plan to run anything demanding that CPU will require an overclock and that might not even do it.

swarfega said:

Why are you going from a 970 to a 1060? Isn't that a bit of a product downgrade? I know the 1060 will outperform the 970 but can't you save up a little more for the 1070?

He currently owns a 750ti? So either one of those is an upgrade for him :P

swarfega said:

Why are you going from a 970 to a 1060? Isn't that a bit of a product downgrade? I know the 1060 will outperform the 970 but can't you save up a little more for the 1070?

The 970 in his list is an AMD chipset motherboard, not a GTX 970 graphics card.

Here's a link to a low-cost recommendation for a gaming PC:

http://www.pcgamer.com/pc-build-guide-budget-gaming-pc/

It uses an Intel CPU and an AMD RX 480 GPU. The main thing that the OP would lose is that the Intel board uses DDR4, so he/she/it wouldn't be able to re-use his DDR3. (Cost for 8GB of DDR4: $40.)

The AMD is brand new, and has gotten a lot of favorable reviews. I believe that there is no model in the GTX 1080 class, but in terms of price/performance, the AMD card is supposed to be good.

That combination brings everything up to date, not just the graphics card. If you insist on using an AMD CPU, this may not be a good time to upgrade. I haven't been keeping up with their product teasers, but I believe that they have some major new tech due later this year or early next.

(I'm not an Intel fan, but I haven't bought an AMD CPU since I had an Athlon 64 X2 4400, socket 939. AMD hasn't been the leader in high-end desktop CPUs since then.)

bobkn said:

The 970 in his list is an AMD chipset motherboard, not a GTX 970 graphics card.

Here's a link to a low-cost recommendation for a gaming PC:

http://www.pcgamer.com/pc-build-guide-budget-gaming-pc/

It uses an Intel CPU and an AMD RX 480 GPU. The main thing that the OP would lose is that the Intel board uses DDR4, so he/she/it wouldn't be able to re-use his DDR3. (Cost for 8GB of DDR4" $40.)

The AMD is brand new, and has gotten a lot of favorable reviews. I believe that there is no model in the GTX 1080 class, but in terms of price/performance, the AMD card is supposed to be good.

Unless you're allergic to Intel, this combination bring everything up to date, not just the graphics card.

And that would be fine so long as he doesn't require OGL support for any of his applications (AMD currently has and has had for years horribly poor OGL support in their drivers). It would also require dropping to a dual core CPU (Core vs Core that i3 destroys anything AMD has to offer, but at least for me these days a quad core [or better!] CPU is a must).