Do you think i7 920 @ 3.8ghz will bottleneck HD7970

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kopekci

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Do you think LGA1366 is still sufficient for games and won't bottleneck the newest GPUs?
What if I buy a HD7970?

my rig:
i7 920 at 3.8ghz (can't hit 4ghz because of overheating and power consumption)
asus p6tse
sirtec's high power 1000w
corsair 6 gb 1600mhz
 
I don't have any evidence but I highly doubt it. Also don't feel bad about your OC. A few of my old 920s had a hard time breaking 4.0
 
At 1080p you might have a minor bottleneck. Certainly with multi-GPUs.

At 1440p or greater you have nothing to worry about.
 
i7 9xx @ 3.8 is still plenty and I think will be even for the next generation.

Very few games will be cpu limited with that setup even at 1080P imho.
 
Here and there it will, depending on the settings and the game. But nothing to worry about really.
 
I doubt any bottleneck would be noticeable. I also run my 920 at 3.8 and haven't see it maxed out yet personally when gaming, even in eyefinity.
 
An i7 @ 3.8GHz isn't going to bottleneck any video card or multiple video cards. Anyone telling you otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about.
 
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I own a i7-920 @ 4 GHz and 3x 7970s and I can say emphatically that it won't bottleneck below 60 FPS on any game I know of, Starcraft II and World Of Warcraft being 2 of the most CPU-intensive that I play. I play at 1600p fyi.
 
Here is a good review from TechPowerUp comparing a Sandy Bridge, Nehalem and Bulldozer all running a single 7970. Other than a couple games, the old i7's keep up with Sandy pretty well and in almost all instances, the differences wouldnt be noticed in actual game play.
 
wabbitseason said:
Here's an example of a poster who makes ignorant, blanket statements and has no idea what he is talking about.

SLI 680s will be badly bottlenecked by an i7-920 at 3.8 at 1080p. Fact. I didn't even have to mention BF3, which destroys your point at any resolution.
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BF3? No, not really. Look at that link I posted above. It shows a Nehalem getting almost identical frame rates with a 7970 at 1024x768! Nehalem is still a very capable gaming proc especially when overclocked at 3.8. Youll get some better frame rates in games like Starcraft 2 but I wouldnt call that "badly bottlenecked" by any means.
 
How you got that from my post is beyond me. I'm talking about multi-GPUs.

I'll reiterate: SLI 680s will be badly bottlenecked by an i7-920 at 3.8 at 1080p. This is a fact. Someone like Vega likely has hard numbers on this, but I'd estimate the difference between a 920 @3.8 and a 2700k @4.8 is 15-20% with SLI 680s at 1080p. That's badly bottlenecked in my book.

Posters on this forum have a funny way of playing follow-the-leader. A couple months back it was "hurr durr you have a CPU bottleneck" anytime anybody posted. Now, it's "shut your face bottlenecks don't exist derp". You have to take these things on a case-by-case basis, and the OP was very vague. There are many conceivable situations, without dropping to 800x600 or such nonsense, where an i7-920 at 3.8 is a system bottleneck. This is an even greater issue if you're trying to push 120 frames.
 
I don't think you'll have any bottleneck. Great article post by MacLeod which indicates you'll be enjoying sweet gaming with your current processor.
 
wabbitseason said:
How you got that from my post is beyond me. I'm talking about multi-GPUs.
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Doesnt matter. A 7970 running 1024x768 will be just as good a measurement as a pair of GTX680's running 2560x1600. Its a matter of how fast the CPU can feed the GPU. If a CPU outperforms another CPU with a 7970 at 1024x768, itll still outperform it with a pair of 7970's at 2560x1600. The key is to measure when the GPU is not being maxed out. Thats why a card as powerful as the 7970 on a measly resolution like 1024x768 is one that a 7970 will not be the limiting factor as opposed to using a single 7970 at 2560x1600.

I'll reiterate: SLI 680s will be badly bottlenecked by an i7-920 at 3.8 at 1080p. This is a fact. Someone like Vega likely has hard numbers on this, but I'd estimate the difference between a 920 @3.8 and a 2700k @4.8 is 15-20% with SLI 680s at 1080p. That's badly bottlenecked in my book.
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Depends. If the 920 is getting 60 fps and the 2700 is getting 72 fps, that is not a bottleneck in my book. Now if the 920 were only getting 30 compared to the 2700's 72, then that would be a bottleneck. If youre not going to notice it in actual game play then its not a bottleneck for anything other than a benchmark graph.

Posters on this forum have a funny way of playing follow-the-leader. A couple months back it was "hurr durr you have a CPU bottleneck" anytime anybody posted. Now, it's "shut your face bottlenecks don't exist derp". You have to take these things on a case-by-case basis, and the OP was very vague. There are many conceivable situations, without dropping to 800x600 or such nonsense, where an i7-920 at 3.8 is a system bottleneck. This is an even greater issue if you're trying to push 120 frames.
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U mad bro?
 
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MacLeod said:
Derp-de-derp-de-tootle-tee-tum
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Thanks for the validation, especially that last line :p.

Your nonsense definition of a bottleneck is irrelevant. 72 to 60 frames is a 16% drop. That's a number that has nothing to do with your feelings, and many people care about that number.
 
wabbitseason said:
Thanks for the validation, especially that last line :p.
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You-Are-Awesome_(The_Office).gif
 
Blkout said:
An i7 @ 3.8GHz isn't going to bottleneck any video card or multiple video cards. Anyone telling you otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about.
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actually it would in some cases but its not enough to matter for the most part.
 
i have a i7 920 and a gtx 670. i can do some runs @ 2.8 and 3.8 and see if i get a difference in a few games.
 
it wont bottleneck a video card, but will bottleneck some games like Civ, Skyrim, etc.
 
isnt it hilarous that to run 2 video card at stock, no cpu @ stock allows you to max them out.
 
MavericK96 said:
Well, you're also talking 3.6 vs 4.8, which is a pretty big difference.

Most likely it would be more like 3.8 vs 4.5 or so which is considerably less.
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The average overclock ceiling on Nehalem is around 4 GHz. The ceiling on SB is around 5 GHz. So no, the comparison of 3.6 to 4.8 is completely valid.
 
wabbitseason said:
Here's an example of a poster who makes ignorant, blanket statements and has no idea what he is talking about.

SLI 680s will be badly bottlenecked by an i7-920 at 3.8 at 1080p. Fact. I didn't even have to mention BF3, which destroys your point at any resolution.
Click to expand...

No it won't, you have no idea what you're talking about. What you don't seem to understand is that the higher the resolution and detail settings you choose, the more video card dependant it becomes. An i7 920 @ 3.8GHz is still a VERY capable CPU and unless you're playing games at 1024x768 resolution which no one should be these days unless you have a 17" monitor, then there will be no bottleneck with that CPU.
 
MacLeod said:
BF3? No, not really. Look at that link I posted above. It shows a Nehalem getting almost identical frame rates with a 7970 at 1024x768! Nehalem is still a very capable gaming proc especially when overclocked at 3.8. Youll get some better frame rates in games like Starcraft 2 but I wouldnt call that "badly bottlenecked" by any means.
Click to expand...

And even then in that review, they're comparing a stock 2.66GHz Nehalem vs a stock 3.3GHz Sandy Bridge. At the same clocks, the Nehalem will peform nearly identical, within 1-2% of each other.
 
Ozymandias said:
Paging Kyle and Brent...

That said, you'll be OK with a single 7970.
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Are you even remotely aware that that you posted a link to a 3.6GHz Nehalem vs a 4.8GHz Sandy Bridge? That's not even close to a clock for clock comparison. Clock for clock, the Sandy has a small advantage for sure, but not everyone is overclocking their Sandy's to 4.8GHz either. I have an i5 2500k that I run at 3.8GHz because it does so at stock voltage. I'm sure its capable of more but not everyone wants to do that. Basically, the argument you're making is that the OP should sell it MB, memory and CPU to upgrade to a full Sandy setup and overclock the living Hell out of it for a bit more performance.

I also think its pretty safe to say 95% of consumers aren't running tri-SLI or Tri-Fire setups.

You pretty much went off the deep end to try to prove an irrelevant point.
 
Yes, it will bottle neck modern high end gpus, especially multi-gpu setups, in certain instances, to a certain degree. Is it enough to really matter with the eye candy turned up? Usually no. I have no problems running a pair of 6970's driving 5760x1200 with a 920 @ 3.5. Depending on what video card you are running now, it would not be a total waste to upgrade to a 7970.

What's with all the hateful people today?
 
Isn't a bottleneck when the CPU won't allow any given GPU solution to render frames as fast as it could?

I don't see how any game that is out currently or even those coming out in the future would ever come close to being "bottlenecked" by a SB or IB CPU...seems ridiculous actually.

edit: Nevermind...this thread was in reference to a 920...even then...and if so, very rarely. I would say it may become a problem with the next gen of GPU's but for now? Negligible.

As for the tests that were run here at [H], isn't the best way to pinpoint a bottleneck done by running any given game in its lowest resolution allowing the CPU to be singled out?
 
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wabbitseason said:
Here's an example of a poster who makes ignorant, blanket statements and has no idea what he is talking about.

SLI 680s will be badly bottlenecked by an i7-920 at 3.8 at 1080p. Fact. I didn't even have to mention BF3, which destroys your point at any resolution.
Click to expand...

What the hell is your problem? Anyway, I don't see the CPU being a huge issue. The CPU can make a difference in MP but at 1080p and beyond the GPU is a bigger factor in performance.
 
Blkout said:
An i7 @ 3.8GHz isn't going to bottleneck any video card or multiple video cards. Anyone telling you otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about.
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Not true, you just cannot generalize like that. In Serious Sam 3 for example there are areas where even at 640x480 a [email protected] can only push 50fps - way less than any decent SLI/CF setup can pull at 1080p or 1440p. And this is just one example. I have a GTX580 2-way SLI rig and I know my facts.
Now IF you use downsampling and/or SGSSAA, only then will the CPU really become almost meaningless.

For quite some time now, CPU power has increased much much more slowly than GPU power. Resolution has increased very slowly as well AND most games are being held back by consoles. Many games don't even support MSAA, only FXAA which is very cheap performance-wise. Put all this together and it is not difficult to understand that CPU bottlenecks can and will occur in some games more than others at what most people consider "normal" settings, i.e. 1080p-1440p + MSAA/FXAA with one card and Eyefinity/Surround with 2-3 cards.
 
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I guess you need to define a "bottleneck" for these type of discussions. To me, a bottleneck is something that chokes off a big chunk of performance. A i5 system getting 60 fps in a game and a FX getting 52 fps in the same game is not a bottleneck IMO. I'd worry about it if it were 60 vs 35, that would be a bottleneck. If you're not going to notice the difference in game, what does it matter if a dude's 920 is getting a few frames less than a 3570? Is it really worth upgrading a whole platform for performance that you'll only notice in benchmark graphs.

I just think that the term bottleneck gets thrown around way too much and gets implied that you wont even be able to play games with it. I mean a i7-920 @ 3.8 is a shit load of processing power but we've got guys making out like you can't even boot into Windows with such an ancient processor. And the proof for this is THREE GTX580's running 5760x1200?!?! Really? And even then, you're still getting playable and good frame rates out of the 920 system. And the fact that it helped the Nvidia system but HURT the AMD system makes me think it was a bug or snag or something other than being CPU limited.

I just think the whole "bottleneck" deal is way overblown.
 
A bottleneck is when one component hold performance back. Be it 1fps, 10fps, 100fps, doesn't matter.
At least from a technical perspective. You can talk about a light/medium/heavy bottleneck if you want to. From a practical point of view, this is often no problem. Games are of course playable with said [email protected].

Now comes the big but:
Often people complain that they have low GPU usage - be it with a single card or with SLI/CF and automatically assume that something is wrong with SLI/CF/the driver. While that may be the case, it usually is not. People play BF3 in SP, get great fps and then enter a 64 player server and their GPU usage/AFR scaling goes bad. 64 people generating data that needs synchronizing, causing explosions and whatnot - all computed by the CPU. And people wonder why they don't get the same scaling as in SP...
 
Blkout said:
Are you even remotely aware that that you posted a link to a 3.6GHz Nehalem vs a 4.8GHz Sandy Bridge? That's not even close to a clock for clock comparison. Clock for clock, the Sandy has a small advantage for sure, but not everyone is overclocking their Sandy's to 4.8GHz either. I have an i5 2500k that I run at 3.8GHz because it does so at stock voltage. I'm sure its capable of more but not everyone wants to do that. Basically, the argument you're making is that the OP should sell it MB, memory and CPU to upgrade to a full Sandy setup and overclock the living Hell out of it for a bit more performance.

I also think its pretty safe to say 95% of consumers aren't running tri-SLI or Tri-Fire setups.

You pretty much went off the deep end to try to prove an irrelevant point.
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How did I go off the deep end? You said a 920 @ 3.8 GHz wasn't going to bottleneck multiple video cards. I showed you that a 920 @ 3.6 Ghz does bottleneck multiple cards from last generation. I did not say that the OP should sell his MB, memory, and CPU. I stated the exact opposite, that he would be OK with one 7970 and his 920.
 
Ozymandias said:
How did I go off the deep end? You said a 920 @ 3.8 GHz wasn't going to bottleneck multiple video cards. I showed you that a 920 @ 3.6 Ghz does bottleneck multiple cards from last generation. I did not say that the OP should sell his MB, memory, and CPU. I stated the exact opposite, that he would be OK with one 7970 and his 920.
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Actually according to that review, it only bottlenecks Nvidia cards. If youve got AMD cards, youre good to go. That review raises more questions than offers answers.
 
MacLeod said:
Actually according to that review, it only bottlenecks Nvidia cards. If youve got AMD cards, youre good to go. That review raises more questions than offers answers.
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Yeah, but those were last generation's cards. This generation is faster, so I imagine that having a good CPU to "feed" them data would be more important. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like anyone has done SLI/Crossfire CPU scaling with this generation's cards, so we don't know what effect it has.

Tom's did CPU scaling with one 7970, but how relevant their results are to you depend heavily on what games you play.
 
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