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6800GT and cpu

M

marcusicp

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 20, 2003
Messages
422
What should be the lowest AMD cpu i should run with a 6800gt? I would like to have no bottle neck with the cpu. right now i have a 1800+ and i know that wont do, so what do I need? Also i would like to stay socket A if I can, but i will upgrade to 64bit procs it need be. Oh and does RAM matter as far as a bottle neck with vid cards? anyway thanks for the help!
 
This is a difficult question to answer IMO. I guess it comes down to what your opinion of a bottleneck is.

This will give you a start:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2149&p=7 (Tom's Hardware also just finished a huge review comparing cpu's but I've heard that they're buyist).

Basically, if you're playing a game like Doom3 at 1280x1024 w/ 4xAA 8xAF even a AXP 2400+ @stock shouldn't be a noticeable bottleneck. It would be at the lower resolutions that you would start to notice the CPU holding you back.

However, I hear that XP 2500-M's are supposed to be great OC'ers; I would think that that CPU would be a good choice.
 
what is a good FPS # im not sure what i should aim for as far as FPS. that will help me a little with picking a proc. thanks for the quick help!
 
Judging from most of the Hardocp reviews I have read, the "sweetspot" for gaming generally seems to fall somewhere between 45-55fps (anything lower and the game becomes choppy and anything higher the user probably won't notice a difference so something else, like more AA, should be enabled).

I can relate to your situation because I'm currently looking into purchasing a new vid card (possibly a 6800) and I'm still trying to determine my bottleneck.
 
Considering you would like to stay with a socket A processor I would go with the Barton 2500+ and OC it to a 3200+. When I first got my 6800 GT it was in my NF7-S with that Barton 2500+ OCed to 3200+ and it ran fine. I mean for $86 @ newegg.com you cant beat it.
 
marcusicp said:
What should be the lowest AMD cpu i should run with a 6800gt? I would like to have no bottle neck with the cpu. right now i have a 1800+ and i know that wont do, so what do I need? Also i would like to stay socket A if I can, but i will upgrade to 64bit procs it need be. Oh and does RAM matter as far as a bottle neck with vid cards? anyway thanks for the help!
Click to expand...

People really don't understand this bottlenecking thing. You are ALWAYS bottlenecked by something. You can never have "no bottle neck" until you get infinite performance.

Any Socket A processor is going to be a bottleneck for a 6800 GT, though a 3200+ Barton wouldn't be too bad. Heck, below 1600x1200 you are going to be CPU-limited with even an A64 3800+. Anandtech did a test with Doom 3 with a 3800+, and basicaly found that with high-end graphics cards, the CPU is the limiting factor until 1280x1024+ resolutions (or lots of AA/AF).
 
I have an 1800+, and with my 9600Pro I'm CPU-bound in Doom3 and HL2.
At least HL2 gives good framerates, somewhere between 20-30 at least... Doom3 rarely goes over 20 fps.
So I suppose a 6800GT would only be more bottlenecked.
If I were you I'd invest in a better CPU if you want to have a decent videocard, the latest games seem to want at least 2.5 GHz to get high framerates.
On the bright side, I can play most games in 1024x768 with 6xAA/16xAF and full detail, and still get about the same framerates as in 640x480 with low detail :)
 
I have a 6800nu and a AMD64 3000 on the system i just built, i think the single channel memory is holding my back more then anything else. But it still plays at a very nice framerate, probably 60+ on max everything and 1200 x 1024

I'm using a VIA K8T800 754pin chipset, and it is rock solid... i should'a got a 939pin but for the money it was a nice investment.
 
Scali said:
I have an 1800+, and with my 9600Pro I'm CPU-bound in Doom3 and HL2.
At least HL2 gives good framerates, somewhere between 20-30 at least... Doom3 rarely goes over 20 fps.
So I suppose a 6800GT would only be more bottlenecked.
If I were you I'd invest in a better CPU if you want to have a decent videocard, the latest games seem to want at least 2.5 GHz to get high framerates.
On the bright side, I can play most games in 1024x768 with 6xAA/16xAF and full detail, and still get about the same framerates as in 640x480 with low detail :)
Click to expand...
There must be something else bottlenecking your performance. A 1800+ should at least give you average framerates of 40fps in Doom3 (assuming that the CPU is the only thing bottlenecking the system).

I'm quite aware of this forums distaste for THQ and I know that I'm risking a flame war by posting this here but this review perfectly relates to the topic of this string:

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20041221/cpu_charts-14.html
 
a barton 2500+ would be nice... but the 2800+ should be minimum according to anandtech? ot tom's.. i forgot....... so.. i would get the 2500+ and overclock... or if you don't overclock.. which i find no reason not to! get a 2800+ at least..
 
GVX said:
There must be something else bottlenecking your performance. A 1800+ should at least give you average framerates of 40fps in Doom3 (assuming that the CPU is the only thing bottlenecking the system).

I'm quite aware of this forums distaste for THQ and I know that I'm risking a flame war by posting this here but this review perfectly relates to the topic of this string:

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20041221/cpu_charts-14.html
Click to expand...

Nothing wrong with the system, obviously.
Sure it gets 60 fps in some hallways, but as soon as a character moves into view, it drops to about 20, if you have 3 or more, it will quickly drop to around 10 fps.
Note also that I have a REAL 1800+ system. Meaning that it was bought back in those days, with a chipset from those days, namely KT133A, using sdram, and the first 1800+, namely the Palomino core. Actually, apart from the sdram, it was the fastest money could buy back then (I didn't get DDR because it was much more expensive, and you only had AMD chipsets at the time, and motherboards with those were hard to get. And the gain of DDR was very little with those first chipsets anyway). If you build a system today, you'd get faster memory, 8xAGP and things like that, which can improve performance quite a bit.

It's the same on my brothers system anyway. He has a P4 2.4 GHz with 6800. His framerates also drop quite quickly when there are characters on screen, but his system is fast enough to keep it above 30 fps in most cases, so his gaming experience isn't spoilt, unlike mine.
 
artimasz said:
I have a 6800nu and a AMD64 3000 on the system i just built, i think the single channel memory is holding my back more then anything else. But it still plays at a very nice framerate, probably 60+ on max everything and 1200 x 1024

I'm using a VIA K8T800 754pin chipset, and it is rock solid... i should'a got a 939pin but for the money it was a nice investment.
Click to expand...

the single channel isnt holding you back at all... the performance increase on AMD cpus with dual channel is negligible...

and for the bottlenecking question... i say anything around an AMD 64 3000+ that is overclockable will do the job.. the 32 bit cpus arent as good as the 64's for gaming obviously.. plus you want have to spend too much and you can push it a decent amount... My 3000+ is at 2.5 and i have the 6800GT OC, its hard to even tell where the bottlenecking is when youre running such high quality games at such good rates.. so trust me, its all in your head.. just get a decent 64 chip
 
Personally I think today's CPU's are bottlenecking the rest of the hardware, not to the point of visibility, but they do.
 
BloodRayne said:
Personally I think today's CPU's are bottlenecking the rest of the hardware, not to the point of visibility, but they do.
Click to expand...

Well, technically it's always been like that, that's the whole PC design. The very fact that most people equate clockspeed with performance says enough, I suppose.
With consoles it's an entirely different matter, the CPU has a far less important role there.
When PCs started using hardware acceleration, the CPU was no longer the bottleneck in the actual rasterizing process, but rasterizing has become so fast that the CPU is now the bottleneck in terms of command/data throughput to the GPU.
I suppose this will never change, unless the design of the PC changes, since GPUs will continue to scale faster in speed than CPUs.
Microsoft is aiming for better performance on Direct3D function calls in future versions though, by redesigning the API/driver. I suppose there's plenty of room for improvement, since currently the calling overhead is quite high.
 
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