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Am I CPU bottle necked?

U

unhap

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 13, 2010
Messages
422
I have a geforce 260 core 216 and an e6400 c2d (2.13ghz) overclocked to 3 ghz
 
I would say no , I was running a E6750 stock with the same card . The only game that gave me problems was GTA 4 . Which would max out the CPU . I later switch to Q6700 and did not see a improvement in games except GTA 4 which ran notably smoother .
 
With the GTX 260 you're CPU is fine at 3GHz. If you wanted to jump to a GTX 470 or higher then you may start to run into issues. I wouldn't say anything to substantial though.
 
^^ Agreed. In fact, I'd actually say you'd see a bottleneck as low as a GTX460. The only game where I could think of you being a little cpu limited would be BFBC2.
 
Most games probably not. Though there are some games that love quad cores like GTA 4 and Dragon Age.
 
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It depends on your resolution. Anything from 1680x1050 and above with high settings and the CPU becomes much less of a factor and its more on your GPU. If youre at 1280x1024 then your CPU is doing a lot of the work and will be slowing you down a little.

If youve got the cash, it wouldnt be a bad idea to move up to a speedier quad core.
 
phiberoptik said:
Yes you are.
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and you are basing that on what?

anyway there are different kinds of cpu bottlenecks. first off an E6400 at 3.0 can handle almost any game smoothly and overall is strong enough to push a gtx260 in general. you can easily push the graphics settings in most games to make the gpu the limitation while using that cpu. now the res is certainly a factor because even though the cpu is decent enough it may not give the gpu all it needs at low res. all that being said there are same games where a faster cpu or even a quad would help especially when trying to run the settings that a gtx260 or faster card is capable of.
 
Simple answer..
1. Run game
2. Check cpu. Are you at 100%
3. (answer original question with answer from number 2).
 
no, not if you want to play some game which is designed to be played with quad core only, like GTA4/ BAD company 2
 
I don't think your current setup is CPU limited. Try running a benchmark for the more CPU intensive games you play like the ones already mentioned, once with CPU at stock and once overclocked. Then OC it some more to absolute highest it can go, or at least 400 to 500MHz to create a noticeable difference when you benchmark again. If from your 3GHz OC to the max OC you gain a substantial amount of frames in the benchmark, yes you are CPU limited. I don't think you are though, especially at 3GHz.
 
Gta 4 ran terribly on my system. Bc2 ran pretty good though.

The game that really prompted me to ask was Wow, since me and some friends are getting back into it for the new expansion. I drop below 60 frames all the time (its noticeable sometimes i even go into the 30s or 20s -especially with people around but without them too) and I wouldve thought a 260 would demolish wow. Also I just got civ v and it really chugs when I zoom out. Even at low Res.

I play at 1900x1200 btw.
 
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How much system ram do you have?

Wow loves it's ram... other than that max shadows seemed to be very taxing in comparison of 1 less.

TBH i really doubt that it is the cpu or gpu that are taxing you on wow.


Just in case could you also post the ammount of video ram and your usual settings? just so that anyone who reads it could give you a hand and tips if able.
 
Max settings. Video ram is like 768 or something I think.

I have 3gb of system ram on win 7.
 
And antialiasing? (number of multisamples)...

Your ram should hold it easy, the video should also hold nicely unless you are using too many samples on your antialiasing.

Only other usual culprits with WoW would be an addon misbeheaving, like for example those that do gearchecks (GearScore), those that scan/extend your combat log way beyond the standard viewing range...

NVM:
adding a couple links with WoTLK performance:
http://www.gamespot.com/features/6202200/p-5.html
Your card itself is plenty strong, if you watch the next page you will see that it is simply that WoW is like that apparently, it uses only 2 cores (atm, might be changed for cataclysm), so it prefers raw MHZ
They say in that test that there is no difference between 2GB and 3GB but i would differ and say that there is indeed one, specially with ventrilo and if you need to alt tab... of course you already have 3gb ram (on Win 7 64 bit, right? just to be future proof i mean... it won't mind with your current system if it is 64 or 32)
 
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Any newer CPU would help... especially something like an E5200 - could get you to 3.6ghz or more. That'd free up your graphics card a lot more.
 
cannondale06 said:
not very relevant since OP has an older dual core plus many more cpu intensive games have come out since that article was written.
Click to expand...

Sure it is, it shows how below 3ghz you're severely bottlenecking your video card while beyond that it pushes the bottleneck more towards your video card. Also the OP is specifically having a problem with WoW, which only uses two cores effectively (I know about the tricks with ProcessAffinityMask, but it still only effectively uses two cores.)

So OP, if the main game you play is WoW, the only way you're going to get higher framerates is by having a higher clocked CPU. A 260 is plenty for WoW.
 
mrrogers747 said:
Sure it is, it shows how below 3ghz you're severely bottlenecking your video card while beyond that it pushes the bottleneck more towards your video card. Also the OP is specifically having a problem with WoW, which only uses two cores effectively (I know about the tricks with ProcessAffinityMask, but it still only effectively uses two cores.)

So OP, if the main game you play is WoW, the only way you're going to get higher framerates is by having a higher clocked CPU. A 260 is plenty for WoW.
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I was saying that the article isn't relevant if you were under the impression that his cpu would never be a limitation. you aren't though so if anything we agree that he needs a little bit more cpu power for some games. 3.0 is not some magic number though. the OPs cpu is much slower clock for clock than my E8500 so yeah he would need even higher clocks to match modern cpus at 3.0
 
The question can only be answered qualitatively, without more information and testing. Why, because any measure of the cpu and gpu relative to gaming performance, like Frames Per Second (FPS), depends on:

1) monitor resolution
2) game quality settings (high, med, low, etc.)
3) game design (cpu threads/cores, etc.)
4) other misc. GPU settings
5) Your FPS goal

Which CPU, CPU speed, # of CPU cores, and the GPU you need will be primarily driven by the game(s) you play, and the FPS you need in those games, and at what resolution and quality settings.

- Generally speaking, at high resolutions and high quality settings, the cpu tends to be less important, or limiting (any cpu speed increase will result in minimal increases in the FPS). But, that really depends on the game.
 
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I'm nit trying to see what gpu or CPU I should be getting. I'm just wondering if my e6400 is powerful enough to keep up with my 260 which is much newer.

I play all the latest games and wow. For the most part I am pleased but occasionally in wow I get gps drops - I don't know if that is due to the old CPU.
 
unhap said:
]
I play all the latest games and wow. For the most part I am pleased but occasionally in wow I get gps drops - I don't know if that is due to the old CPU.
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It's a combination of things apparently. WOW is fairly CPU heavy as well as hard disk (apparently).
 
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