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Are Games CPU limited still?

B

Blue Knight

Gawd
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Dec 2, 2000
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699
So my aged Geforce 8800 GTX 512 (G92) bit the dust. Usually at this point I'd just buy a whole new computer (it's going on 4 years), but that's not an option for budget reasons, so I just bought a replacement. With some forward thinking I decided to go with the Radeon 6870 deal right now on NewEgg.

My question - are today's games still CPU limited? I currently run a C2D 7200 OCed @ 3.0ghz, and could push it to 3.4. For what I'm seeing around the web - that's still a decent CPU. My monitor is native at 1920x1200, which is what I will game at for the foreseeable future.

Also due to budget reasons, I'm not gaming on the cutting age, but tend to play things as they go on sale on Steam. :) Mass Effect 2, L4D2, LoL, SC2, and TF2 are what I primarily game with at the moment. Do you guys think I'm stil ok?:D

EDIT: woops, meant to put this in the main video card forum, not just AMD. arg!
 
I gotta say back in December when I upgraded my 8800GT to a HD 6870 I was still on my E6550 system and the 6870 did make a huge difference in the games I was playing (WoW, Black Ops, Bad Company 2). Black Ops was finally playable (but not perfect) and I was able to crank all the settings in WoW and Bad Company 2 to max settings and still keep them enjoyable- all at 1920x1200.

Upgrading to my Sandy Bridge system in January again made a huge difference- all of those games now play pretty much perfectly on highest settings.

I just picked up a second 6870 to give me a little more headroom for the next year or 2.
 
None of those games are demanding at all. You are going to really hold back the 6870 from really stretching it's legs.
 
^^^ Heh.. install Metro 2033 and max the eyecandy. It's a humbling experience even on a really nice rig at 1920x1200. My i7-860@3.6ghz and 5870 xfire setup really had to hump hard to keep up with that one.. :p

But to answer the OP. It really depends on the game.
 
Get that CPU to 3.4. Depends on the game, but you WILL be CPU limited in some, but you will be limited in many at 3.0. SC2 is gonna be CPU limited most likely even at 3.4 and all the eyecandy maxed.
 
I am almost in the exact same boat....

C2D, mine is at 2.66 Gig I think ..


my 8000GT was long in the tooth, and so I got a 6870. some satablity issue for sure ....

I am now on 3 HD 24 inch screens though. it looks awesome.

I do find CPU is limiting me a lot now, I think even a quad would help alot, but hard to justify sinking 300$ in to a CPU for these guys, at this age.

I am planning on waiting untill the fall, and then upgradeing my mobo, and cpu/ram at that time.

My new thinking is tha tI will upgarde computers on in 1 step, but in 2.. video card, and everything else.
 
Evil Scooter said:
^^^ Heh.. install Metro 2033 and max the eyecandy. It's a humbling experience even on a really nice rig at 1920x1200. My i7-860@3.6ghz and 5870 xfire setup really had to hump hard to keep up with that one.. :p

But to answer the OP. It really depends on the game.
Click to expand...

Ya... but he didn't mention that game. :)

Blue Knight said:
Mass Effect 2, L4D2, LoL, SC2, and TF2 are what I primarily game with at the moment.
Click to expand...
 
With the new 25 and 2600K series at 4.7 and higher with the highest 2 GPUs, the GTX580 and HD6970, I would say that CPU is no longer a bottleneck. I think that the P67 chip set is a freaking bottleneck and I cant wait to replace it with the new X58 equivalent of the 6 series.

To answer your question.... yes if you do not have the right combination of hardware your system can bottle neck games.

Your definitly going to see a massive improvement with that AMD card over the old 8800 nvidia.

But bump that CPU speed a bit if you can because that Radeon is going to starve from your CPU a little in my opinion at 3ghz.
 
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on the SC2 situation an i3 550 stock + a 6850 would kill your cpu + 6870. that cpu will really hold it back in SC2.

i understand you have budget issues. if you could dance around it by selling certain parts at a time i'd at least get an i3 550 or 2100 for around $100-$125, plus a cheap mobo and then get whatever you want for a GPU.
 
novadaemon said:
on the SC2 situation an i3 550 stock + a 6850 would kill your cpu + 6870. that cpu will really hold it back in SC2.

i understand you have budget issues. if you could dance around it by selling certain parts at a time i'd at least get an i3 550 or 2100 for around $100-$125, plus a cheap mobo and then get whatever you want for a GPU.
Click to expand...

You might be right running SC2 at 1920x1200 res. That is going to be quite demanding on the CPU to feed data to the GPU. Your GPUs cant do crap with out the big daddy bossman CPU telling them what to do. Gotta make sure it can whip those GPUs into slaving in the acid mines as fast as possible LOL.
 
SC2 is an exception to the rule. But yeah, that game loves CPU. Even with my 2500K @ 4.5ghz I get limited by the CPU a majority of the time just playing Custom games like GreenTD or Marine Arena. Framerates can drop to low 10's and I see my GPU is doing jack shit.
 
I do know SC2 is a CPU hog - the 4v4 games can get pretty hectic with massive unit battles and slowdown, but i'm not usually in such large games.

An i5 is probably the next step, and then i can push this old hardware down to the server/media box. :) I was waiting for a jump. 120gb SSD, 2TB storage drive, i5, and 4GB of RAM.

Nice to know I'll see an immediate improvement. I always like eyecandy. Been awhile since I was actually able to turn on AA/AF in games.
 
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