CPU bottleneck?

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DirtyblueFL

n00b
Joined
Nov 30, 2010
Messages
11
Im currently running an i7 920 at 3.2Ghz.
My video cards are 2 way SLI BFG GTX 280 OC2 (mouthful).

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I recently had to put one of the 280's in the oven. All is good now, but i think its time for an upgrade. i plan on buying 2 Nvidia 580s. Im almost sure my CPU will be bottle-necking then.

Questions:
Is my cpu bottle-necking my dual 280s?
When i get the 580s (might go with 570s) what speed should i OC my i7 to in order to keep up?
 
Oh boy not this bottlenecking debate again. I will bite though:

If your running at 800x600 with No AA then yes your i7 is bottlenecking the cards. If however your running at 1920x1080 or higher with AA and AF then not really. Sure you'll gain a few fps from overclocking the i7 to 4GHz but I would hardly call it a noticeable bottleneck.
 
Maybe theoretically you might be bottlenecked a little but what other cpu would you get to stop it? You basically got as good as it gets, but I've never heard about anything being bottlenecked by an i7, even tri sli.
 
There is no set answer to this question. It depends of a multitude of factors; such as resolution, settings, and specific game. But generally, your CPU is more than enough to feed the two cards and get great gaming performance even if you do move to two GTX 580s.
 
What about a Core 2 Quad Q8300 @ 3Ghz with a GTX 570 gaming at 1680x1050?

I got the Q8300 for free, used to have an E8400. So far switching to quad has help playing modern games quite a bit.
 
what is your current Resolution at? is it big enough that you need to SLI 580s Im going to say at 1920x1080 its a waste of money. Gran a single 570 or 580
 
kubebot said:
What about a Core 2 Quad Q8300 @ 3Ghz with a GTX 570 gaming at 1680x1050?

I got the Q8300 for free, used to have an E8400. So far switching to quad has help playing modern games quite a bit.
Click to expand...

I think it would depend on the game but for the most part I would guess that you should be fine.

How is that GTX 570 working for you? Any problems? The reason I ask is because I have almost the same motherboard (P5Q Pro Turbo) and am getting a GTX 470 for Christmas. I am just curious if the Fermi cards play nicely with the P5Q Pro motherboards.
 
If you change/upgrade your CPU, then something else will be "the bottle neck".....simple as that, and really, a trick question. Something has to, and will always, bottle neck your PC, by definition.

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kubebot said:
What about a Core 2 Quad Q8300 @ 3Ghz with a GTX 570 gaming at 1680x1050?

I got the Q8300 for free, used to have an E8400. So far switching to quad has help playing modern games quite a bit.
Click to expand...
at that res and with that cpu I would have gone with a $150 gtx460 instead of a $350 gtx570. a Q8300 is already slower clock for clock then higher end Core 2 quads and 3.0 is not really that high when trying to push a gtx570. in games that dont use more than 2 cores it will no better than your E8400 at stock. that being said, its not much of a limitation and you got it for free so just crank the graphics settings and play your games.
 
DirtyblueFL said:
Im currently running an i7 920 at 3.2Ghz.
My video cards are 2 way SLI BFG GTX 280 OC2 (mouthful).


I recently had to put one of the 280's in the oven. All is good now, but i think its time for an upgrade. i plan on buying 2 Nvidia 580s. Im almost sure my CPU will be bottle-necking then.

Questions:
Is my cpu bottle-necking my dual 280s?
When i get the 580s (might go with 570s) what speed should i OC my i7 to in order to keep up?
Click to expand...
No CPU bottlenecking with even HD 5870 CF.

Here is a review, Core i7 vs. Phenom II X2 vs. X4 scaling performance analysis, that covers Core i7-920 from 2.6 GHz to 3.2 and 3.6 GHz and compares them with Phenom X2 and X4
 
thanks guys.

i think im going to invest in a new heatsink (running stock atm) and OC to 3.8Ghz or maybe 4 if it runs cool enough.
 
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