Does Dual core benefit SLi?

A

an4rk1

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Apr 26, 2006
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HI all

My current system is as follows

4000+ clawhammer 939 @ 2.5Ghz
Asus A8N-Deluxe
Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3500LL TwinX (2x1Gb)
2x 7900 GTX

I only game at 1440 x 900 on a 19" widescreen LCD but I feel i'm not getting the most out of the GFX cards because the CPU is bottlenecking. Although the dual core CPU's do not benefit games directly would it remove the bottleneck using a 4400+ X2 that was overclocked to 2.5Ghz?

Thanks All
 
Wouldn't benefit SLI at all.

Your bottleneck is the 19" widescreen. 1440x900 is severly limiting the cards. I'd suggest spending your money on a 20.1" widescreen that does 1680x1050.
 
Fair enough, I'm not really interested in higher resolutions (cards are pretty much to make sure I'm okay for the next year or so, so i'll wait for my new christmas present.

Thanks for your reply.
 
I do, the IQ is awesome and I get 150 fps average for CS:S (full gfx except HDR @ 1440 x 900). I'm not interested in changing the screen but I just wanted to know if a dual core chip would make any benefit compared to my old 4000+?
 
m3ta1head said:
Wouldn't benefit SLI at all.
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I don't agree. nVIDIA has written enhancements into the drivers for multi-threading (dual or more core processors). Since SLI does have a CPU processing overhead, these driver enhancements will result in lower CPU utilization, allowing that to be used by the game instead.

For confirmation look at http://download.nvidia.com/Windows/91.31/91.31_ForceWare_Release_Notes_WHQL.pdf

See the nVIDIA driver history section, specifically page #53, you'll see that the 80 series of drivers added both "Dual-Core CPU support" to the DirectX module and to the OpenGL module. These enhancements carry forward in the 90 series of drivers as well.

While it may not be significant on lower end SLI setups, there will be some FPS result changes (5-15% increase). Perhaps where you'll see the most significant impact for the Dual-Core support is to reduce the significant CPU overhead for Quad-SLI.

Although you may have intended to say that the increase from going to Dual-Core will be much less than the increase from purchasing faster cards. This is certainly true. The point though is that if you do have the budget, a dual-core setup with a 2x 7900GT's will perform better than a single core setup with 2x 7900GT's for example.
 
This i kind of what I expected. Because SLi does require the CPU to assign a workload per processor (depending on the profile) i'd have hoped the drivers were written to utilise the other core, or at least i'd expect to see that in the future.
 
an4rk1 said:
interesting... why couldn't I get 150 fps "on that screen"?
Click to expand...

The refresh rate on almost all lcd's is 60 or 75 hz, so your monitor can't display any more than 75 fps (probably 60).
 
m3ta1head said:
Wouldn't benefit SLI at all.

Your bottleneck is the 19" widescreen. 1440x900 is severly limiting the cards. I'd suggest spending your money on a 20.1" widescreen that does 1680x1050.
Click to expand...
I beg to differ...my 7900GT KO Superclock SLI 3DMark 06 score jumped almost 400 points going from a Opteron 148@2.5 to a X2 4400+ @2.5. No other changes besides that..
 
TMan1876 said:
Call it whatever you want. Your lcd will not run higher than 60 or 75 fps. That is all they do.
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I've gotten over 300fps on my LCD. :rolleyes: Mind you, it was a shitty game but I still got over 60fps.
 
TMan1876 said:
Call it whatever you want. Your lcd will not run higher than 60 or 75 fps. That is all they do.
Click to expand...
you can get as many frames as your system is capable of with vsync off. of course you will get tearing when its above the refresh rate but that applies to all monitors.
 
an4rk1 said:
HI all

My current system is as follows

4000+ clawhammer 939 @ 2.5Ghz
Asus A8N-Deluxe
Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3500LL TwinX (2x1Gb)
2x 7900 GTX

I only game at 1440 x 900 on a 19" widescreen LCD but I feel i'm not getting the most out of the GFX cards because the CPU is bottlenecking. Although the dual core CPU's do not benefit games directly would it remove the bottleneck using a 4400+ X2 that was overclocked to 2.5Ghz?

Thanks All
Click to expand...
The truth is yes it does benefit but only if its programmed to.The main thing i liked about the new conroe is that its true dual core and it certainly proves its different , multitasking on that is amazing.

Read Kirbyrj post on dual core and how you can make most of it in games.
 
trek554 said:
you can get as many frames as your system is capable of with vsync off. of course you will get tearing when its above the refresh rate but that applies to all monitors.
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Your video card can calculate that many FPS. Your screen cannot display it. End of story.

The screen will not display more than the refresh rate it is set to. Period. End of story.
 
mwarps said:
Your video card can calculate that many FPS. Your screen cannot display it. End of story.

The screen will not display more than the refresh rate it is set to. Period. End of story.
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so what is the point of turning off vsync if your monitor can not even display more than the refreah rate? if what you are saying is true then there wouldnt be any point in all the benchmarks people do.
 
trek554 said:
so what is the point of turning off vsync if your monitor can not even display more than the refreah rate? if what you are saying is true then there wouldnt be any point in all the benchmarks people do.
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Because vsync just makes the card only render at the refresh rate of the monitor. It's purpose is just to make sure the screen doesn't have a "tearing" effect. Turning off vsync will just let the graphics card render at the max fps it can, but the monitor will still not display more than 60-75 fps.

In some games, hit registration is different for different fps' and ceartin jumps or moves can are only possible at certain framerates
 
trek554 said:
so what is the point of turning off vsync if your monitor can not even display more than the refreah rate? if what you are saying is true then there wouldnt be any point in all the benchmarks people do.
Click to expand...

*DING*DING*DING*DING*DING*DING*

I hope you were being sarcastic, because if you weren't... newsflash: BENCHMARKS ARE POINTLESS.
 
trek554 said:
so what is the point of turning off vsync if your monitor can not even display more than the refreah rate? if what you are saying is true then there wouldnt be any point in all the benchmarks people do.
Click to expand...


this is where the whole "real world performance" comes in, even if your system did do 500 and your screen could support it; the user wouldnt be able to notice the different between 100 and 500 unless the current fps are showing

The only thing that matters to me personally is minimum FPS and AVG FPS

i want 60 at all times, but i will sacrifice some framerate at some times for better quality picture

all in all, 60fps is the max i've seen an lcd do
 
TMan1876 said:
*DING*DING*DING*DING*DING*DING*

I hope you were being sarcastic, because if you weren't... newsflash: BENCHMARKS ARE POINTLESS.
Click to expand...


not true at all lol, no need to explain
 
TMan1876 said:
*DING*DING*DING*DING*DING*DING*

I hope you were being sarcastic, because if you weren't... newsflash: BENCHMARKS ARE POINTLESS.
Click to expand...
thanks. i will forward the memo to all my favorite sites. :rolleyes:
 
An addition.

Benchmarks are good for comparing computer setups.

I know this is going to start a war, but you don't need more than 60-80fps to sense full motion. Some people are more sensitive to it than others, but when was the last time you noticed flickering in a movie theater? Movies run at 24 or 30 fps.
 
TMan1876 said:
An addition.

Benchmarks are good for comparing computer setups.

I know this is going to start a war, but you don't need more than 60-80fps to sense full motion. Some people are more sensitive to it than others, but when was the last time you noticed flickering in a movie theater? Movies run at 24 or 30 fps.
Click to expand...
movies are not video games.
 
trek554 said:
movies are not video games.
Click to expand...

Aaaand, would you care to enlighten me how a moving picture that is made up of a succession of still pictures created for the purpose of non-interactive entertainment is so different from a moving picture that is made up of a succession of still pictures created for the purpose of interactive entertainment?

The exact same principles are at work. *exact*

Your brain sees the flickering pictures of a movie the exact same way that it sees the flickering pictures of a video game.

Mebbe i'm not seeing something. Please enlighten me.
 
TMan1876 said:
Aaaand, would you care to enlighten me how a moving picture that is made up of a succession of still pictures created for the purpose of non-interactive entertainment is so different from a moving picture that is made up of a succession of still pictures created for the purpose of interactive entertainment?

The exact same principles are at work. *exact*

Your brain sees the flickering pictures of a movie the exact same way that it sees the flickering pictures of a video game.

Mebbe i'm not seeing something. Please enlighten me.
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google it. i read about all this stuff a couple of years ago and there should be quite a few articles on the web about it. movies and games are very very different.
 
Please enjoy this forum to continue the discussion on LCD's tearing, maximum refresh rates and limited fps on monitors. http://www.hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=78

Whether or not my monitor will support the basic question still stands, will my SLi setup benefit more from a dual core CPU like the 4400+.

My own opinion is yes for a couple of reasons. If Nvidia haven't included specific support to increase performance in there drivers I imagine they will soon. But it seems they already have judging by the post from HighTest. Joemama seems to have had actual experience and has had an increase (even if it's only in a benchmark).

The other reason is it's only a matter of time until either multi threaded games come out or the second core is able to be utilized in some way to benefit physics and / or gfx processing.

Thanks all for replying.
 
trek554 said:
so what is the point of turning off vsync if your monitor can not even display more than the refreah rate? if what you are saying is true then there wouldnt be any point in all the benchmarks people do.
Click to expand...
:p pissing contest XD
 
vertical sync chops performance as well, even with triple buffering enabled. Do a benchmark set the max fps to whatever your refresh is at and compare. And yes video game FPS and movie FPS is very different, ive looked it up quite a while ago on google myself. Film is actual little pictures on a roll when spinned against light they produce a movie. Game FPS is refreshes your computer monitor is refreshing or something, i dont remember but ya its different.

http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frames_can_humans_see.htm
 
an4rk1 said:
Please enjoy this forum to continue the discussion on LCD's tearing, maximum refresh rates and limited fps on monitors. http://www.hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=78

Whether or not my monitor will support the basic question still stands, will my SLi setup benefit more from a dual core CPU like the 4400+.

My own opinion is yes for a couple of reasons. If Nvidia haven't included specific support to increase performance in there drivers I imagine they will soon. But it seems they already have judging by the post from HighTest. Joemama seems to have had actual experience and has had an increase (even if it's only in a benchmark).

The other reason is it's only a matter of time until either multi threaded games come out or the second core is able to be utilized in some way to benefit physics and / or gfx processing.

Thanks all for replying.
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Even throwing out the benchmark scores I'm convinced that I got an all around increase in everything I do. My previous proc was an Opteron 148 which has the same clockspeed and 1mb L2 cache as the X2 4400+ and the rest of my system wasn't changed...I can only say that the extra core makes the difference.
 
TMan1876 said:
Aaaand, would you care to enlighten me how a moving picture that is made up of a succession of still pictures created for the purpose of non-interactive entertainment is so different from a moving picture that is made up of a succession of still pictures created for the purpose of interactive entertainment?

The exact same principles are at work. *exact*

Your brain sees the flickering pictures of a movie the exact same way that it sees the flickering pictures of a video game.

Mebbe i'm not seeing something. Please enlighten me.
Click to expand...

Try using your brain here. Pause a movie at a part where there is some motion and the frame isn't going to be crystal clear. Take a frame from a game at any time and it will be.
 
Crash3087 said:
Try using your brain here. Pause a movie at a part where there is some motion and the frame isn't going to be crystal clear. Take a frame from a game at any time and it will be.
Click to expand...

How about you use your brain and not respond to something that happened 5 posts up.
 
I don't understand why you need $1000 worth of graphics cards when you have a $200 monitor. I have a 7900GT and I play CSS with everything maxed and my FPS never dips below 60 at 1680x1050 resolution. Listen to all the other people saying it is your monitor that is holding you back. SLI doesn't really show many benefits until you up the resolution. Although if you are really gonna be that stubborn and not upgrade your monitor, I would at least get dual core, I saw a huge improvement in a lot of my games when I upgraded, and now I can have tons of programs open with no slowdown.
 
dotCapone said:
I don't understand why you need $1000 worth of graphics cards when you have a $200 monitor. I have a 7900GT and I play CSS with everything maxed and my FPS never dips below 60 at 1680x1050 resolution. Listen to all the other people saying it is your monitor that is holding you back. SLI doesn't really show many benefits until you up the resolution. Although if you are really gonna be that stubborn and not upgrade your monitor, I would at least get dual core, I saw a huge improvement in a lot of my games when I upgraded, and now I can have tons of programs open with no slowdown.
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i have to agree with your comments about the monitor. the OP doesnt seem to understand how stupid it is to limit TWO 7900gtx cards to 1440x900. his futureproof excuse doesnt fly either because by the time ONE 7900gtx card cant handle 1440x900 the next generation of cards will be here. :rolleyes:
 
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