e7200 bottlenecking?

[BecauseScience]

I mostly play sandbox type games like the GTA series, Oblivion, Fallout, Red Dead Redemption, etc. I'll probably check out the new Civilization at some point. How much will my stock e7200 limit my stock 4870 on current and upcoming sandbox games?

EDIT: Forgot to say that I game at 1900x1200.

I'd be looking at upgrading to the best bang for the buck AMD solution. I'm not a heavy gamer. I've put under 100 hours on my gaming box since it was built. I'm mainly considering this so I can swipe the 4gb of ddr2 that's in the gaming machine. I don't want to sink money into buying new ddr2 at this point. The only way I can justify the whole thing is if the e7200 is seriously bottlenecking the 4870. 10% or less isn't enough. 25% would probably be enough.

Note that I'm not interested in overclocking either the e7200 or 4870.

 

[avddreamr]

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article/2008/11/17/fallout_3_gameplay_performance_image_quality
Compare your frame rates on fallout to the ones listed.
Of particular concern would be your minimum frame rates.
You will be limited on upcoming sand box games because they will be programed to take advantage of quad cores etc.

It is conceivable that in the future, sand box games may have crysis level requirements...
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2010/03/01/intel-core-i7-930-cpu-review/7

If you are using a ddr2 board, your best upgrade would be picking a up 100 dollar quad core, and selling your chip for 50 dollars or so can and calling it a day.

If your going to spend more money, the i5-750 is still the best bang for the buck. but the phenom x4 isn't bad at all.

 

[BecauseScience]

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article/2008/11/17/fallout_3_gameplay_performance_image_quality
Compare your frame rates on fallout to the ones listed.
Of particular concern would be your minimum frame rates.
You will be limited on upcoming sand box games because they will be programed to take advantage of quad cores etc.

I'll do that. What's the best way to log framerates? Fraps?

It is conceivable that in the future, sand box games may have crysis level requirements...
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2010/03/01/intel-core-i7-930-cpu-review/7

If you are using a ddr2 board, your best upgrade would be picking a up 100 dollar quad core, and selling your chip for 50 dollars or so can and calling it a day.

If your going to spend more money, the i5-750 is still the best bang for the buck. but the phenom x4 isn't bad at all.

The main point is to free up the ddr2 that's currently in the gaming box for use elsewhere. Getting the 4870 un-bottlenecked (if it is in fact bottlenecked) is a secondary goal. I'm trying to decide whether I should keep the e7200 and buy a ddr3 motherboard and ram, or go for a new motherboard, ram, and cpu.

If I did go the route of new cpu, motherboard, and processor my budget would be about $250 so the i5 is out of the running. I think I'd be looking at something from AMD in that price range.

 

[ThirdLeft152]

The best way to log framerates i believe is fraps, i use it all the time and it works great.

As far as your machine is concerned i would say that that its probably not being bottlenecked all that much, or at least if you were to upgrade your cpu, mobo, and ram you would probably not see an increase in perforamnce worth justifying the money spent on the upgrade. at that point you'd need to pick up a new card as well. like stated earlier i would say pick up a q6600 or something like that for around $100 or less.

 

[Sojuuk]

I used to have an e7200 mated to a GTX285. At stock speeds I was very limited, however, after overclocking up to around 3.3ghz the bottleneck vanished. Going to 3.6/3.8 helped in a minor way but that is what I ran at.

 

[Dopamin3]

In most games it shouldn't be too much of problem, but I think you're going to run into problems with GTA IV and possibly Red Dead Redemption. Something like a Q9550 would be a good upgrade instead of jumping ship to AMD.

 

[Ultima99]

Civ5 is a bit of a CPU hog on larger worlds, but with its style of gameplay its not as bad as bottlenecking on an FPS or GTA, you'd have longer pauses between turns.