High speed GPU, low speed CPU - bottlenecks.

[jdraughn]

Obviously, if you stick an 8800GTX in a Athlon 3500+ system, the CPU is going to be a huge bottleneck. I am curious though if there are any settings you can turn up on the video card which only stresses the video card, and not the CPU, therefore letting you get better performance/quality by upgrading the video card.

Does AA increase CPU usage? Resolution? how about the general quality settings like turning up texture quality. You would think that some of those things would only stress the video card and not the GPU.

The reason I ask is because I have a 3500+, and just gave my 7900GT to my father since his integrated graphics weren't up to the job. I was planning on spending my tax return on an 8800GTX and a Westing house 1920x1080 native resolution 37" LCD for gaming.

Would hate to spend all that money and see no difference at all in speed. I do plan on getting a new CPU soon, but it seems pointless to go with AMD right now when the core 2 duo is out and I have an outdated S939 CPU, and I don't have enough money to upgrade the motherboard and CPU right now.

any thoughts and opinions?

 

[RogueTrip]

If you have S939, why not get a dual-core like the x2 3800 and o/c it? Its a better bang for the buck right now.

That with a 8800 series card should be good enough for all games out.

 

[Arcygenical]

Any athlon 64 at 2.4ghz won't bottleneck an 8800...

 

[eno-on]

I'm sick of hearing about CPU's bottlenecking a GPU.

Look at it this way.
You will top out certain aspects of the game with a slower CPU.
At this point,if you have a bitchin GPU, you can start turning on eye candy with no loss of frame rates .
I mean, shit, the more powerful the GPU, the more eye candy, the higher resolution, no matter WHAT cpu you are running.
As long as the CPU is powerful enough to run the game, the higher end the card, the better.
Story = end.

 

[jdraughn]

if I get a dual core 3800+, the core speed on each processor is 2ghz, my 3500+ has a core speed of 2.2ghz.

I would most likely take a dip in FPS in most games since they are not well equipped to utlize more then one core.

 

[sumofatguy]

if I get a dual core 3800+, the core speed on each processor is 2ghz, my 3500+ has a core speed of 2.2ghz.

I would most likely take a dip in FPS in most games since they are not well equipped to utlize more then one core.

barely noticeable. turn up the resolution and aa and you should be good to go. and even then I doubt you would notice, because even though most games are not equipped for dual core, the two cores does help the game run smoother by allowing windows processes to run on the other core

 

[TalonMan]

I think it all depends on how speedy of a GPU your talking about.

In this article 'Intel Core 2 Duo Family review - TechSpot'
http://www.techspot.com/review/8-intel_core_2_duo_family/page5.html


They wrote this "In the X3: Reunion test the E6400 was just 7% slower than the E6700 at 1280x1024, which worked out to be just 6fps. The E6400 was on the other hand 9% faster than the E6300, which proves the Core 2 Duo needs to be operating at over 2GHz to be efficient enough to support a speedy videocard like the Radeon X1900XTX in our test rig".

They seem to think that 2GHz or higher on a Dual Core to keep a Radeon X1900XTX happy.

 

[RogueTrip]

if I get a dual core 3800+, the core speed on each processor is 2ghz, my 3500+ has a core speed of 2.2ghz.

I would most likely take a dip in FPS in most games since they are not well equipped to utlize more then one core.

Yep, thats why i said you could o/c, i hear alot of peeps getting up to 2.8ghz with the x2 3800, now that is enough for any game out currently!

Of course you could always dump 350$ for a FX60 (2.6ghz) or a opty 185 (dunno price off hand)

I kinda got sad the otherday when i see with STALKER the recommended CPU is a x2 4200!!

EDIT before anyone calls me on it, seen pre-order for 29.99 at frys linky

Requirements

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
Microsoft® Windows® XP (Service Pack 2)/Microsoft® Windows® 2000 SP4
Intel Pentium 4 2 Ghz/AMDXP 2200+
512 MB RAM
10 GB available hard drive space
128 MB DirectX® 9c compatible card/ nVIDIA® GeForce™ 5700/ATI Radeon® 9600
DirectX® 9 compatible sound card
LAN/ Internet connection with Cable/DSL speeds for multiplayer
Keyboard, Mouse.

RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400/AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+
1 GB RAM or better
256 MB DirectX® 9c compatible card/ nVIDIA® GeForce™ 7900/ ATI Radeon® X1850

 

[LuminaryJanitor]

I kinda got sad the otherday when i see with STALKER the recommended CPU is a x2 4200!!

EDIT before anyone calls me on it, seen pre-order for 29.99 at frys

In my experience, retailers have a pretty poor track record with respect to accurate game information, and this particular piece of information smelled a bit suspect, so I had to go check this out for myself.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the official recommendation is an X2 4800+ .

Though the minimum is only an XP2200+, so it's not nearly as bad as it seems.

 

[RogueTrip]

GAH, could this day get any worse, first its raining out as i got to work and find i have a flat tire, filled it up and took it to firestone to find they won't touch it (not enough tread they say) and that i need 400+$ worth of ball joints and out tie rods, AND NOW THIS!!! well crap, i shouldn't of even got out of bed today

In my experience, retailers have a pretty poor track record with respect to accurate game information, and this particular piece of information smelled a bit suspect, so I had to go check this out for myself.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the official recommendation is an X2 4800+ .

Though the minimum is only an XP2200+, so it's not nearly as bad as it seems.

 

[Optimummind]

Obviously, if you stick an 8800GTX in a Athlon 3500+ system, the CPU is going to be a huge bottleneck. I am curious though if there are any settings you can turn up on the video card which only stresses the video card, and not the CPU, therefore letting you get better performance/quality by upgrading the video card.

Does AA increase CPU usage? Resolution? how about the general quality settings like turning up texture quality. You would think that some of those things would only stress the video card and not the GPU.

The reason I ask is because I have a 3500+, and just gave my 7900GT to my father since his integrated graphics weren't up to the job. I was planning on spending my tax return on an 8800GTX and a Westing house 1920x1080 native resolution 37" LCD for gaming.

Would hate to spend all that money and see no difference at all in speed. I do plan on getting a new CPU soon, but it seems pointless to go with AMD right now when the core 2 duo is out and I have an outdated S939 CPU, and I don't have enough money to upgrade the motherboard and CPU right now.

any thoughts and opinions?

If I were you, I would spend the income tax money and get the 8800GTX. You don't have to worry about seeing no difference because the 8800GTX will allow you to increase the IQ settings to the max for all games that the 7900GT wouldn't have been able to.

If you want to get the maximum out of the 8800GTX and stress it, turn up AA, AF, and LOD in the driver control panel and turn up all the Distance, Texture Quality, Particle Size density, etc options within the game menu. You'll see a BIG difference in quality of the image although you may not see an increase in framerates.

Whether the framerates go up or not depends on the specific game, though. Some games are more CPU-bound whereas others are more GPU-bound. If you are playing a GPU-bound game, then you image quality and framerates will both go up. If it's a CPU-bound game, then only the image quality will go up.

Either way, you are win, win.

-optimummind

 

[malingjc]

I was planning on spending my tax return on an 8800GTX and a Westing house 1920x1080 native resolution 37" LCD for gaming

If you're going to game at that resolution, you probably need the 8800GTX (depending on game). The only problem that I forsee is that if you get into the habit of getting the latest and greatest cards, you will continually be buying $550 graphics cards which will be worth $250 (or less) in 6 months.