How bad of a bottleneck would I have? 560ti on x2 4200 (OC to 2.4)

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Gatecrasher3

Limp Gawd
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So I really need to replace my 8800gt, and I was looking at the 560ti, but I don't have the funds right now to do a full system upgrade. So I was wondering how bad my amd x2 4200 that I OC'd to 2.4 would bottleneck the 560ti prominence.
Would only be playing skyrim and BF3, on a 22" mon, keeping my rez at around 1280 x 720.
I would probably bump the rez up depending on how well the cpu could handle the 560.

Any ideas?

Thanks.
 
It will bottlenck a lot, unfortunately.

In fact, there's a very big chance your current 8800GT is already being held back somwhat by your CPU, even with the OC.

I'll tell you why:

Back in 2008, I got my LGA775 system with a Core 2 Duo E8400 (3ghz stock), 4gb DDR2 and an 8800GT.

At the time, this was one of the best CPUs out there for gaming, and even with its powerful stock speed of 3ghz, I found out that I would get better framerate when I OCd it to 4ghz.

The difference was not great, but it was there.

The point is, my E8400 was already MUCH faster at stock speeds than your 4200+ at 2.4ghz. And it still held back the 8800gt a little. Even if you could OC your CPU to 3ghz, the E8400 would still be faster at the same clock speed, because Core 2 had better IPC than Athlon X2.

Now imagine how much your athlon x2 is holding back your current GPU. You won't see any practical benefit from switching to a GTX 560 Ti, especially at that rest.

Just my 2 cents.
 
You could probably triple or even quadruple your framerate with any Nehalem+ processor running OC'd over 3.5.

On BF3, any Nehalem+ quad over 3.5 will at least quadruple your performance.
 
I posted a similar question a few days ago. Asking if a 4800+ (oc'd to over 3GHz) would bottleneck even a weaker GPU than the 560ti you're asking about during MW2 gameplay. After some research, the answer was pretty unanimous that I needed to ditch the socket 939 setup.
 
Sorta doubt a 8800GT would be held back much by a E8400. I don't have any definitive proof however, since I never did a direct comparison. My 8800GT is in my Opterion 165 rig, and my E6600 had a 260GTX.

When I moved the 260GTX over to my new i7 2600K rig I got around tripple the (minimum) framerate in Counter-Strike: Source. That was actually the deciding factor for upgrading. My minimum framerate would drop to something retardedly low at times, like 30fps for no apparent reason. Turned out to be a CPU bottleneck.
 
8800GT wouldn't be held back by a e8400. My e8500 wasn't holding back my HD 5870. Also Counter Strike source is a CPU dependent game. You would gain tons from a CPU compared to the new video card in CSS.


xDezor said:
Sorta doubt a 8800GT would be held back much by a E8400. I don't have any definitive proof however, since I never did a direct comparison. My 8800GT is in my Opterion 165 rig, and my E6600 had a 260GTX.

When I moved the 260GTX over to my new i7 2600K rig I got around tripple the (minimum) framerate in Counter-Strike: Source. That was actually the deciding factor for upgrading. My minimum framerate would drop to something retardedly low at times, like 30fps for no apparent reason. Turned out to be a CPU bottleneck.
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it would be a massive bottleneck and you would not even get but about 1/3 to 1/4 of what a gtx560 ti can do at 1280x720. even ignoring the bottleneck, a 4200 X2 will not deliver a very playable experience in general for BF3 and Skyrim at settings a gtx560 ti can use. tbh there is no point upgrading your gpu with a 4200 X2 as that cpu is just too darn slow. that cpu does not even meet minimum requirements for some newer games.
 
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there's no way that would be worth while. Your CPU, Motherboard and Ram are now ancient in terms of computer hardware.
You would be FAR FAR FAR better off putting that money into an upgrade of those 3 parts.

GIGABYTE GA-78LMT-S2P AM3+ AMD 760G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard $64.99
AMD FX-4100 Zambezi 3.6GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 95W Quad-Core $119.99
Kingston HyperX 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) $26.99

While I admit this is not the most amazing computer, it fit your same price range, with even some space left over, and this will be 10x the upgrade for your case.
That 8800GT is pretty old for today's games, but so is the rest of your computer. Don't waist your money on a new video card unless you intend to upgrade the rest of the computer in the near future.
 
IMO just forget about that Bulldozer garbage if he is going to build from scratch as spending a little more for Sandy Bridge would be better. and 8gb makes much more sense plus ram is cheap.
 
cannondale06 said:
IMO just forget about that Bulldozer garbage if he is going to build from scratch as spending a little more for Sandy Bridge would be better. and 8gb makes much more sense plus ram is cheap.
Click to expand...

I should probably clarify my previous post, as I agree with getting a Sandy Bridge.

The Bulldozer suggestion was simply for the OP if the price of a GTX 560 ti is the extent of his/her budget. If they can't afford to spend more in the foreseeable future, then it is a pretty decent setup.

an i3 would certainly be a better solution, but that comes with a higher price.
 
Sh*tty, needing to upgrade is what I expected..
Last night I went for a more aggressive cpu OC and hit 2.9 and even then I could see a bump in my FPS. So if my cpu is holding back my 8800gt I can't imagine what it would do to a 560.
Well I guess I will start saving my pennies.
Thanks a ton dudes.
 
Gatecrasher3 said:
Sh*tty, needing to upgrade is what I expected..
Last night I went for a more aggressive cpu OC and hit 2.9 and even then I could see a bump in my FPS. So if my cpu is holding back my 8800gt I can't imagine what it would do to a 560.
Well I guess I will start saving my pennies.
Thanks a ton dudes.
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yeah even at 2.9, your cpu would only be about like a 2.2-2.3 Core 2 duo. :eek:
 
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