minimum cpu for 5970 ?

S

SoFGR

[H]ard|Gawd
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Oct 14, 2007
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I still got the same graphics card since march, gtx 260 slightly over the evga FTW clocks, rest of my system is

E6600 @ 3.3 ghz
4gb ddr2
DFI 975 x/g
windows XP sp3 + 7 home premium in dual boot
corsair 850W TX
silverstone TJ-07
x-fi titanium fatal1ty champion series
2 raptors + WD640gb black edition
samsung 2233rz (120hz gaming heaven :D ) / bravia 40W4000 ( for long-on-the-couch-gaming sessions )
etc

As you can see most of my parts have gotten really old so i propably won't get much money if i sell them, so i'm planning to make this my secondary system, I got a silverstone 600w spare, all i need is a second monitor, a second case another x-fi and maybe another hard drive.

I'm kinda itching for a dx11 card and quad core cpu so i'm thinking about building a new system from scratch ( psu soundcard monitor and case excluded )

Question is : how many ghz do i need for keeping a cpu hungry card with internal crossfire like the 5970 satisfied ? would an i7 at 4ghz be enough ? do i really need triple channel memory and HT for gaming ? should I go i5 ? Don't give me that " all that matters is gpu power, you don't need more than 60fps anyway so get a phenom X4 " bullcrap

Yea i mostly play at 1680*1050 4x AA 8x AF / 1920*1080 2x AA 8x AF, sometimes i use supersampling transparency AA if i have enough headroom ( old games like BF2 ) but that doesn't mean anything, i want my cpu to be so powerful that any more overclocking won't gain me more than 2-3 in normal gaming scenarios, in other words. i don't want to combine with 5970 a mediocre cpu that will limit my average fps to 55 and my max to 90 when playing clear sky, i want a beefy cpu that will make my card perform at atleast at the 85% of its potential.

For example, if cpu "X" @ 3.5ghz combined with a 5970 gives me 80fps average and 110 max in clear sky / crysis / dirt 2 while cpu "Y" @ 3.80 ghz gives me 82fps average and 114 max that means that cpu "X" is pretty much adequate and i'm propably near my card's limits.

So long story short, how many ghz should i aim for in order to minimize that pesky cpu bottleneck ? oh and something else, any ETA on 5870 2GB ? can't find any recent info
 
I think an overclocked i7 would be a nice fit. Why pair an i5 with the most powerful video card out there? Not that the i5 is a bad performer, but I'd want to be able to feed the 5970 as much data as it can handle. Plus, if you ever decide to go quad-crossfire you'll need all the CPU you can muster. :)
 
A nice new i7 setup @ 3.4ghz at least would do it :) and you'd do that easy.
 
Out off curiosity, how much is the E6600 @ 3.3 holding him back?
 
Im wondering the same as 450, my aging desktop just lost its card to a friend who needed one and im debating a new card for it or just parting it out.
 
I would really upgrade the E6600. I have one as my secondary box at 3.4ghz (usually) and even putting my 5850 in there there is a significant difference vs. my main box with a Q9550 @ 3.6. In Crysis we are talking ~30fps avg on the E6600 vs. ~39fps on the Q9550 at 1920x1080 2xAA v. high. In other games, I would say a 15-18% difference in fps
 
Not related directly to your main question, but I also have a 2233rz (120hz rock), and i wouldnt suggest you to buy a 5xxx serie card. 5xxx cards just dont support 120hz and many people report a noticable flickering effect @ 120Hz. So far ATI doesnt seem to even work on the problem...

http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=260&threadid=119598&enterthread=y

I wanted to buy a 5870, but now im waiting either for ATI to set the problem, or for the new Nvidia cards .. ..
 
WTF ?? i've heard about that flickering problem almost 3 months ago, still no fix ? this is gay :S
 
SoFGR said:
WTF ?? i've heard about that flickering problem almost 3 months ago, still no fix ? this is gay :S
Click to expand...

Quote from AMD Mod
OK I know why this issue occurs now. It is not a hardware fault. The cards 2D speed is too low to drive a 120Hz monitor. AMD are working on a fix to have a higher 2D speed should 120Hz be set. That will take a while though.

The issue shouldn't occur in games as obviously the card uses a higher clockspeed while gaming.

For now you could use a overclocking util such as amdgpuclock or whatever to set a higher 2d clock speed.
Click to expand...


looks like just force 3D clock should fix the problem.
 
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