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Overclocking and GPU bottleneck questions

C

CallMeTheStig

n00b
Joined
Oct 29, 2007
Messages
59
Hey everyone, I’ve got two unrelated questions:

1. I overclocked my current system last year( in sig), everything is stable, except every few months when I start up a screen tells me that overclocking failed and gives me the option to revert to previous settings!
I followed various overclocking guides, all I ended up doing in the end was fixing the vcore to 1.28 and increasing the FSB from 333 to 400 (1600). I ran prime95 for hours without any errors and the temps are nice and low (28 idle 55 load). I can’t figure out what is causing this “overclock failure” every few months!

2. How can I tell if a GPU is being bottlenecked by my CPU?
I’ve currently got an old setup compared to [H] standards, but I was thinking of upgrading to a q9550 in the future and pair it with whatever the next gen nVidia or ATI card is. Since there won’t be any more socket 775 releases, will there come a point within the next few years where a single video card will become bottlenecked by something like a q9550 @ 3.4ghz? How would I be able to tell if one day my CPU bottlenecks my GPU?

Thanks very much in advance!
 
Depends on the game and the resolution and the video settings (AA / filtering etc) you use. You can run all the testing you want but from your sig I can tell you your money is best spent on a new video card if you play any recent games at all. And at anything over 1600x1050 you will be hurting.

That was a great card, I still run it. But as soon as the next crop of cards comes out it is the first thing I replace.

Your setup is not old. look at mine. Until 6 months ago I was running a 6300. Bought the quad because I know they are being discontinued and plan to run it for at least 2 more years before I junk the MB. What people do not realize is that EVERY c2d is the same chip with the exception of the sse4 instructions added to the 45nm series. (A tiny exaggeration but 98% correct, the core in the latest C2D is a slightly optimized die shrink of the first C2D released).

My advice is to go video card or go i5 or i7 but don't spend any more on C2D. No harm if seeing if you can get it a little higher but your low maximum CPU multiplier of 7 (as I think you have found out) is hurting you by requiring fairly high FSB's to get in the 3GHz range and your memory OC becomes significant and an issue that has to be dealt with. Still I bet with some tweaking you can get to 420ish with some mch voltage etc.

On the other hand if you have piles of money laying around -gratz and a CPU with a higher multiplier and/or stock speed cant hurt.

Really all I had to do was look at your sig and if you are a gamer playing newer games and are not playing at 1024x786 on a crt - you need to update your video card. Me too.
 
Thanks for the advice, but I don't want to upgrade anything, I'm happy for now, just wondering about bottlenecking with 775s in general.

Also, can anyone take a stab at my second question? Thanks! :)
 
2. How can I tell if a GPU is being bottlenecked by my CPU?

Reducing the screen resolution does not result in large frame rate/playability increases.
 
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