Quick question about CPU bottlenecking

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MetalCharms

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Jun 19, 2006
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I have a Pentium D 820 (see sig) with an EVGA 9600GT.
If I were to step up from the 9600 to say a 9800GX2 or GTX, would the CPU bottleneck enough that I wouldn't get a performance gain?
I don't know enough about bottlenecking to figure it out on my own, but I would wager that it would.
Thanks for the help.
 
Depends on what kind of games you play. If you get the same performance at 800x600 as you do at 1600x1200, then you're cpu limited. If you get a frame rate dive when increasing your rez, then you're more likely gpu limited. In that case, yes a new card will get you better frames at higher rez with more eye candy.
 
Interesting.
Well, when I play Crysis I get close to the same frame rate in med/low as I do in med/high. Like 5 FPS off, but I attributed that to the CPU because that seems to be everybodys problem.
But in UT3 and COD4 I got higher FPS in lower res and when I lowered settings. Does that mean both CPU and GPU are both poor?
 
In UT3 and CoD4, sounds like your GPU is more of the bottleneck. So a new GPU will get you better performance in those games at a higher rez with more eye candy. As for Crysis.......don't base your upgrades on that game. Seriously.
 
There would be a huge bottleneck. Upgrade your CPU before even thinking of getting something like a GX2...
 
Ok. Thanks for your help. I figured as much.
Looks like I'll be working for a new PC this summer
 
HardwareGuru said:
Yup, a Pentium D820 is pretty weak nowdays.
Click to expand...

Pentium D's are notoriously weak for many things, they lack hyper threading, the only technology that increases the efficiency of the inefficient Pentium 4, heck, even in WinRaR tests, my CPU outperformed considerably the Pentium D 805 which runs at 2.80GHz, and Multi Threaded was on, if it was off, it would dip under the 300kb/s.

Bear in mind that the Pentium EE 955 and 965 performance is phenomenal, (In gaming not that much) but in everything else it can rival many core 2 Duos around 1.86 up to 2.4GHz in some scenarios, but it's heat dissipation and power consumption is terrible. It's performance per watt is fatal.
 
In my recent experience, even a Dual Core X2 @ 2.4ghz Bottlenecks the hell out of an 8800GTS 512 or similar.

upgrading to a Q9300 was like night and Day in Crysis, and many other titles.
 
Yeah it was crazy when I upgraded my X2 4400+ oced to 2.6Ghz to a Q6600 at 3.6ghz. I will never go back... well I have to this upcoming week to rework my WCing loop, put in my Q9450 (was borrowing the q6600 lol) and pop in my GX2 when I get it from my step up from 8800gts... It will be a sad week or 2 indeed :(
 
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