Serious question...

T

Temperfied

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 26, 2007
Messages
357
I am not looking for a WILD guess...

Right now I am running a 939 4400+ X2 @2.55GHZ

2GB of OCZ S.O.E Ram

7800GT


Ok, I am looking to upgrade to an ATI 3870. Will my CPU bottleneck the videocard at all?

The card will be a gift from my fiance, and I am planning on upgrading my CPU/Mobo/Memory in March
 
You should have no problems running that card with your setup. I'm running an 8800GT without any issues.
 
Temperfied said:
Will my CPU bottleneck the videocard at all?
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I'm getting tired of this "bottlenecking" idea. Given how GPU dependent games are these days, it would have to be a rather lousy CPU to seriously limit your video card's usability. Anything dual core really should be fine. I'm not saying you won't see any improvement when you upgrade your processor but the difference in most games will be relatively minor. Some exceptions will happen, such as Supreme Commander, but not many.
 
Most games these days are pretty well threaded, at least dual and some truly multithreaded. If you want better graphics, get a better graphics card. Pretty simple.
 
You will see the cpu bottlenecking the system mainly at lower resolutions anyways.
 
Kaldskryke said:
I'm getting tired of this "bottlenecking" idea. Given how GPU dependent games are these days, it would have to be a rather lousy CPU to seriously limit your video card's usability. Anything dual core really should be fine. I'm not saying you won't see any improvement when you upgrade your processor but the difference in most games will be relatively minor. Some exceptions will happen, such as Supreme Commander, but not many.
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This is not true. It makes a big difference at lower resolutions how much work the CPU is capable of "spitting out" at the GPU. If you're running at 12x10 you're very likely to be much *more* bottlenecked by the CPU in many games, including Crysis (i.e. going up multiple gpu tiers you don't see much improvement). That's not saying you won't see any, you just won't see as much as if you're totally GPU bound (higher resolution, with AA, etc.).
 
Sr7 said:
This is not true. It makes a big difference at lower resolutions how much work the CPU is capable of "spitting out" at the GPU. If you're running at 12x10 you're very likely to be much *more* bottlenecked by the CPU in many games, including Crysis (i.e. going up multiple gpu tiers you don't see much improvement). That's not saying you won't see any, you just won't see as much as if you're totally GPU bound (higher resolution, with AA, etc.).
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I forgot people still played at those resolutions :p. It just further goes to show that there really isn't just one answer to this question.
 
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