System Bottle Neck? Upgrade Needed?

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speedy523

[H]ard|Gawd
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Aug 13, 2008
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Here Are my system specs, and i dont beleive im getting the preformance from all my parts such as my graphics card, so can everyone tell me if its because my system is bottlenecking?

Specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 3.2 GHz
2GB Corsair Dominator 1066 5-5-5-15 (2x1GB)
VisionTek 4870 x2
EVGA 680i SLI
Enermax Galaxy
WD 150GB 10K RPM Raptor X

I was thinking about getting 2 more gigs of Ram and upgrading to a Q9550 and overclocking to hopefully 3.8 GHz +. What does everyone think?
 
What makes you think your rig is not up to its full potential?

What OS are you running? Another gig or two wouldn't hurt.

I have been tossing around the idea to move a quad, but most of the research I have done points to a duo as just fine for gaming and not much benefit comes from going quad with regard to gaming.

-Flake
 
Im running Vista 32-bit. Also, i've noticed when i run stress tests now such as prime 95 or orthos, my core 1 fails in 30 seconds but core 2 never does. a couple months ago neither failed, but recently core 1 has. But, whenever an app such as 3dmark, sandbox2, etc. put 100% load on the cpu it never crashes and continues to work perffectly, so is there any explantion?

Also, im getting crappy frames all around with my 4870 x2 which lead me to beleive this. ill probably rma in a couple days if the problems persist, if not i am thinking of a quad upgrade while i wait till lke may of next yr when all the stable nehalem chipsets,drivers, etc are released.
 
I honestly think your fine and have nothing to worry about. I would only upgrade to the new Q9550 if you want to stretch the life of your 775, and if that is something you want to do then also upgrade to 4gigs and run a 64bit O.S. If you think that your proc is a bottleneck to your vid card then i ask 2 things....

1. whats your resolution? at higher resolution's, like 16x10 and up, the cpu is negligable in comparison to the videocard, and with a 4870x2, theres nothing better.

2. If you really want to upgrade, and dont do video encoding and such, a cheaper e84XX would probably be a wiser choice since it will yield you the highest overclock in terms of Ghz, which games benefit from more than the extra 2 cores since most games only really utilize 2 cores.

All that said, IMO your fine and got nothing to worry about at all, but would get 4gb of ram if it were me. The best thing to do in terms of an upgrade if your afraid your not maximizing your vcard is to pick up a nehalem and new mobo when they are released later this year. :)
 
in prime 95 are you running a blend test or a test that is also test the ram? small FTT's is where you start......
 
Open up task manager, and click on performance. Then load up your games and play them and check task manager> if the first core isn't max or near max the time you were playing in the chart, then it's not bottlenecking. I OCed my 3ghz to 3.6ghz and saw no difference in FPS in crysis @ max detail, and we all know what a hog that game is.
 
empower64 said:
in prime 95 are you running a blend test or a test that is also test the ram? small FTT's is where you start......
Click to expand...

no im running small FFT's, also someone care to explain why these clocks are messed up? Also both screen shots were takin with in 30 seconds of eachother

capturemu8.jpg


capture2mk7.jpg


The clocks are switching? My clock in my 680i's bios is 355 x 9 not 355 x 6. The voltage set in the bios is also 1.356 not 1.48. This has never happened to me before, what's wrong?
 
Running a 4870X2 on a 32bit OS is probably what's killing you. You're probably not able to address all the VRAM, dunno if there are any other implications for stability.

But definitely look into Vista64, I obviously can't condone warez but try and borrow a disc or something.
 
Orangey said:
Running a 4870X2 on a 32bit OS is probably what's killing you. You're probably not able to address all the VRAM, dunno if there are any other implications for stability.

But definitely look into Vista64, I obviously can't condone warez but try and borrow a disc or something.
Click to expand...

o, i bought the retail version of vista ultimate the week it came out so i got 32 and 64 bit install cd's :) but i also thought all the vram wouldnt be addressed if i had more physical ram? if im not mistaken, my 4870 x2's memory is first mapped then my physical ram. And since all my ram is showing, theres no need currently for 32-bit since all the memory has been mapped.

But anyway, can someone plz tell me whats wrong with my cpu clocks that i posted above ?!?! :confused:
 
speedy523 said:
The clocks are switching? My clock in my 680i's bios is 355 x 9 not 355 x 6. The voltage set in the bios is also 1.356 not 1.48. This has never happened to me before, what's wrong?
Click to expand...

Looks like SpeedStep in action. You can disable it in the bios, then re-enable it later once stable (if you want).
 
Orangey said:
Looks like SpeedStep in action. You can disable it in the bios, then re-enable it later once stable (if you want).
Click to expand...

huh? first there was powerstep for my gpu, nows theres speedstep for my cpu? omg, so complicated lol. ill reboot, increase voltage, disable speedtest and run OCCT.
 
Speedstep was disabled, but after raising the voltage the variation of clocks went away and its back at 3.2 GHz. i also ran OCCT for 5 min without any errors till i cancelled myself. Then ran Orthos and no errors. I think after updating my bios it changed my voltages which is why i got errors in orthos.
 
As for the voltage (vcore) displaying differently than in BIOS, it's always .1v higher because of another BIOS setting which different manufacturers call different things, but it's supposed to offset "vdroop". You should see a setting that allows you to offset vcore by +100mv. You shouldn't need to touch this usually.

There's also another option called On-Die Throttling, I've been told never to disable this as it stops the CPU melting. Whereas SpeedStep just dials back your CPU when idle, for power saving and such.
 
ah, also can anyone with a dual core and a 4870 x2 run the world in conflict benchmark at all max settings at 1280 x 1024 and tell me your avg. fps. mines still 32. going to try CoD now
 
the increase it voltage will/has probably fixed your problem when running prime95, run prime95 non blended tests, as in cpu only tests, for a couple of hrs (4 at least id say) to make sure your cores dont continue to error, getting a stable OC should be your main priority. In vista you can also go to power management and choose high performance mode which disables speedstep also (thats what i do), the default mode that vista sets is balance. If your showing 2gb physical ram then no need for 64 because windows does map gpu ram first. Run 3dmark 06 and compare your cpu score to others with your same proc, and then also compare your overall score to similar setups. You should beable to find world in conflict and other benchmark scores on any 4870 review.
 
Could my 4870 x2 be bottlenecking since i beleive i have a pcie 1.0 slot, and the card is meant for pcie 2.0 since it needs so much bandwidth?
 
running occt for 5 min won't tell the story of a stable overclock, also the failure of one core when running small fft tells it all. your overclock is not stable yet.
i also think your under-performing 4870x2 is caused by your unstable oc'ed cpu.
 
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