When does processor become a bottlneck?

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veras

Weaksauce
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I'm on the verge of upgrading my 4870x2 into either a 6970 or 580 GTX (I game at 2560x1600)

Currently I have a Q9550 @ 3.6 ghz and 8 gb of RAM

Is the processor going to be a bottleneck at all or is it still fine?
 
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gaming on a 30" resolution is pretty beefy. you might be okay at that resolution, but at 1920x1200 i would go with a faster cpu.
 
seanmcd said:
As SOON as you try and run the new COD Black Ops game...
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lol

I honestly haven't had too much issue with the game. I certainly don't think my CPU is bottlenecking my 5870. And I know it's not when running Eyefinity.
 
Oops, I don't know why I typed that - it's not at 2.83

It's at 3.6 ghz (425 x 8.5)

The question stands though!
 
at that resolution you're fine, but if you consider going with SLI then you will need a fast i7 cpu
 
veras said:
Is the processor going to be a bottleneck at all or is it still fine?
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Of course it is a bottleneck.

You can find all kinds of benchmarks that prove so. Now it will only be noticeable in certain situations and maybe the increase won't seem that big to you, but it is a bottleneck.
 
veras said:
Is the processor going to be a bottleneck at all or is it still fine?
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That's seems to be the million dollar question that so many of us are trying to figure out. At the resolution you are using, considering a GTX 580 and q9550 at 3.6ghz I would think you would be ok. Will that cpu hold that monster gpu back? Maybe a little but at that res I would think you be fine overall.

I struggled with the same question when I wanted to get a new video card recently (pc specs in sig, my q9550 is at 3.4ghz). Since I game at 1600x900 I figured anything more than a GTX 470 would be severe overkill, so I ended up getting the GTX 470. I couldn't justify another $120 for a GTX 570 in my situation. Even if the GTX 470 is overkill for my pc and the resolution I game at, I Fold on my gpu's so at least I can get full potential out of the 470 with Folding even if I don't with gaming.
 
veras said:
I'm on the verge of upgrading my 4870x2 into either a 6970 or 580 GTX (I game at 2560x1600)

Currently I have a Q9550 @ 3.6 ghz and 8 gb of RAM

Is the processor going to be a bottleneck at all or is it still fine?
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At 3.6ghz with decent quad, you should be fine.
Yeah go for either the 6970 or the 570/580. The 6970 has more memory though and that might help at that resolution. But most benchmarks I've seen show the 580 winning at 2560x1600.
 
a Q9550 at 3.6 would easily be fast enough for a gtx580 at 2560x1600. there would only be a few games where an i7 would make any difference and even then nothing much. even gtx580 sli would be okay on that cpu at 2560x1600.

personally for $500 I dont think a gtx580 is that big of improvement from your current 4870x2. the 6970 would be even less of an improvement but of course it is cheaper. if you really want a very noticeable increase in performance then go 6950 or 6970 crossfire.
 
4870X2 is really holding up, considering it's over two years old now.
Slightly faster than a 5870 give or take, and cards haven't really come too far from there, even a year later.

That's ignoring the inherent CrossFire issues, though.
 
bustaplz said:
lol

I honestly haven't had too much issue with the game. I certainly don't think my CPU is bottlenecking my 5870. And I know it's not when running Eyefinity.
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Well sure, not with a Nehalem at 4.0+ghz!
 
Not to answer your question in any way but I usually build a new rig when my GPU is outdated.... In the process of building a new one as we speak.

Just waiting for my 6970 to arrive to go with my I7 950.

Just from reading the forums everyday I would say go with a 570 to save yourself some cash and be able to fully utilize the GPU.
 
Soulmetzger said:
Not to answer your question in any way but I usually build a new rig when my GPU is outdated.... In the process of building a new one as we speak.

Just waiting for my 6970 to arrive to go with my I7 950.

Just from reading the forums everyday I would say go with a 570 to save yourself some cash and be able to fully utilize the GPU.
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we are talking about a Q9550 at 3.6 here so at 2560x1600 even TWO 570 cards would be fine with his cpu. not to mention the 570 would only be about 10% faster than we he already has.
 
whoa whoa im running a 9550 and its only at something like 2.2ghz!! WTF.. How high can i go on stock cooling???? i need an aftermarket mobo lol but i can tweak the multiplier i think.
 
The CPU is generally not a bottle neck as most games are written to put their computing on the GPU. One easy way to see is if you have a demanding game open pull up your task manager and see if the CPU is at 100%. I had an AMD 4200 dual core CPU for 6 years before it just couldn't take the more demanding games. (I had upgraded my GPU several times during those years)
 
wolvyne said:
The CPU is generally not a bottle neck as most games are written to put their computing on the GPU. One easy way to see is if you have a demanding game open pull up your task manager and see if the CPU is at 100%. I had an AMD 4200 dual core CPU for 6 years before it just couldn't take the more demanding games. (I had upgraded my GPU several times during those years)
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the cpu not being at 100% doesn't mean that a game cant be much faster on a faster cpu. you really just have to look at it on a game by game basis. and bottlenecking can mean different things. sometimes a cpu is slow enough that gameply is affected. sometimes a cpu is just not quite fast enough to keep up with a certain level video card.
 
memory transfer is what the cpu controls right? so wouldnt you want the fastest memory transfer possible? your cpu might max out its mem transfer before it even gets to 100%.. thats why you need a higher ghz. faster switching from on to off (the ghz part) equals faster signals to the FSB andmemory controller.

but im a rookie, and thats just a 4 sentence sumamry of what i got from a 6 page article a few months back..i could be all wrong
 
needmorecarnitine said:
Of course it is a bottleneck.

You can find all kinds of benchmarks that prove so. Now it will only be noticeable in certain situations and maybe the increase won't seem that big to you, but it is a bottleneck.
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:rolleyes: Yeah, an overclocked Yorkfield is a real "bottleneck". That word gets thrown around way too often here.
 
needmorecarnitine said:
Of course it is a bottleneck.

You can find all kinds of benchmarks that prove so. Now it will only be noticeable in certain situations and maybe the increase won't seem that big to you, but it is a bottleneck.
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LOL.

You people saying a 3.6ghz C2Q is becoming a bottleneck are looney.
 
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how bout the motherboards that have direct memory transfer and eliminate the fronside bus...is that like a standard thing now or what??
 
If you oc like some people have been saying you'll probably be fine. It would probably on bottleneck 3dmark scores or video benchmarks
 
A bottleneck is anything that limits something from moving from point A to point B at anything but maximum speed. apoppin, your benchmarks show that in half of your games the CPU is a bottleneck on the performance of the system. It is not solely a function of the speed of the cpu, but also the technology of that cpu.
So what matters really is, not whether or not your cpu is a bottleneck, but rather, does it place a bottlebeck that is so severe that you *NOTICE* it is happening.
An i7 might get you 180 fps, and a Phenom II might get you 160 fps. Will you notice? No.
If the FPS for the i7 is 40 and the fps for the Phenom II is 20, then yes, the bottleneck has noticeable real world hindrances on your gameplay. That is when it matters.
Everyone whines about the bottleneck term being overused, when really, its applicable to almost every situation. What counts is whether or not it really matters.
 
Do you want to debate semantics?

A bottleneck in a computer is generally considered to be "a phenomenon where the performance or capacity of an entire system is limited by a single or limited number of components or resources".

Taking your narrow definition of bottleneck, we would also have to consider many other factors including the system RAM - its quantity and speed; your hard drive and your operating system. Not to mention that the situation in gaming is totally fluid.:p

Since we are talking about PC gaming and "CPU bottlenecking", it generally refers to what is *practical*. And a modern CPU in most cases will provide a satisfactory gaming experience - the graphics card makes the most difference.



DOOMHAMMA said:
A bottleneck is anything that limits something from moving from point A to point B at anything but maximum speed. apoppin, your benchmarks show that in half of your games the CPU is a bottleneck on the performance of the system. It is not solely a function of the speed of the cpu, but also the technology of that cpu.
So what matters really is, not whether or not your cpu is a bottleneck, but rather, does it place a bottlebeck that is so severe that you *NOTICE* it is happening.
An i7 might get you 180 fps, and a Phenom II might get you 160 fps. Will you notice? No.
If the FPS for the i7 is 40 and the fps for the Phenom II is 20, then yes, the bottleneck has noticeable real world hindrances on your gameplay. That is when it matters.
Everyone whines about the bottleneck term being overused, when really, its applicable to almost every situation. What counts is whether or not it really matters.
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I am curious as to why you italicize and put in quotations a sentence, yet do not link its source or where it came from lol.
My point is, semantics must be argued because everyone on these forums has a different opinion on what it means. Hence why you bothered responding to me, yet you missed the fact that I made the same conclusion you just did ><
And if you want to be technical, my idea of what a bottleneck is, is most broad, while yours is most narrow lmao
 
a bottle neck is anything that slows flow...period.. lol if you processory can only move 32 lanes of traffic in 1 switch, but the gpu can send and recieve 64...then your cpu is a bottle neck.
 
DOOMHAMMA said:
I am curious as to why you italicize and put in quotations a sentence, yet do not link its source or where it came from lol.
My point is, semantics must be argued because everyone on these forums has a different opinion on what it means. Hence why you bothered responding to me, yet you missed the fact that I made the same conclusion you just did ><
And if you want to be technical, my idea of what a bottleneck is, is most broad, while yours is most narrow lmao
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Because it is SO well-know as to be a definition from a wiki :p

If you want my definition of bottleneck, you would have to read my evaluation. The OP's CPU will not be a bottleneck.
:cool:
 
seanmcd said:
The answer the OP's question completely depends on which games he/she plays. MOST games will continue to play just fine. There are games out there though, that need the better throughput of an i5/i7 system.

I mentioned Black Ops previously, because without a doubt - the CPU makes a huge difference:
http://www.techspot.com/review/336-cod-black-ops-performance/page8.html
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Ok, I will agree that it makes a huge difference in this particular game. However, all those benchmarks were at stock. A q9550 at 3.6 will be be performing at a high enough level that you wont be able to tell the difference, therefore NOT a bottleneck. And black ops is a worst case scenario so far.

Another thing to remember about "bottlenecking" is this doesn't mean performance is capped a certain level because of one component which many people seem to assume. For instance running that q9550 with SLI 570's will bottleneck it some. Change that system to SLI 580's and you WILL see an increase in framerates. You will see a bigger increase with an overclocked i7, but there is no bottleneck performance wall (at least at these levels of CPU and GPU). A q9550 WILL be a bottleneck for SLI 580's in many games, but it will still blow away the framerates of a single 580. Bottlenecking is not a "hard cap."
 
I am reading through all these posts and my head is spinning thinking about my current situation. Specs in sig, however I am getting a GTX 470 for Christmas. I game at 1600x900. Since I game at a resolution considered pretty low, I am trying to figure out if the 470 is going to be too much for my cpu, a perfect match, or is not enough for my cpu and should I consider stepping up to a GTX 570.

I guess I am trying to think ahead. I plan on gaming at the same resolution with the same cpu for at least another two and a half years because of financial reasons. Upgrading my gpu now is all I can afford for the next few years and cpu\mobo\RAM upgrade will be out of the question unless I win the lottery. Most people will say the GTX 470 is overkill for 1600x900 and today it is, but I have to think about the next two and a half years. Two years from now, regardless of if I stay with the 470 or step up to a 570, neither will be overkill for my resolution by that point.

I am curious to hear peoples thoughts on my setup and situation.
 
I have a QX9650 @ 3.6ghz NO problem. I had it to 4.4ghz stable, but it scared me a little bit, i backed it down some. I would think that setup you have would be awesome right now. I recently upgraded to a Gigabyte P45 mobo with DDR3 support and an 128GB SSD, MAN did that make a difference. My frames are up 35% using the same CPU but overclocked, faster ram, SSD. Maybe you might want to consider those options. I know that HDD performance is a big factor.
 
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