When does processor become a bottlneck?

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.
your cpu is fine for a gtx470 or gtx570 but it would really be helpful if you overclocked to get the best use out of cards that fast. you seem to act like money is an issue yet then talk about getting the gtx570. 1600x900 is a modest resolution that even the $150 gtx460 can handle fine. really I dont see how even your gtx260 is a problem at 1600x900 unless you feel that every settings needs to be maxed.
 
Tom's Hardware did a 4 part article series specifically on the issue of balancing the CPU and video card. The good news is that the Q9550 was one of the CPUs listed. The bad news is that the article is over a year old so the graphics cards are not current. But you might be able to interpolate.

I will link the first article, which directly addresses the Q9550 and other Intel CPUs and the last of the 4 articles which itself includes a link to the other four:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-balanced-platform,2469.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/balanced-gaming-pc-overclock,2699.html
 
your cpu is fine for a gtx470 or gtx570 but it would really be helpful if you overclocked to get the best use out of cards that fast. you seem to act like money is an issue yet then talk about getting the gtx570. 1600x900 is a modest resolution that even the $150 gtx460 can handle fine. really I dont see how even your gtx260 is a problem at 1600x900 unless you feel that every settings needs to be maxed.

Money is a problem right now, but if I had to spend an extra $100 for a GTX 570 I could manage that if it gets me through the next three years without spending another penny. The problem is there is no way I could afford a new cpu\mobo\RAM\heatsink\Windows7 for the next few years since that big upgrade would cost at least $600. I had around $300 coming into the end of the year for a one time upgrade that has to last as I said around 3 more years. The $300 range allowed for a video card upgrade, but not for a cpu\mobo\ram\heatsink\windows7 upgrade.

I have had my cpu overclocked to 3.4ghz. I just have it at stock speeds at the moment since I haven't been gaming on my pc the last few weeks. The reason I wanted the upgrade was for DX11 and Folding performance. Plus, I know my GTX 260 won't be able to max out games for the next three years even at 1600x900.

I would have gladly gotten the GTX 460, but two problems with it. One, it won't hold up as well over the next three years compared to a GTX 470. Secondly, I have been hearing so many horror stories about the 460's in regards to stuttering issues and DPC Latency problems with the 775 chipsets that I am scared to death of them.
 
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Money is a problem right now, but if I had to spend an extra $100 for a GTX 570 I could manage that if it gets me through the next three years without spending another penny. The problem is there is no way I could afford a new cpu\mobo\RAM\heatsink\Windows7 for the next few years since that big upgrade would cost at least $600.

spend less now. technology is a depreciating asset...

I have had my cpu overclocked to 3.4ghz. I just have it at stock speeds at the moment since I haven't been gaming on my pc the last few weeks. The reason I wanted the upgrade was for DX11 and Folding performance. Plus, I know my GTX 260 won't be able to max out games for the next three years even at 1600x900.

I would have gladly gotten the GTX 460, but two problems with it. One, it won't hold up as well over the next three years compared to a GTX 470. Secondly, I have been hearing so many horror stories about the 460's in regards to stuttering issues and DPC Latency problems with the 775 chipsets that I am scared to death of them.

I disagree. GTX 460 should hold up quite well relative to GTX 470. You can buy a gtx 460 1GB for $150. Save your cash.
 
You really don't need to upgrade your GPU. Even your CPU.

If DX11 didn't come out I would have stayed with my GTX 260. Besides, not only am I a gamer and want DX11, I Fold on my gpu so the GTX 470 will be a huge upgrade in that regards.
 
IDK man, I'd stick it out a little longer to see what the 560 is going to be like before you make the jump into a new gpu. The 260 still holds its own today, especially at your resolution. I think buying a 470 or 480 is a mistake when everyone agrees, its Fermi done *wrong*.
 
I think it helps to talk about exactly what would be considered a bottleneck.

I generally consider "a bottleneck" to be performance reduces to a point where I notice a significant FPS drop when gaming.

Through my own experimentation, I've found this to correspond to an FPS drop into the low 30s to high 20s.

While limitations above this point will technically limit performance, if I cannot perceive that limitation while I am playing at the video settings I actually play with, then I do not consider that a bottleneck. Technically the CPU may be limiting performance. Technically that might be considered a bottleneck because it's a more severe limitation than a GPU, but the reality is that if you can't perceive the performance difference, it's not worth upgrading to alleviate that 'bottleneck'.

If you define bottleneck in that fashion, which I believe to be a practical definition rather than a "technical" definition, then an overclocked C2Q will not be a bottleneck in many modern games at the GPU settings you'd actually play at.

I completely disagree with the COD Black Ops person above, this game does scale very well with CPU performance (as seen here: http://www.techspot.com/review/336-cod-black-ops-performance/page8.html ), however, the performance with an old C2Q 6600 @ stock is in the borderline acceptable range. Certainly a similar processor in the 3.2+ GHz range will be in a performance regime where it won't offer any noticeable slowdowns.

I think people get hung up on "faster is better" While faster is definitely faster, there's a point at which you stop noticing the differences. The key is if a "bottleneck" falls into that range or not, which is the entire basis for the way HardOCP does reviews.

I can honestly say that in my history of 3D gaming going all the way back to the original 3Dfx days, I've never been in a case where overclocking the trailing edge CPU caused any significant performance penalty. In this age of console ports that don't push the high end GPUs, it's easy to see processor limiting performance, but you have to look at more than what scales performance. The absolute numbers are very important.
 
It really really depends on the application. I have a i7-970 in one computer that is CPU bound even with a 7900GTX on Everquest II. (I have a 5870 on the gaming computer)
 
IDK man, I'd stick it out a little longer to see what the 560 is going to be like before you make the jump into a new gpu. The 260 still holds its own today, especially at your resolution. I think buying a 470 or 480 is a mistake when everyone agrees, its Fermi done *wrong*.

I already have the GTX 470, I just can't install it until Christmas lol (it's a christmas present so the wife said I can't install it until then lol). I am trying to figure out, since it is an EVGA, should I step up to a GTX 570 (two and a half months left on the step up and right now it would cost $120 to do so). I might wait until the middle of Feb, if the GTX 570 drops to say $319 it might be worth it. I just don't know.

Anyways, it's not like my GTX 260 will go to waste. My wifes pc that she uses occasionaly to play games, I will put it in that pc as an upgrade for her. She currently has a 8600gts so that will be a nice upgrade for her pc.
 
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I already have the GTX 470, I just can't install it until Christmas lol (it's a christmas present so the wife said I can't install it until then lol). I am trying to figure out, since it is an EVGA, should I step up to a GTX 570 (two and a half months left on the step up and right now it would cost $120 to do so). I might wait until the middle of Feb, if the GTX 570 drops to say $319 it might be worth it. I just don't know.

Anyways, it's not like my GTX 260 will go to waste. My wifes pc that she uses occasionaly to play games, I will put it in that pc as an upgrade for her. She currently has a 8600gts so that will be a nice upgrade for her pc.

$120 plus shipping both ways is much better spent on a new monitor imo. A GTX470 is already overkill for the resolution that you are using.
 
$120 plus shipping both ways is much better spent on a new monitor imo. A GTX470 is already overkill for the resolution that you are using.

Yikes, I wasn't even thinking about shipping costs. I am guess it would probably come to $150 or so, and that's definitely not worth it. I know the GTX 470 is overkill at my resolution right now, but it won't be two years from now. Plus, I Fold on my GPU's more than I game so the Folding performance alone was worth the upgrade for me.
 
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