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Will a new cpu make a difference?

H

hajalie24

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Dec 22, 2010
Messages
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I have a q6600 @ 3.0ghz. Would upgrading to a newer cpu make a difference at 5900x1080? I'm thinking my first bottleneck would be the 1gb of vram on the 5970, but can the cpu also have an effect?
 
a new Sandy Bridge cpu will certainly help but your 5970 with just 1gb is the main limitation at that resolution.
 
Yeah if you consider a cpu upgrade you should also be considering 1/2 6950's or holding off for next gen cards/cpu's.
 
That's what I thought. I guess my next upgrade would be an SSD for windows performance and wait till the new generation of gpu's and cpus. Thanks!
 
The 3GB 580s are great for that resolution. If you go with an SSD stay clear of the SandforceController and go with Intel or Crucial IMO.
 
Depends entirely on the game, a game like BC2 is extremely harsh on the CPU and you'd likely be CPU bottlenecked there, other games you may not see benefits. I'm in a similar position with a 5970 and a Q9450@3.6Ghz, I've decided to wait for Sandybridge 8 core CPUs rumoured for Q4 this year.

The VRAM on the 5970 is only a bottleneck in some very specific circumstance although it maybe become more important in future, it's hard to tell. At that resolution VRAM will be filled with large amounts of AA making high levels of AA on more modern games impossible (8x usually).

Generally speaking with modern/future games the GPU cores will start to struggle to push that many pixels running that level of AA so even if you had more VRAM there is no evidence to suggest the GPUs would keep up and give you a decent frame rate to begin with. Older games also aren't really affected, which AA will eat up a lot of vRAM there texture budgets are lower and allow for it.
 
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