Will a Q6600 bottleneck a Radeon 6970?

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Davido

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 8, 2008
Messages
135
Hey guys, I'm currently running eyefinity on 24in monitors with an Radeon 5770. I was wondering if my Q6600 cpu running at 3.0ghz or corsair 620 watt psu would bottle neck if I upgraded to a Radeon 6950 or 6970. I planning on building a new pc later this year, but I'm currently looking for a video card that can hold me down until then. I can get 30% off one of these cards, so I'm looking for the best bang for the buck. Thanks for your help!!!
 
yes.

technically even your 5870 is "bottlenecked" not a lot, but a little.
 
haha I wish I had a 5870... Its a 5770. Yea, I'm not looking to build a new pc at this moment. I'm hoping I can just get by with a video card upgrade.
 
You will see some improvement but don't expect it to be drastic since your cpu will hold you back on some games. It boils down to what you play and what's acceptable to you.
 
Well I'm currently play WOW and BC2, but I'm looking to upgrade for Crysis 2 and future FPS games (BF3). Even my current 5770 struggles with WOW at 5760x1200 resolution.
 
risqu3 said:
yes.

technically even your 5870 is "bottlenecked" not a lot, but a little.
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nxcess said:
You will see some improvement but don't expect it to be drastic since your cpu will hold you back on some games. It boils down to what you play and what's acceptable to you.
Click to expand...

Ok quick lesson here... When running 3x24 inch monitors in Eyefinity, the GPU is almost _ALWAYS_ the bottleneck. Especially trying to drive 3 HD+ resolution displays with only 1GB of video RAM. Sometimes I think people just read the thread titles, decide what they are going to post, then open up the thread and fire away. A Q6600 isn't the best anymore, however its pretty damn good for most games. Meanwhile a 5770 chokes trying to drive 3 monitors with any decent amount of game details enabled.

Davido said:
Well I'm currently play WOW and BC2, but I'm looking to upgrade for Crysis 2 and future FPS games (BF3). Even my current 5770 struggles with WOW at 5760x1200 resolution.
Click to expand...

You will see a huge improvement going from a 5770 1GB card to a 6970 2GB card when running 5760x1200, go for it. One of my friends did a similar upgrade (5830 -> 6970) and it allowed them to crank up way more details and have the games run better @5040x1050.
 
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Thanks for the help. I was going to either get the 6950 or 6970 and then I'll probably crossfire once I build my new machine. I believe current motherboards support both SLI and CF on the same board?
 
Ok mainly you need a video card with at least 2GB of RAM since you are doing Eyefinity, basically anything below 1080p you can use 1GB of video ram. The 6950 2GB should do it for you unless you can afford the 6970 2GB.
 
ok don't worry about the CPU, only in certain specific games it makes a difference like BF: BC2, but it's still playable. You will get a bigger bang for the buck upgrading the video card. I should know, that's what I did. I went from a Radeon 3870 to the 6850 and it doubled all my FPS and in some cases depending on game, tripled FPS.
 
Going from a 4870 to either a 6950 or 6970 is like doubling your performance.
 
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