Will the Intel e6420 bottleneck my GTX 460?

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bodine1231

Limp Gawd
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May 10, 2005
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Hi,just wondering if my Intel e6420 (stock) will bottleneck my new gtx 460 (1gb)? I'd rather not upgrade my cpu if I don't have to or if I wouldn't see a major FPS increase. The pc would be used primarily for gaming. If so how much fps could I expect going to a i5 750 and would it be worth the cost?

current system is this. I usually play at 1920 x 1200

E6420 stock
Gskill 4gb ddr2 800 (PC2 6400)
GIGABYTE GA-965P-S3
GTS 8800 (already bought the 460 just waiting for it to arrive)
Antec 500w
Windows 7 64bit

Thanks!
 
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What games?
What resolution?
Whats the rest of the specs of your computer?

Simple answer: Yes. By quite a bit.
 
Yes, with very few exceptions which you probably would never find yourself in.
 
Yeah it's gonna be a bit of a bottleneck. Even OC'd that E6420 might be a limitation.
 
just play the games you like, and if you need more frames per second overclock your cpu or buy a new one. These bottleneck discussions are pointless.

Yes a lower end cpu will give you less frames, does that make it pointless to couple it with this video card, no.
 
bodine1231 said:
Wow,Torchlight,Civ V,Diablo III,etc. I play a little bit of everything.
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why did you answer only ONE of his three questions?

yes that cpu will the limit the crap out of a gtx460 but by how much will depend on your other answers.
 
butterfliesrpretty said:
just play the games you like, and if you need more frames per second overclock your cpu or buy a new one. These bottleneck discussions are pointless.

Yes a lower end cpu will give you less frames, does that make it pointless to couple it with this video card, no.
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that is a very silly response especially without knowing the full situation here. the card he has now may be fine for the cpu and res he is using. really in the end buying a $200 gpu only to have half of its performance go right down the drain is pretty darn stupid.
 
cannondale06 said:
that is a very silly response especially without knowing the full situation here. the card he has now may be fine for the cpu and res he is using. really in the end buying a $200 gpu only to have half of its performance go right down the drain is pretty darn stupid.
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I know the full situation, high resolution or not with that cpu he's going to be limiting his frame rate compared to a higher end cpu, but we're also not talking about pentium 4's/athlon 64's, or a gtx 480 on the other end, so this card will still be faster than a lower end choice (even with that cpu) and give him dx11.

On top of all this he already bought it so he should just try it out and go from there.
 
butterfliesrpretty said:
I know the full situation, high resolution or not with that cpu he's going to be limiting his frame rate compared to a higher end cpu, but we're also not talking about pentium 4's/athlon 64's, or a gtx 480 on the other end, so this card will still be faster than a lower end choice (even with that cpu) and give him dx11.

On top of all this he already bought it so he should just try it out and go from there.
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please pay attention to what I am saying this time because you don't know the whole situation. he could be using an 8800gt and playing at 1280 for all we know. if that's the case then upgrading to a gtx460 would do little to nothing for him in most cases. so again it depends on his current system and res being used as to whether or not its a small or huge waste by going to a gtx460.
 
cannondale06 said:
please pay attention to what I am saying this time because you don't know the whole situation. he could be using an 8800gt and playing at 1280 for all we know. if that's the case then upgrading to a gtx460 would do little to nothing for him in most cases. so again it depends on his current system and res being used as to whether or not its a small or huge waste by going to a gtx460.
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Ok sorry,current system is this. I usually play at 1920 x 1200

E6420 stock
Gskill 4gb ddr2 800 (PC2 6400)
GTS 8800 (already bought the 460 just waiting for it to arrive)
GIGABYTE GA-965P-S3
Antec 500w
Windows 7 64bit
 
bodine1231 said:
Ok sorry,current system is this. I usually play at 1920 x 1200

E6420 stock
Gskill 4gb ddr2 800 (PC2 6400)
GTS 8800 (already bought the 460 just waiting for it to arrive)
GIGABYTE GA-965P-S3
Antec 500w
Windows 7 64bit
Click to expand...
which 8800gts? 512mb, 640mb or 320mb? if that's a gts8800 512mb then you are not going to see any improvement in many games because your cpu is already a noticeable limitation. now with a game like Metro 2033 you will certainly get a few more fps. many modern games actually put quite a load on the cpu, not just gpu, when cranking the settings so you certainly wont come close to fully utilizing a gtx460. why didn't you ask about this before ordering the card?
 
cannondale06 said:
please pay attention to what I am saying this time because you don't know the whole situation. he could be using an 8800gt and playing at 1280 for all we know. if that's the case then upgrading to a gtx460 would do little to nothing for him in most cases. so again it depends on his current system and res being used as to whether or not its a small or huge waste by going to a gtx460.
Click to expand...

lower end cpu's make frame rates slower. This makes more of a difference the higher the resolution goes. For particular numbers on a similar setup use google, if google has nothing similar you're sol. This should be the response to every bottleneck thread.
 
bodine1231 said:
Hi,just wondering if my Intel e6420 (stock) will bottleneck my new gtx 460 (1gb)? I'd rather not upgrade my cpu if I don't have to or if I wouldn't see a major FPS increase. The pc would be used primarily for gaming. If so how much fps could I expect going to a i5 750 and would it be worth the cost?

current system is this. I usually play at 1920 x 1200

E6420 stock
Gskill 4gb ddr2 800 (PC2 6400)
GIGABYTE GA-965P-S3
GTS 8800 (already bought the 460 just waiting for it to arrive)
Antec 500w
Windows 7 64bit

Thanks!
Click to expand...

If you already bought it and don't want to or can't return it or whatever, try this: Run MSI Afterburner and play a game. After you exit the game, look at what MSI Afterburner says about your GPU usage. By eyeballing it you can tell if your GPU spends a lot of time away from 99%. If it does spend lots of time significantly under 99%, then yes, your CPU bottlenecks the card.

P.S. Well it bottlenecks it for THAT game anyway. You may want to try this test out with ALL of the the games you play.
 
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butterfliesrpretty said:
lower end cpu's make frame rates slower. This makes more of a difference the higher the resolution goes. For particular numbers on a similar setup use google, if google has nothing similar you're sol. This should be the response to every bottleneck thread.
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I know exactly how it works and btw the cpu makes LESS of a difference at higher resolutions not more. I see you still missed the entire point...
 
I'm going to say by the games you listed, your games do (or will likely for the non released ones) seem to skew more to those that will be relatively more CPU dependent. However that being said your Motherboard, ram and PSU both have the headroom to overclock. At worst you could try OCing while leaving vcore alone and see how far you.

I hate to bring this up though, but this thread does bring up some of the issue brought up in http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1544362, lol..:p
 
bodine1231 said:
Ok sorry,current system is this. I usually play at 1920 x 1200
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Fixed resolution displays are basically a curse for budget gamers so it concerns me when I keep seeing them pick this resolution. Yes, your E6420 is going to bottleneck your card. Overclock it at the very least and enjoy your games. Bottlenecked or not they'll still run.
 
an e6420 should see 3.2ghz with mild OC'ing. at that speed it won't be much of a bottleneck
 
definitely oc that shit! my 460 would be bottlenecked by my e8400 if it was stock. But at 4.1ghz it's pretty well balanced
 
bodine1231 said:
I don't remember which,but when I got it it was very highly rated on Newegg.
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Yeah that doesn't mean much these days in regards to PSUs: Tons of shitty PSUs get highly rated at Newegg.

So try to find out which Antec 500W PSU you have. There are a few Antec 500W PSU models that would be a bad idea to use with your GTX 460.
 
Danny Bui said:
Yeah that doesn't mean much these days in regards to PSUs: Tons of shitty PSUs get highly rated at Newegg.

So try to find out which Antec 500W PSU you have. There are a few Antec 500W PSU models that would be a bad idea to use with your GTX 460.
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Found it

1 x Antec SmartPower 2.0 SP-500 500W ATX12V SLI Ready Modular Power Supply
 
bodine1231 said:
Found it

1 x Antec SmartPower 2.0 SP-500 500W ATX12V SLI Ready Modular Power Supply
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Yeah that's what I thought:
The Truepower I and II series as well as the Smartpower series were well known for their above average death rates due to a poor choice in caps and cooling design. In more specific terms, Antec/CWT specified/used caps (Fuhjyyu caps) that did not respond well to heat. Unfortunately, Antec made the decision to have the PSU fan only ramp at really high temps in an effort to keep the PSU quiet. However, just medium to high temps were enough to screw up the caps so really high temps were murderous. Over time, this degraded the quality and performance of those PSU series.

So I recommend replacing the PSU, especially if you hear a squeal, whine, or any odd noise coming from the PSU. Those are usually the first signs of those particular PSU lines dying. So if you do hear a squeal, whine, or any odd noise, that's enough grounds to replace the PSU.

So I highly highly recommend replacing the PSU, especially considering that you're planning on using the GTX 460. I recommend this PSU:
$70 - Antec NEO ECO 620C 620W PSU
 
Well I'll be getting the card in along with Windows 7 tomorrow so if I hear anything funny I'll update it (haven't had a problem with it yet). I thought the newer cards used less power though?
 
bodine1231 said:
Well I'll be getting the card in along with Windows 7 tomorrow so if I hear anything funny I'll update it (haven't had a problem with it yet). I thought the newer cards used less power though?
Click to expand...
Some do, some don't.
 
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