Would a 555be (unlocked 4 cores) no OC bottleneck a GTX 480?

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Gawd
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Not sure why, but I have become increasingly frightened of bottlenecking the video card I just bought from a user on here. I ran into a thread where people were discussing if a phenom x4 cpu would bottleneck the gpu.

So would the 480 be possibly bottlenecked by the x4 555be?

If not, how low would a cpu need to be before you'd see any drop in game performance due to it?
 
Games that don't use multi-threading will be the most bottlenecked. I don't know how far you can push an unlocked processor, but you might wish to consider a bit of an overclock.
 
Games that don't use multi-threading will be the most bottlenecked.

If benchmarks are evidence then the exact opposite is true. Single threaded games tend to need very very little cpu throughput. Games that need a lot of cpu throughput and are therefore prone to cpu bottlenecks are almost always heavily multithreaded.

what game would be that cpu dependant? SCII or something?

That's actually a great example. Most modern RTS games gobble up cpu throughput and beg for more (in fact pretty much any game with lots of things moving around and/or interacting at the same time does). GTAIV does as well and so does bfbc2 when a lot is going on at once (explosions, destruction animations, etc.).
 
The MWLL mod for Crysis Wars would need around a 3.6Ghz PHENOMII to not be bottlenecked in that game.
 
So what you guys are saying is that my current cpu

phenom 555b2 unlocked to 4 cores at stock will bottleneck the 480 at 1080p?

If so, how far would I need to push it to prevent this? And what would be a good way of testing if the 480 really is bottlenecked?
 
So what you guys are saying is that my current cpu

phenom 555b2 unlocked to 4 cores at stock will bottleneck the 480 at 1080p?

If so, how far would I need to push it to prevent this? And what would be a good way of testing if the 480 really is bottlenecked?
a 3.2 Phenom 2 unlocked to X4 is just fine for a gtx480 at 1920x1080. in most cases you will get nearly 100% of what that card can offer.
 
For me I load the game I am most interested in playing, set everything as high as I want to run them. Then monitor GPU usage with a app like Rivatuner or MSI Afterburner while playing. If the GPU is maxed out trying to keep up but at 100% GPU load, then the rest of your system is not holding back your GPU in that game at those settings. If your GPU is bouncing along at 70-80% maybe then start overclocking your CPU. See if usage goes up. The point at which your graphics card is no longer being held back and can run at 100% GPU usage then your system is now feeding your card properly.
 
So what you guys are saying is that my current cpu

phenom 555b2 unlocked to 4 cores at stock will bottleneck the 480 at 1080p?

If so, how far would I need to push it to prevent this? And what would be a good way of testing if the 480 really is bottlenecked?

No. He's confusing your cpu for an athlon X2. Apparently not realizing that a 555 is in fact an phenom II X2. Most games are still dual threaded and as I stated before only a small number of games will be bottlenecked, these games will require you to unlock it to an X3 or X4 and possible overclock as well.
 
if it's a 555BE you should be able to unlock hopefully 4 cores and overclocking one of those to 3.6-3.7 through the "black edition" unlocked multi should be easy
 
If you end up having a sever bottleneck with the GTX480 I sold you just let me know. I will work with you on trading it back on a different gpu like the 560Ti or maybe even work with you on a cpu. Just let me know if it does not do what you wanted in a reasonable time frame. I always have something sitting around here we can work with. LOL and Good luck!!
 
If you end up having a sever bottleneck with the GTX480 I sold you just let me know. I will work with you on trading it back on a different gpu like the 560Ti or maybe even work with you on a cpu. Just let me know if it does not do what you wanted in a reasonable time frame. I always have something sitting around here we can work with. LOL and Good luck!!

a 560Ti would only exasperate his issue, but I don't think he has established he has an issue to begin with
 
a 560Ti would only exasperate his issue, but I don't think he has established he has an issue to begin with

My point was I would work with him to fix the issue as the seller if there is one. ;) I have many different video cards and CPU's at my disposal that I can use to help him out with if needed. :D
 
My point was I would work with him to fix the issue as the seller if there is one. ;) I have many different video cards and CPU's at my disposal that I can use to help him out with if needed. :D

the point was good....i just wanted to make sure we dint help him the wrong way ;)
 
In high-ish resolution and nice looking quality settings, it probably won't be a bottleneck.

The overclockersclub timedemo benchmarks above are fairly worthless for comparing real game usage:

Settings:
DirectX 10
0xAA
Game settings to lowest possible

Vsync Off

It does tell you relative CPU performance.
 
Well if its not a bottleneck at high settings it should be no problem then. Who wants to run a game on low settings in order to justify getting a faster system?
 
Sorry i did think it was a Athlon II. A Phenom II @ 3.4 should be just fine. At 3.0 your 555 is about as fast as a stock q9550 @ 2.8 which will bottleneck a gtx480. My gtx460 @ 930 core (very close to 5870 speeds) is the bottleneck with some games with my q9550 at a stock 2.8.With games like Metro and Crysis the gtx460 is still the bottleneck even overclocked.

I suggest overclocking your cpu to at least 3.4 to get the most out of your gtx480. Remember a gtx480 is about = to a 6970 or gtx570.
 
Thanks for the imput guys.

I have not been able to even test the 480 yet since my new motherboard hasn't arrived yet. My old one had several issues. Including the sata ports being blocked by large video cards, the ones that were exposed and usable in this situation broke.

I am hoping I do not need a cpu upgrade until at least bulldozer hits, so I can have more options. If I could by a new cpu right now I'd get a 2500k or something. I bought the gtx 480 because it was the most powerful card I could buy with the money I sold my 5850 for (bitcoin farmers). I could have gotten a card that fit my needs better, but I wanted something that would last me a longer time since I dont plan to game over 1080p ever.

I do plan to try to OC the 555be a bit, I had tried once before but I did not really know what I was doing and couldn't get it over stock. Maybe the cpus fault, most likely mine though. I'll report once I get my mobo and test the card out. I'll try to test if the card is indeed bottlenecked at all.

This idea of bottlenecking never occurred to me when looking at video cards in my life. I always just got the most powerful card the set amount of money I wanted to spend could get.
 
I hate to be the breaker of bad news but you will not see any performance increase from a 5850 to a gtx480 @ 1650 x 1050 res with your cpu at stock. A few exception would be Crysis , Metro type games but even then just a small boost.
 
I hate to be the breaker of bad news but you will not see any performance increase from a 5850 to a gtx480 @ 1650 x 1050 res with your cpu at stock. A few exception would be Crysis , Metro type games but even then just a small boost.

Really, I'm at 1920x1080 and with the 5850 I could not max out a number of games, Witcher 2 being the most recent I can remember. Got a few moer fps ocing the 5850 to 775/1150, max the xfx card would allow. I traded up to the 480 to prepare for the future as well, would like to prolong my next video card upgrade at least well into 2012.

I was able to fit the card on my mobo and leave one sata port accessible. I OCed the 555be to 3.4, now to 3.6. Running prime95 blend right now. voltage stock at 1.360v

I also ran furmark at 3.4 and will compare the results of furmark at 3.6 and see if it made any difference. Is this a valid test for what I want to check?
 
Really, I'm at 1920x1080 and with the 5850 I could not max out a number of games, Witcher 2 being the most recent I can remember. Got a few moer fps ocing the 5850 to 775/1150, max the xfx card would allow. I traded up to the 480 to prepare for the future as well, would like to prolong my next video card upgrade at least well into 2012.

I was able to fit the card on my mobo and leave one sata port accessible. I OCed the 555be to 3.4, now to 3.6. Running prime95 blend right now. voltage stock at 1.360v

I also ran furmark at 3.4 and will compare the results of furmark at 3.6 and see if it made any difference. Is this a valid test for what I want to check?

well furmark will mostly stress only the video card. it is good for loading up the gpu to 100% usage yes but to begin with i might recommend focusing on getting a stable CPU overclock. Prime95 running on all four cores seems to do this well but get this.....

I can game running Crysis Wars for hours on end all the way cranked up and with my video card cranked way up and no problems but at the same settings if i run Prime95 for more than 10-15 minutes it BSOD's.....

I am all for having a stable overclock, but when it does everything I actually do without errors, I can't be forced to be stable for "Prime 95 only" either
 
Really, I'm at 1920x1080 and with the 5850 I could not max out a number of games, Witcher 2 being the most recent I can remember. Got a few moer fps ocing the 5850 to 775/1150, max the xfx card would allow. I traded up to the 480 to prepare for the future as well, would like to prolong my next video card upgrade at least well into 2012.

I was able to fit the card on my mobo and leave one sata port accessible. I OCed the 555be to 3.4, now to 3.6. Running prime95 blend right now. voltage stock at 1.360v

I also ran furmark at 3.4 and will compare the results of furmark at 3.6 and see if it made any difference. Is this a valid test for what I want to check?

Sorry ,I thought you were at 1600x1050.
A 5850 @ 775 is about 20% slower than a gtx480 @ 1080p and with you cpu overclocked it will be much better.

Run 3d mark 06 and check the games and cpu benchmarks.
For your gpu , use 3d mark vantage.
 
ran the metro 2033 benchmark, same avg fps on very high for 3.4, 3.6 and 3.8 ghz. 3.8 is the highest its stable at stock voltages in prime95, so that may be where I stop for now. I'll run 3d mark 06 later tonight.
 
ran the metro 2033 benchmark, same avg fps on very high for 3.4, 3.6 and 3.8 ghz. 3.8 is the highest its stable at stock voltages in prime95, so that may be where I stop for now. I'll run 3d mark 06 later tonight.

I bet your minimums are higher @ 3.8.
 
well I ran some benchmarks this is what I got. Maybe someone can tell me what they mean.

3D mark 06:

x2 @ 3.2 ghz - 14666
x4 @ 3.2 ghz - 17342
x4 @ 3.6 ghz - 19112
x4 @ 3.8 ghz - 19697

3D mark vantage:

x2 @ 3.2 ghz - 10827
x4 @ 3.2 ghz - 15362
x4 @ 3.6 ghz - 16127
x4 @ 3.8 ghz - did not run

Metro 2033 bench: 1920x1080, very high, DX11, MSAA 4x. AF 4x, adv physx on, tess on, dof disabled

x2 @ 3.2 ghz - avg: 27.00
x4 @ 3.2 ghz - avg: 28.00
x4 @ 3.6 ghz - avg: 29.00
x4 @ 3.8 ghz - avg 29.00

I need to run a better game benchmark because the min fps always occured at frame 4-6 so I got a 9 fps min for the x2 and 5 fps min for the x4 @ 3.8

Can anyone recommend a better game benchmark tool?
 
so those benchmarks are with your cpu unlocked to all four cores and using a gtx480?

first of all you need to use more common sense settings for Metro 2033. running just 4x AF is silly for any modern gpu as 16X AF has basically had zero impact on anything above an 8500gt. next turn off the physx since it adds nearly nothing in this game at all. and really unless you stop and stare at the few things that even receive tessellation, it is not worth running it at all either.

I would just run the game at DX10 very high settings, 16x AF and 4x MSAA. then again I would probably not even use the 4x MSAA since it does not look all that good and hurts performance.

sorry to ramble on but I was just giving suggestions as for as actual playable settings to use. at those playable settings your cpu being overclocked would show much more of an improvement too.
 
the x2 is 2 core, the x4 means unlocked.

Honestly I just changed to very high and hit go. I'll try better settings again.
 
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