Athlon 64 x2 4200+ bottleneck an 8800gts (320mb)?

[orchidsofwrath]

will an Athlon 64 x2 4200+ bottleneck an 8800gts (320mb)? I was thinking about this combo in my new rig and wondering if i may be choking the 8800's potential with the 2.2ghz athlon 64 x2.

-any input would be appreciated. thanks.

 

[AeroB1033]

I doubt it'll be too much of a bottleneck, depends on the game of course.

 

[orchidsofwrath]

i was thinking monstrous games such as oblivion, fear, and particularly crysis. (its understood its hard determine that last title since its not even out yet.)

 

[AeroB1033]

From what I understand, Oblivion and F.E.A.R. rely a lot on graphics power, especially at higher resolutions.

 

[halbhh]

will an Athlon 64 x2 4200+ bottleneck an 8800gts (320mb)? I was thinking about this combo in my new rig and wondering if i may be choking the 8800's potential with the 2.2ghz athlon 64 x2.

-any input would be appreciated. thanks.

[be sure to see link and edit note below]
I think it's in the fuzzy area, where there is no clear answer, when your budget is limited, since this card is practically the same as the mid 8800, but....I'd probably want more cpu power with the 8800gts, and I'd look at the 4600 for example, or even the 5200, which is $219 now on Newegg, and has the same or better good value of price/performance. If you can afford the extra $65, you'll find the 5200 decent for a long time I bet. It would be nice to have the 5200 speed if you plan to have a 24" or bigger monitor I think. But the 4200 will be run the games, and could be a temporary plan where your AM2 board can take a nice drop-in upgrade cpu in 08 later when the new chips are out.

The 5200 is only prescriptive for the future, since....link, keeping in mind the eye doesn't care about faster framerates above 60 really, and never above 70.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/geforce_8800_gtx_gts_amd_cpu_scaling/page11.asp

[edit: as I considered it further at the link, really the 4200 obviously will do quite well for now with oblivion, and it's interesting to compare viewpoints of reviewers!]

 

[dasickninja]

This is a good link, thanks -- need to add it to my arsenal.

Arsenal? Planning on going to war against fanboyism?

 

[Grimmy]

:lol:

 

[RandMcnally]

The CPU can be heavily relied on in Direct X 9 Games. However, direct X 10 games are designed not to rely on the CPU, and only on the GPU. This is what ATi has in their .pdf slides about programming benefits for direct X 10.

 

[RandMcnally]

The CPU can be heavily relied on in Direct X 9 Games. However, direct X 10 games are designed not to rely on the CPU, and only on the GPU. This is what ATi has in their .pdf slides about programming benefits for direct X 10.

Could you link that please, I sincerely doubt DX10 games will not use the CPU.... this sounds like a marketing gimmick by someone who wants to sell you somthing, especially when all you hear from people like Valve and EPIC (Unreal engine 3) that multicore is going to be the next gig.

Thanks,
Jack
I'm looking, I read it a few weeks ago, and it was made in early 2006 I believe.

 

[halbhh]

This is a good link, thanks -- need to add it to my arsenal.

Interesting, Quake 4 appears CPU bound in most all cases for the GTX. I have a GTX on an X6800, at it is CPU bound up to 1280x1024, regardless of eye candy.

For the GTS version, the 4200+ is just fine, but I am with you I would want a little more power in the CPU just to ensure all cases were covered, but that is me. --- for the GTX, man that is a powerful card.

Jack

I had a brief discussion with Hotfoot about this idea of measuring cpu bound games. My point is that unless the fps is below 60, the bench measurement isn't relevant to actual use! (due to limit of the human eye) If any game will play at 60 for the resolution and eye candy you want, then you've achieved nirvana re fps for that game. So the benches measuring like 105 fps vs 85 fps are meaningless. Put another way, it's only proving a faster cpu is a faster cpu, until you get under 60 fps.

 

[Heyyou27]

This is a good link, thanks -- need to add it to my arsenal.

Interesting, Quake 4 appears CPU bound in most all cases for the GTX. I have a GTX on an X6800, at it is CPU bound up to 1280x1024, regardless of eye candy.

For the GTS version, the 4200+ is just fine, but I am with you I would want a little more power in the CPU just to ensure all cases were covered, but that is me. --- for the GTX, man that is a powerful card.

Jack

Have you tried overclocking it yet? :lol:

 

[RichPLS]

Author's Opinion
The long and short of this experiment is that you need a high speed platform to get the most out of the new DX10 hardware. If you were planning on getting a $600 graphics card to replace your 1-year-old graphics card, it would behoove you to rebuild your box. Of course, this means that the whole graphics upgrade will cost you a lot more than just the graphics card.

If you don't do the job properly, the net effect will be like hooking up a pair of garbage speakers to a Bose or Klipsch sound system. The effect would be the same... less than optimal performance, and an experience that is far from ideal given the money you spent.

I liked the closing opinion 😉

 

[apache_lives]

will an Athlon 64 x2 4200+ bottleneck an 8800gts (320mb)? I was thinking about this combo in my new rig and wondering if i may be choking the 8800's potential with the 2.2ghz athlon 64 x2.

-any input would be appreciated. thanks.

put it this way, your system will beat a core 2 duo system with a 7 series geforce video card 😉

 

[orchidsofwrath]

will an Athlon 64 x2 4200+ bottleneck an 8800gts (320mb)? I was thinking about this combo in my new rig and wondering if i may be choking the 8800's potential with the 2.2ghz athlon 64 x2.

-any input would be appreciated. thanks.

[be sure to see link and edit note below]
I think it's in the fuzzy area, where there is no clear answer, when your budget is limited, since this card is practically the same as the mid 8800, but....I'd probably want more cpu power with the 8800gts, and I'd look at the 4600 for example, or even the 5200, which is $219 now on Newegg, and has the same or better good value of price/performance. If you can afford the extra $65, you'll find the 5200 decent for a long time I bet. It would be nice to have the 5200 speed if you plan to have a 24" or bigger monitor I think. But the 4200 will be run the games, and could be a temporary plan where your AM2 board can take a nice drop-in upgrade cpu in 08 later when the new chips are out.

The 5200 is only prescriptive for the future, since....link, keeping in mind the eye doesn't care about faster framerates above 60 really, and never above 70.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/geforce_8800_gtx_gts_amd_cpu_scaling/page11.asp

[edit: as I considered it further at the link, really the 4200 obviously will do quite well for now with oblivion, and it's interesting to compare viewpoints of reviewers!]

What an amazing link. nice find. If i were to spend 219 bucks though, i would just get a C2D e6400, (since i'm already getting a new mobo anyhow)

 

[halbhh]

Yeah, it is! It was late, and I had only searched using the keyword Oblivion, and didn't even look at the rest of the article until today. It reinforces the conclusion. For these games that are heavily demanding on a video card the 4200 is as good as the 5200. If you spent more money, it's better spent on the monitor and/or video card, once you have an x2 3800 at least (for cards *up to* the 8800 GTS!, a GTX does need a 5200 IMO, over overclocking lower X2 chips to 2.6GHz), since framerates above 60-70 won't matter at the lower resolution anyway, and at higher resolution, the cpu isn't determinate.