ATI 5870 + E8400 @ 3.6 GHz this huge of a bottleneck??

[shening]

So i just bought a ATI 5870 and was expecting major improvements at 1080p resolutions over a 9800GTX, however in Assassins creed in cities i still get framerats around 35. My system is

EVGA 750i FTW
E8400 oc at 3.6 ghz
4 Gb of DDR 1066
ATI 5870

I know the cpu IS bottelnecking the card BUT i didnt think it would be this bad, i mean a 3.6 ghz E8400 should get more than 35 fps i think. I did see major improvements in COD MW2 and im confused why i dont see any almost in Assassins Creed 2. I was expecting 55+ fps in AC2.

Also one last question, with my setup if I wanna upgrade should i buy a Q9550, upgrade to i7(than i have to get new ram and mobo) or just get a cooler and OC my CPU to 4 and wait for 7-12 months.

Thanks in advance for your advices.

Sebastian

 

[JofaMang]

I would think that overclocking to 4.0 from 3.6 can't yield a large enough improvement to satisfy your concerns. IIRC, ACII is fairly CPU dependent, and may get no assistance from your GPU upgrade. To test for CPU limitation, raise or lower your graphics settings and see how it effects your framerates: if there are not significant changes in framerate between graphics settings (resolution, AA, shadows etc) then it is definitely your CPU holding you back on that title.

If this is indeed the case, then an upgrade to a Q9550 would probably be the best immediate return on investment. The i7 will perform better than a Q9550, but the difference might not be worth the price, and since the 1366 platform is already scheduled for replacement, your i7, while an awesome chip, would be the limit to future upgrades.

Q9550 + a quality cooler would be my suggestion, taking into consideration cost vs performance.

 

[shening]

Sweet thx for the fast reply .

 

[Raidur]

+1 to jofa

Make sure you don't upgrade for this single game. ACII was still pretty demanding on my system as well. (I think I was @ 3.8)

Try out a few other games. Q9550 is a good upgrade, I did the same as you (I had an E8400), but at first I was somewhat disappointed until I started playing a few more CPU bound games (like Bad Company 2). Now I never want to go back hehe.

Just remember, the majority of games still only use 2 cores.