Bottlenecking with new GTX 970?

jmk3382

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Nov 23, 2014
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I just made my first real GPU upgrade, and I think I might have run into a bottleneck.

I just upgraded from a GTX 550ti to the new GTX 970, and I'm not seeing the improvements I expected.

I have an old Dell server (Precision T3500), and I'm having trouble getting a good idea of the quality of some the parts that are in it.

My specs are:

EVGA GTX 970 SC ACX 2.0
4 GB DDR3 Ram ( I don't know the speed, but in CPU-Z, it says: Channel # Dual, and DRAM frequency: 530)
Intel Xeon E5520 2.27 Ghz
Windows 7 32-bit OS
One 230 GB Hardrive with about 50 GB left

I'd greatly appreciate any help or advice on what (if anything) should be upgraded.

Some games, like Just Cause 2 and Saints Row IV run maxed out, 60 FPS easy.

Others are acting strange. Crysis Warhead has the same FPS, at low and max settings, regardless of resolution. Witcher 2 at max settings starts at 60 fps, and eventually slows down to under 10 FPS and then crashes to desktop.

I'm going to be downloading and trying more games over the weeks, but these are all that I've had time to try.

Also, for the future, are there any good software or techniques I could use to detect bottlenecks on my PC?

Thanks in advance!
 
Solution
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That would be a huge upgrade from what you have. Add a 64bit OS as well so you can run 8GB of RAM minimum. Get a CPU cooler and overclock to ~4Ghz and you would have a pretty good gaming setup. Still not up to snuff for the newest AAA titles like AC Unity and Far Cry 4 but able to play most everything else.
Board\CPU\RAM are your issue. I didn't know DDR3 could get that low of a frequency. You are also using 32 bit W7 and not 64. :\ That GPU is a beast, it should be getting 100+ fps on those games.
 
You have a huge CPU bottleneck. That Xeon is based on the 45nm Core2 architecture. It's also clocked very low making it worse but even at 4Ghz that CPU would be bottlenecking your card.
 


530 would be 1066 effective so first gen DDR3 1066.
 


Wrong. It's Nehalem and it's on the first gen i7 architecture. I'd say it's a combination of the CPU and the slow 1066 RAM that's causing the performance issues. Also the capacity of the RAM is pretty low and that can cause issues in some games that need more RAM.
 
RAM speed makes almost 0 difference in gaming with any CPU architecture and even if it is Nehalem based ( I just saw 45nm and assumed ) and not Core2 the low clocks are the bottleneck. The IMC can't make use of faster RAM anyway since that's what it was designed for. Nehalem is better than Core2 clock for clock of course to the tune of 10% but it was not a game changer like Sandy Bridge and it's successors were. It's a moot point anyway as only by upgrading to Sandy or newer is he going to have a CPU that doesn't bottleneck the crap out of that level of card.
 
Yikes! That's a lot worse than I thought.

What would be a good CPU / RAM size / HDD to upgrade to then? And would it be worth it install Windows 7 64 bit on my machine?

Thanks for all the replies. I was afraid there was something wrong with the card!
 
Any current i5 or i7 with at least 8GB of RAM would be fine. I personally would add an SSD in the ~250GB range and then a traditional hard drive for storage.

It really depends on your budget. Here is a great base of CPU, motherboard, storage, RAM, power supply and CPU cooler. for around a $1000.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/qV8Lf7
 


Unfortunately most of my money went towards the card so I'm on a tighter budget now. Is what you recommended the minimum or the standard, and if its not the minimum, what would be?

Also, what, if any, limitations does my current motherboard put on the processors and RAM I can use? And should I just add 4GB to the RAM I already have or should I get 8GB of something new and faster?

Thanks!
 
After some research I've found that the most my motherboard can handle would be an i7 900 series processor (I was thinking i7 960 @ 3.2 ghz, but I'd go higher). Crucial also recommended that I get add this RAM: 4GB DDR3 PC3-12800 Unbuffered NON-ECC 1.5V 512Meg x 64

Would that processor/RAM configuration still bottleneck the 970? And if so, would the bottleneck be small enough to warrant not having to build an entirely new rig?
 
That would be a huge upgrade from what you have. Add a 64bit OS as well so you can run 8GB of RAM minimum. Get a CPU cooler and overclock to ~4Ghz and you would have a pretty good gaming setup. Still not up to snuff for the newest AAA titles like AC Unity and Far Cry 4 but able to play most everything else.
 
Solution


That's what I'll do then! Thanks for all your help!