Is my processor bottlenecking my video card?

[Preclude]

The question is what the thread is titled, do I have a bottleneck?
If I do have a bottleneck how much?

System Specs:
Asus A8N-Sli Deluxe Motherboard
2 Gigs of Mushkin Ram running at 2-2-2-6 (400Mhz)
AMD 4200+ Overclocked to 2.8Ghz (FSB 255)

Resolution I will be using is 1680x1050.

I did search and most of the threads i saw were a little vague for my taste/Did not include my resolution.

Thank you for reading .

 

[amdfangirl]

What is your video card?

 

[Preclude]

Must have inadvertently deleted that line.
My video card is an EVGA 8800GT.

 

[endyen]

Is there a game you are playing that you are unhappy with the framerates, or quality?

 

[Preclude]

I'm not unhappy with the games I play I just would like to get every last bit of performance i can out of a piece of hardware. In this case if I am bottlenecking I would want to overclock my CPU more(if I can) to come as close as i can to what the card can do. If I am not bottlenecking then I would want to overclock my video card.

 

[amdfangirl]

Yes, it is bottlenecking, but not much. For that generation of cards it would be sufficient but the next-gen cards such as the 9800GTX+, yup. For the GTX280/RV770 generation it will bottleneck. What games do you play tho? I only play on integrated so I don't know...

 

[Christopherr]

Hm.. 4200+ to 2.8 ghz? 500 mhz Oc is good for athlonx2 Oo.
Well at 2.8 ghz you should be ok. There is a bottleneck, but not much. I mean, if you use a 6400+ or an Oc'ed Phenom, you won't see much of improvement. Athlon dual cores are actually good for gaming and at that speed don't bottleneck so much.
And if you say you play at 16x10, then you should be twice than ok. At hat resolution, GPu role is much superios than the CPU role. So if you want an improvement in fps at that resolutin, the OC will definitaly give you some extra FPS.


Christopher

 

[Preclude]

I frequent both old and new games(in terms of technology).

The Old: Warcraft 3, TF2 and various other HL2 Mods, Fallout Tactics, Psychonauts (one of the best games ever created), Emulators.

The new: Age of Conan, Bioshock, Crysis

My Need to play List includes Farcry 2, Fallout 2, and a few others.

Hm.. 4200+ to 2.8 ghz? 500 mhz Oc is good for athlonx2 Oo.
Well at 2.8 ghz you should be ok. There is a bottleneck, but not much. I mean, if you use a 6400+ or an Oc'ed Phenom, you won't see much of improvement. Athlon dual cores are actually good for gaming and at that speed don't bottleneck so much.
And if you say you play at 16x10, then you should be twice than ok. At hat resolution, GPu role is much superios than the CPU role. So if you want an improvement in fps at that resolutin, the OC will definitaly give you some extra FPS.


Christopher

Thanks Christopher. Your message was posted while I was replying so instead of double posting I just edited it into this Post.

 

[lameness]

Only games where it is likely to be a noticable bottleneck ie less than 60fps are games like world in conflict or supreme commander. All other games, that cpu is going to good for at least 60fps.


Lower your res to 840*640 with no filters and you will see what frame rate cap your cpu imposes.

 

[mi1ez]

The question is what the thread is titled, do I have a bottleneck?
If I do have a bottleneck how much?

System Specs:
Asus A8N-Sli Deluxe Motherboard
2 Gigs of Mushkin Ram running at 2-2-2-6 (400Mhz)
AMD 4200+ Overclocked to 2.8Ghz (FSB 255)

Resolution I will be using is 1680x1050.

I did search and most of the threads i saw were a little vague for my taste/Did not include my resolution.

Thank you for reading .

I'm going to throw something different into the mix!

"2 Gigs of Mushkin Ram running at 2-2-2-6 (400Mhz)"

Are you running DDR RAM as opposed to DDR2? If so, this is quite possibly where your problem lies.

Also, AMD don't have FSB, they use HyperTransport!

 

[Preclude]

I'm going to throw something different into the mix!

"2 Gigs of Mushkin Ram running at 2-2-2-6 (400Mhz)"

Are you running DDR RAM as opposed to DDR2? If so, this is quite possibly where your problem lies.

Also, AMD don't have FSB, they use HyperTransport!

I am going to ignore the ignorance of this post.

 

[mi1ez]

I am going to ignore the ignorance of this post.

Excuse me?

 

[Preclude]

Excuse me?

The answer to your question was answered in my original post. An A8N-Sli Deluxe only supports DDR Ram.

Also Where are you going to find ddr2 ram that runs at 400mhz with timings of 2-2-2-6?

Finally, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_side_bus might help you out.

 

[mi1ez]

So there's your bottleneck then IMO.

Hence my post.

 

[Preclude]

So there's your bottleneck then IMO.

Hence my post.

The performance difference between DDR and DDR2 is not huge. I mean sure ram over 800mhz is going to start to out perform my DDR but not enough to cause a significant bottleneck in this situation.

 

[mi1ez]

Apologies for the poor grammar/rhetorical question earlier.

I still reckon your bottleneck is likely the RAM, although being a single core processor at that speed won't help either.

 

[Preclude]

Apologies for the poor grammar/rhetorical question earlier.

I still reckon your bottleneck is likely the RAM, although being a single core processor at that speed won't help either.

Really, did you even type the processor model into Google at least?

The 4200+ does not even come in a single core. Either you are trolling the **** out of me, or you are commenting repeatedly on something you have no knowledge of.

 

[mi1ez]

Sorry, if you'd put AMD X2 I would've realised.

Definately RAM then.

 

[lameness]

LOL OP i sure hope that somebody gives you too little change by accident...you would probably call the police

I too overlooked you ram...that is likely to really hamper you more than you think. Up until a few weeks ago I had a 4200x2 @ 2.6 ghz ....(with 8800gt gaming at 1600*1050) and originally i had 2 gigs of ddr2 533mhz that had crappy timings. I never really expected any noticable difference when i upgraded to ddr2 800mhx (4,4,4,11). But i was shocked at the difference. In certain games i was getting massively improved performance. World in conflict i saw a a good 10-15 fps. In first person shooters the difference was a lot less...maybe 5fps.

However your ram will def slow you up at least in certain scenarios. What scoket cpu is that???

am2 mb and ddr2 800mhx ram are very cheap nowdays....if you were to upgrade that would be my suggestion....but the increase in performance wont be overwhelming so its your choice.

Just one last thing...the next time someone anoyes you...which will likely be very soon....just close your eyes, take a deep breath and visualize a calm tranquil ocean.

 

[amdfangirl]

^ It uses DDR-400 so therefore it must be a 754, 939 or 940. Since it is an Athlon X2 it must be a 939

 

[Preclude]

LOL OP i sure hope that somebody gives you too little change by accident...you would probably call the police

I too overlooked you ram...that is likely to really hamper you more than you think. Up until a few weeks ago I had a 4200x2 @ 2.6 ghz ....(with 8800gt gaming at 1600*1050) and originally i had 2 gigs of ddr2 533mhz that had crappy timings. I never really expected any noticable difference when i upgraded to ddr2 800mhx (4,4,4,11). But i was shocked at the difference. In certain games i was getting massively improved performance. World in conflict i saw a a good 10-15 fps. In first person shooters the difference was a lot less...maybe 5fps.

However your ram will def slow you up at least in certain scenarios. What scoket cpu is that???

am2 mb and ddr2 800mhx ram are very cheap nowdays....if you were to upgrade that would be my suggestion....but the increase in performance wont be overwhelming so its your choice.

Just one last thing...the next time someone anoyes you...which will likely be very soon....just close your eyes, take a deep breath and visualize a calm tranquil ocean.

you do make a point, but lets be fair. The reason you got much better performance was more because of the timings and less because of the speed of the ram. 2-2-2-6 is tight. That's why I believe it's not that much of a bottleneck.

*Edit: Also if I were you I would run that Ram at 4-4-4-10. 4+4+2=10.

 

[johnhalsted]

your ram is ****, face it lol. get some ddr 2 or something its like £50 for 4gb of good stuff

 

[Preclude]

your ram is ****, face it lol. get some ddr 2 or something its like £50 for 4gb of good stuff

It's an A8N-Sli Deluxe don't you guys get it. The board only supports DDR1. The only option I have is to get a new motherboard, ram and processor. If i'm going to do that I might as well get a q6600, a true, a really nice mobo, and some corcair dominator. For now I'm trying to make this build last.

but enough of this off topic garbage. The question was "It my processor bottlenecking my video card". The only answers I've gotten so far are yes, Not much , and not really.

 

[johnhalsted]

The only answers I've gotten so far are yes, Not much , and not really.

or OMG its your ram!!

 

[Preclude]

or OMG its your ram!!

you do realize that a stick of DDR at 2-2-2-6 and a stick of DDR2 at 4-4-4-11 are pretty much equal right? his stick of ram runs at 2x the clock speed but mine does twice the work in 1 clock cycle.