Radeon 5970 bottleneck

[chillybawls]

Would my sig rig would be bottlenecked by my E8400 3.79ghz if I was to get a 5970? Also I was wondering how much my old X800 pro would sell for.

 

[coozie7]

Yes, but monitor resolution also plays a part: At lower resolutions the CPU tends to be the limiting factor (for such a potent card), at 1920x1080 or above, the CPU limitation is less obvious but adding AA will have less impact, because the card has so much muscle to drive the higher AA settings.
I would say that if you have a 1920x1080 (or 1920x1200) monitor the HD5870 would be a better choice, though.

 

[chillybawls]

How much different in performance would it be if I sold my 295 for a 5870?

 

[coozie7]

None, in fact, the HD5870 is a little slower in many games, I would stick with the GTX295.

 

[Zenthar]

Unfortunately is all depends on the game. Games like GTA IV takes lots of CPU and with a 5970, going from a E8400 to a Q9660 for example, would nearly double the FPS ...

 

[OvrClkr]

Unfortunately is all depends on the game. Games like GTA IV takes lots of CPU and with a 5970, going from a E8400 to a Q9660 for example, would nearly double the FPS ...

double the FPS? I think not, maybe a 3 frame increase....

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,669595/GTA-4-PC-CPU-benchmark-review-with-13-processors/Reviews/?page=2

 

[Zenthar]

Ok, doubling was probably exaggerated, but Toms's article clearly indicates a big improvement in GTA IV. I'll have to check your link later, stupid WebSense at work is blocking it

 

[Bluescreendeath]

I don't recommend getting a 5970 (which is two underclocked 5870s, which is basically 2 4870x2s) on a Core2Duo processor.

The E8400 OCed is already pushed to its limits with the GTX295 (equivalent to a 4870x2, or 1 5870), so you really should get a fast quad core before getting a 5970.

 

[jennyh]

I'd have to agree with BSD there.

If you are looking at the new cards and still on a dual core, chances are you want to start looking at a quad first.

Yes I know the E8600 is a great gaming cpu yadda yadda...just get a quad and you'll realise how much more it was worth it compared to a small graphics increase on a dual core.

 

[MARSOC_Operator]

You should not even think about buying a Radeon 5XXX Series, if you don't have AT LEAST a Quad-Core CPU.

 

[Zenthar]

You should not even think about buying a Radeon 5XXX Series, if you don't have AT LEAST a Quad-Core CPU.

I partially disagree, I think anything above a 5850 might be overkill unless you play at really high resolutions.

 

[MARSOC_Operator]

I partially disagree, I think anything above a 5850 might be overkill unless you play at really high resolutions.

Check Tom's Hardware "Building a balanced gaming PC" article. The Core 2 Duo bottlenecks even a GTX285, let alone a 5870... Anything above a 4890/gtx280 is waste of potential with that CPU. That's not because the C2D is poor CPU, it is still a powerful CPU, however, current games are demanding 4 cores and higher memory caches.

 

[OvrClkr]

^^ what games "demand" 4 cores other than FSX??

 

[MARSOC_Operator]

^^ what games "demand" 4 cores other than FSX??

Demand might be a strong word, but if you look at the performance charts you will see the quads beating duos sometimes by twice or more FPS in most current games.

The point is, pairing a 5970 with a C2D is like driving a Porsche 911 Turbo with a brick behind the gas pedal.

 

[OvrClkr]

I don't think you can take it that far, a E8600 at 4.5Ghz will basically "tame" a 5870. Of course a quad would be the wiser choice but I do not see any sort of bottleneck unless you are running the CPU at stock clocks....

 

[Zenthar]

Check Tom's Hardware "Building a balanced gaming PC" article. The Core 2 Duo bottlenecks even a GTX285, let alone a 5870... Anything above a 4890/gtx280 is waste of potential with that CPU. That's not because the C2D is poor CPU, it is still a powerful CPU, however, current games are demanding 4 cores and higher memory caches.

One one side there are games that are highly CPU dependent, GTA IV is a good example, but on the other hand, there are games that are mostly GPU dependant and I think most of them will fall under that category. If you look at the various graphs of the "Building a balanced gaming PC" article, you will notice that for 4890 cards and lower the performance doesn't change much from adding new cores (going from E8400 to Q9550) when playing at 1680x1050 or above. However, many will see a gain going from a Q9XXX series to an i7 which is probably due to the i7 architecture (integrated memory controller and/or DDR3 memory) more than the 4 cores. Therefore I stand by my affirmation that anything above a 5850 is probably overkill for a C2D and even the 5850 is on the edge because it is better than the 4890, but not as strong as the 4870x2.

 

[Guest]

YES, it will bottlneck a lot trust me,peopel actually lied to me telling it wont if its at 3Ghz+. I have a 5970 paired with a Q9550@3.57Ghz and It is bottleneck like hell in Vantage, Crysis, ...
For example, Going from 0xAA to 8xAA in Crysis Very High only droped 1 FPS!!! Avg 50 Fps 1080p.
I am still thinking if I should sell the card or get a new i7 System and oc it to 4.5Ghz. My current motherboard ( HP) doesnt allow me to increase any Voltage but I managed to OC by software using setfsb. Or waiting for new CPUs to match the 5970.

 

[bystander]

To get an idea of how it would perform with a 5970, check out this artical. You'll see first hand where it will bottleneck or not.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd5870-cpu-scaling.html