System Bottleneck?

[daley]

I have a bottlenecking situation (I think) and I wanted to ask advice on what the best course of action is:



Spec:



Nforce Penyrn1600 650I SLI MOBO (non 2.0 pcie compliant)

Q6600 Intel Quad Core Processor

GTX 480 Graphic

HyperX DDR2 4gig Ram

Sata Harddrive 500gig

All drivers are up to date



I think it'll be that mobo because of the lack of PCIE 2.0 compliancy although it has 16x node. This leave me a conundrum, I can't afford new mobo + ddr3 Ram + new processor (though I will as a last resort).



Although the system is working fine, I have seen no performance increase from upgrading the graphics card to a gtx 480 from using my sli 8800gt configuration.



I was thinking the cheapest option would be a newer 775sk mobo (750i/780i/ASUS P5K SE/EPU) and then I wouldn't have to upgrade the processor & ram.



So in conclusion, would a new PCIE 2.0 (Minimum req of the gtx 480) mobo make the difference or am I flogging a dead horse and should I replace the lot.

 

[Raidur]

If your Q6600 is clocked at 2.4 you have your bottleneck right there. Have you tried overclocking (if your motherboard is able)?

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GTX_480_PCI-Express_Scaling/24.html

As you can see here a GTX 480 gets only a <=2% performance hit from an 8x 2.0 slot, which is the same bandwidth as your 16x 1.0 slot.

 

[daley]

I didn't overclock, though I have done (2.67). I thought the Q6600 was still quite capable if i'm honest.

I see what you're saying regarding the pcie slots though, is the pcie 2.0 slots just the case of more bandwidth over version 1.

I was amazed when I tesded the GTX 480 with WIC benchmark the FPS averaged at 25 at settings very high & 1920 x 1080, I could get this with 2 x gt8800

Something tells me I'm going to have to buy a mobo bundle.

With the overclocking, would you use the Ntune or

riva?

 

[swifty_morgan]

Only 2.67 is not going to help. Getting a new mother board isn't gong to help. You'll truly need to get newer ( faster ) processors, mother board and ram..... i5-i7, etc. You have a high end card that is being held back by the rest of the system. If you can't make a substantial upgrade.... save your money until you can.
The pci-e values........ not going to make a whole lot of noticeable difference if it's 1.0 - 2.0 - 16x - 8x......... big myth to get you to think what you have is useless.... it's called marketing. Next thing will be pci-e 3.0 and 2.0 can't be utilized yet.

 

[daley]

If I'm honest, I thought that would be the case.

What your saying is I'll be throwing goode money at a lost cause, looking back a gtx470 + new mobo bundle would have been the choice I think.

Nevermind, you live and you learn. Cheers guys!

 

[Raidur]

Oh by overclocking I meant your CPU. A Q6600 is still a very capable CPU but at 2.4 its age is beginning to show. You should see quite a performance increase if you can get to 3.2ghz+.

Also for overclocking the GPU I prefer rivatuner but that's because I use the On Screen Displays for fps/temp.

 

[swifty_morgan]

If I'm honest, I thought that would be the case.

What your saying is I'll be throwing goode money at a lost cause, looking back a gtx470 + new mobo bundle would have been the choice I think.

Nevermind, you live and you learn. Cheers guys!

Don't kick yourself. In a short time you'll be able to build around the 480 and have a bitchin machine that will be useful for quite some time. Enjoy what you have and build on it.

 

[daley]

I couldn't just sit there and watch my new gtx480 underperform so I went with these:

Memory = OCZ Platinum 6 gb 1300mhz
Mobo = ASUS P7P55D-E PRO
CPU = Intel I5 750

Total £394

I’ll let whoever’s interested know how much extra performance I get.

At the moment with everything turned to full @ 1920 x 1080 I’m getting 28fps with Heavan v2.0
FPS 27.4
Score 690

 

[swifty_morgan]

I hope you meant 4gig or 8gig not 6 or it won't run in dual channel mode. But anyways good for you..... "I couldn't just sit there and watch my new gtx480 underperform so I went with these:"....... made me laugh.