What does bottlenecking mean?

[Guest]

First question:

In terms of graphic-card performance, what does "bottlenecking" mean?

Second question:

Is this the same as input lag? If so, should I be concerned? My lawyer said it may be because of poor quality parts?

 

[Lmeow]

First question:

I'd just get the GTX 470, because the $150 for a GTX 480 isn't worth it, and nVidia will probably have small prices gaps between the GTX 460 and GTS 450 etc, probably making the GTX 470 the best bang for buck on nVidia's side of things. Otherwise a Radeon HD 5850 would be a good choice too.


Second question:

Sorry. I wouldn't have a clue... Not my fault though really! 😀

 

[jyjjy]

They have announced the GTX 460 but just grabbing an HD5850 is probably the best idea.
As for the other part... not really the best place for that question but if you don't feel your lawyer is helping then I'd recommend getting a new one.

 

[Mudit Sathe]

Get a hd 5850 or gtx 470.They will give you best bang for buck.

 

[jyjjy]

lol
nice edit

 

[mactronix]

First question:

In terms of graphic-card performance, what does "bottlenecking" mean?

Second question:

Is this the same as input lag? If so, should I be concerned? My lawyer said it may be because of poor quality parts?

When you see people using the term "bottlenecking" they are actually refering to a restriction of the peak performance of one piece of hardware caused by another. The term is technically incorrect but its common parlance and is how just about everybody refers to the issue.
In terms of GPU "bottlenecking" this is usually related to the CPU. In laymans terms its that the CPU is lacking the power to provide the needed info to the GPU in time for it to render frames as fast as it is physically capable of. The missuse of the term, and why i mentioned its more correctly a restriction is that you get lots of people telling others that there will be a "bottleneck" when in fact you are at worst case scenario looking at the fact that the card could draw 5-10 more FPS with a $200 CPU upgrade.
Thats fine whan you are running a very slow older CPU with a newer GPU but when people are telling others that they are "bottlenecked" with a E7400 and running a HD 5770 its just not true.
As you can see from this chart even going from a E7500 to an i7 920 makes very little differance in the gaming part of the charts, with the exception of the FarCry 2 benchmark every thing is at a more than playable level anyway. Im not sure what GPU those charts use but it serves as a demonstration.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/47?vs=87
This link is also very informative
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/core-i3-gaming,review-31852.html

Mactronix

 

[pheesh]

First question:

In terms of graphic-card performance, what does "bottlenecking" mean?

Second question:

Is this the same as input lag? If so, should I be concerned? My lawyer said it may be because of poor quality parts?

I don't really understand the 2nd question, so I'll answer the first one:

In terms of graphic-card performance, bottlenecking means that one of your system's components is limiting the overall performance
because it is not strong enough.
It can be the RAM, the CPU, or even the graphic card itself being to weak to handle very demanding games like crysis.

For example, if you want to run crysis at ~25 FPS on full detail, and you have a powerful i7 CPU, 8GB 800mhz RAM, but a 9500GT video card,
then you will surely not get good FPS because your video is limiting your performance - being the bottleneck factor.

 

[gamerk316]

I'll handle this:

A bottleneck is when one computer component is significantly slower then the rest of the PC, and thus lowers overall performance. This can be any one (or multiple) components, but is typically either the CPU or GPU. For example: If you have a CPU bottleneck, upgrading the GPU will lead to no or minimal improvement in FPS.

Input lag is basically when moniters do internal post-processing of an image, which ever so slightly increases the time it takes to display an image on screen. As such, the action on the screen "lags" behind where it should be at that point in time.

 

[mactronix]

"I'll handle this"
Got a high opinion of yourself there boss whats wrong with what i posted exactly ??

Mactronix

 

[Lmeow]

I'll handle this:

A bottleneck is when one computer component is significantly slower then the rest of the PC, and thus lowers overall performance. This can be any one (or multiple) components, but is typically either the CPU or GPU. For example: If you have a CPU bottleneck, upgrading the GPU will lead to no or minimal improvement in FPS.

Input lag is basically when moniters do internal post-processing of an image, which ever so slightly increases the time it takes to display an image on screen. As such, the action on the screen "lags" behind where it should be at that point in time.

Technically speaking, it's the hard drive with regards to overall performance. 😉

 

[jyjjy]

Hard drive speed typically only affects the load times with regards to gaming.

 

[mactronix]

I think the point is that its usually the hard drive that is the slowest thing in a PC.

Mactronix