Will my CPU bottleneck a GTX 260 216 55nm?

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wolfe10

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Feb 27, 2009
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I am about to buy the GTX 260 216 core 55nm gpu, however i am a little worried about my cpu not being strong enough. This is a FX 6710 gateway pc that i am upgrading and at the moment the specs are:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 / 2.66 GHz
Intel G33 Express
6 GB DDR2
ATI Radeon HD 4850
400W osu (which i am upgrading to Power & Cooling Silencer 750w

So what do you think, is my cpu good enough, it is a quad core?
 
Going from the ATI Radeon HD 4850 to GTX260 is not a good upgrade you do not going to see performance difference because the GTX260 is not mach faster than the 4850. My opinion is to wait for the next generation cards or if you want to change any way you card go for the GTX295 or 4870x2 then defiantly you going to see a big jump in performance.
 
It would be a waste of money to upgrade from the 4850 to gtx260. Go for an 4850x2 instead, and if you have money go for the big ones. It's a pity not have a MB supporting Crossfire 🙁
 

The GTX 260 216 core is slightly faster than 4870 and the nvidias have better driver support.
 


Depending on screen resolution as well. At 1680X1050 I dont think youll notice much of an increase going from a 4850 to a 260. At 1920X1200 you will start to see an increase of probably 20%, but a 4850 @ 1920X1200 still isnt that bad. Id wait for the next round of video cards myself.

If your hell bent on an upgrade, Id find a 4870X2 with a nice rebate, pair that with your PCP&C 750 and be set for a long time.
 


FUD

A 260 216 and 4870 1gb are about the same, trading blows back and forth. Between the 2, pick what you want. One is faster in game A, the other faster in game B.
 
Hmm, well now i think i'm gonna get the 4850 x2....i basically am doing this for Empire total war..at the moment the demo can run on ultra however it can get a little laggy at certain points. I'm hoping the 4850 x2 will fix that
 


Stop spreading this misinformation around here ive got a 2.8ghz core 2 duo and its bottlenecking the effing sh@t out of my 4870.
 


what do you think is the best video card i could get witht eh q9400 that it wont bottleneck?
 


Yeh right. A 2.8GHz Core2Duo should have no problems handling even a GTX280, let alone 4870.

There is no way in hell you're getting a CPU bottleneck, unless you're playing Crysis @ DX10 on very high, modded with ultra high unlocked, at a resolution of 1680x1050 or above.
 



I Knowww!!!! i think i am going to have to upgrade the MB at some point too so i can overclock the q9400, as of now the MB wont let me
 


then wouldnt i be gpu limited?

ah right. tell me what cpu do you have then may i ask? a p4? ever overclocked whatever you do have?

Take note tom's readers. Bluescreendeath does not know what hes on about.

To the op: the q9400 wont bottleneck the card of your choice, but a slight oc might give you some benefit in titles heavy on streaming.




 


That shows you don't know jack.

You can determine CPU bottlenecks by either playing on very low resolutions or high resolutions. By maxing out the GPU capabilities then adjusting or upgrading the CPU, you are able determine if it's a cpu bottleneck.

And you are a fool.

Losing 3 fps is not a cpu bottleneck. You can run an old 6800GT with a Core2, then run it with an i7, and you'd get an fps increase. Does that mean a Core2 is actually bottle necking a 6800? Hell no.

You really don't even understand bottlenecks either. Your definition of cherry picking a few fps increases have nothing to do with actual bottlenecks.


And FYI, I have a E8400, E6300 , and a P4, all of them OCed.
 
what's pissing me off is the fact that my "wonderful" gateway installed motherboard (G33M05G1) wont allow me to unlock my bios and overclock my cpu (q9400)anyway...alas, such is life...Ill have to replace the motherboard at somepoint, i hear the x58 is really reliable
 
"You can determine CPU bottlenecks by either playing on very low resolutions or high resolutions. By maxing out the GPU capabilities then adjusting or upgrading the CPU, you are able determine if it's a cpu bottleneck."

Adjusting being overclocking then, which according to you would be near pointless for gaming. Your saying if matey wants a gtx260 then he wont get any better an experience with a q9400 than with a core 2 2ghz. Which is most definetly FUD.

There are any number of games out there which are as heavy on the subsystem as on the gpu, the cpu being part of that system. What ive said comes from MY experience with a fast card and a slow cpu and what happens when I overclock said cpu. Ive tried gaming at the stock 1.86ghz instead of at the max oc. of 2.87ghz, and let me tell you: IT WAS NOT PRETTY. The rest of my system not good enough perhaps? Certainly. 4 gigs ddr2-800 @820mhz, samsung 500gb HD, win xp. Defragged, clean, msconfig to turn off all the crap.

Games list:

Crysis,
Crysis: warhead,
Supreme Commander,
S.T.A.L.K.E.R SoC,
S.T.A.L.K.E.R CS,
GRiD,
Farcry 2,
Fallout 3,
Battlefield 2,
Left 4 Dead.

Apart from the last two, all of them took an absolute hammering from the lack of 1,000+ mhz. L4D might have, but fps is always going to be sky high with such an old engine, with a 4870 @1400x900 max. res. As for BF2, ive been on 90+fps since i had a 7900gt.

The new Total War demo didnt appreciate sh@tty stock clocks either.

I'll get a photobucket account and post proof to dispel your FUD once and for all.

Back in the G80 days you would have had a point.
 
I'm talking about CPU bottlenecking the GPU in gaming - not if getting a better cpu will improve game performance. I never said overclocking is pointless for gaming. Getting a better CPU will improve his gaming experience...as will overclocking. But the improvement will not be significant if you already have a Core2.

His Q9400 CPU will NOT bottleneck a GTX260. And a 2.0GHz Core2 is also highly unlikely to bottleneck a GTX260.


Why? Because games are still overwhelming GPU dependent, NOT CPU dependent. Games only become primarily CPU dependent when:
1. The game requires a lot of CPU power for the GPU or the game itself (ie. SLi systems)
2. you've already maxed out your GPU requirements for the game (ie. tri Sli GTX280s on Crysis ultra high)
3. Playing a hardware intense game on low graphics/resolutions

CPU bottlenecks are extremely rare compared to GPU bottlenecks, which will be his problem when playing Crysis. As for all the other games you've mentioned, a 2.0 GHz Core2Duo paired with a good graphics card will get enough frames per second that the human eye can't tell the difference.


Gamespot examination of CPU bottlenecking in Crysis.

"The CPU becomes less of a bottleneck when we bump up the graphical complexity. If you have a single-core processor you should definitely consider upgrading to a multicore. However, if you already have a dual-core CPU, you probably won't gain very much by moving up to a quad-core CPU."

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6182806/p-6.html


With a 8800GTX, at high quality with a resolution of 1600x1200, the E6300@1.86 and the Core2Extremex6800@2.93 both got 26 fps. It was only after the reviewer played Crysis on low settings (medium quality, 1024x768) did he actually experience CPU bottleneck in the fps.

So at resolutions people actually play, there was basically no difference between a 1.86GHz Core2, 2.4GHz Core2, and a 2.93GHz Core2Extreme. The bottleneck here is the GPU, not the CPU.


Another example of CPU vs GPU testing in games.
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/124500.html


I can find you hundreds of more examples for many more games. The benchmarks all say the same thing.
The latest games are GPU bottle necked. The only time you'll get any real CPU bottleneck is if you have a piss poor CPU like a 2.0GHz P4.
 
Really nonsense on that update... I've been waiting for the new releases since my HD 3870 is still playable in most titles. I use 1920*1200 with no AA & AF max details (except crysis), and get decent framerates.

Each one can do whatever he wants with money, however, I wouldn't do that...
 
The 6400 Core2Duo does infact bottleneck the 260gtx, so do really stop misinforming people, people like you is why I bought a 6400 and not a 6600, sounds like you are just repeating what you heard another user(who did not know what he was talking about either) on the net without actually testing it.

I have a 6400 and a 260gtx216 and on Fallout and on Oblivion I get a lot more performance when I overclock my cpu to 2.32(290fsb), on Oblivion when there are a lot of NPC the OC really does help a LOT, especially when I'm fighting the IC guards and citizens, I disabled 8AA and 16AF w/o the oc and one with 8AA and 16 AF and the measly overclock actually helps more since I get more fps with all the settings enabled , changing most settings the ini to go over max barely impact fps either(Actor does though, even naked NPC's!) If that isn't a CPU bottleneck then I don't know what is.
 
The 6400 Core2Duo does infact bottleneck the 260gtx, so do really stop misinforming people, people like you is why I bought a 6400 and not a 6600, sounds like you are just repeating what you heard another user(who did not know what he was talking about either) on the net without actually testing it.

I have a 6400 and a 260gtx216 and on Fallout and on Oblivion I get a lot more performance when I overclock my cpu to 2.32(290fsb), on Oblivion when there are a lot of NPC the OC really does help a LOT, especially when I'm fighting the IC guards and citizens, I disabled 8AA and 16AF w/o the oc and one with 8AA and 16 AF and the measly overclock actually helps more since I get more fps with all the settings enabled , changing most settings the ini to go over max barely impact fps either(Actor does though, even naked NPC's!) If that isn't a CPU bottleneck then I don't know what is.
Click to expand...

I don't even know where to start...

Well, first off, this is a 5 month old thread.. I don't think anyone cares about it.. So don't be a moron and bump it, specially given that you think its information is wrong.. best to let it die..

Second, don't open your mouth unless you understand how a computer system bottleneck works. I'm not about to spend an hour explaining it again.. but it is not linear.. why do you think people overclock if not to get more fps?

The games in queastion are not representative of other games. Games that use a ton of memory bandwidth (these, flight sim X to name a couple) are very dependant on the CPU and memory systems. They simply require a massive CPU to do things, it is not the cpu that can't keep up with the gpu.. it is the game not having the gpu do enough... Just because a game relies on another system more than other games does not mean it is bottlenecked in the sense described in this thread.

In the future, learn that a sample of one game engine means jack all.. Statistics 101...

In the vast majority of cases a fast dual core is plenty to provide the GPU with work to do.. Additionally, the oblivion engine does not handle multi threading well at all. Its performance revolves around clock speed almost entirely. An i7 at 3.5ghz would also give you more fps if you over clocked it.. we woudln't normally say it is a bottleneck though.. just that the game engine is crap.

There was no misinformation being spread here other than by you and the couple saying you need a huge CPU to play games.. If you don't want bad performance (or at least strange behavior), don't play games coded poorly for modern computers.
 
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