1920x1200 cpu limited?

[fizzy]

well bit late now like but heres my findings 3870X2 tests at 1920x1200

2.40GHz - http://www.ste0803.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/06/3d0619202.44aa16af.jpg

SM02 - 4409
SM03 - 4231
CPU - 3389
OVERALL - 10373

3.69GHz - http://www.ste0803.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/06/3d0619203.694aa16af.jpg

SM02 - 4696
SM03 - 4249
CPU - 4999
OVERALL - 11361

these tests were ran at 1920x1200 with 4AA and 16AF

StevenG

Hmm... this is strange.... Received my 2 x HD3870's today. Benchmarked my old 1900XT.....

SM02 - 2247
SM03 - 2511
CPU - 2093
OVERALL - 5829

....which was to be used a basemark for the new setup.

Single 3870 card looked promising....

SM02 - 4107
SM03 - 4522
CPU - 2072
OVERALL - 9280

..a nice noticable increase, almost double in score, and framerates.

Put in second card, enabled crossfire....

SM02 - 4438
SM03 - 5995
CPU - 2069
OVERALL - 10619 ???

Quite a nice hike up in SM03 score, but SM02 seems a fairly marginal increase? The frame rates in the demos are pretty much the same too, except for the canyon demo, which jumps up from 44 to 73 fps.

Confused by this behaviour - if its cpu limited, why are only some sections effected... odd.

This is at default 3dmark06 res by the way, on an asus A8R32MVP with amd 4600+ @ 2.76ghz, and using Win XP64.

Uninstalled 8.02 drivers, and installed 8.01 - same thing.

Any ideas, or is this just normal behaviour at this res/for these cards?

 

[Cyanide]

This is at default 3dmark06 res by the way, on an asus A8R32MVP with amd 4600+ @ 2.76ghz, and using Win XP64.

Uninstalled 8.02 drivers, and installed 8.01 - same thing.

Any ideas, or is this just normal behaviour at this res/for these cards?

You're CPU is limiting the Crossfire setup

 

[fizzy]

You're CPU is limiting the Crossfire setup

I thought as much, and the limit I was trying to determine in the first place. I just wondered why the SM3.0 scores have increased a lot, but SM2.0 not much, if they are both cpu ltd? Ah well - I'll have to either buy the full version of 3dmark and try again at 1920x1200, and see if thats similar to StevenG's results - or just try some game benchmarking at high res.

Guess I'll have to do some tweaking - probably with a fan controller too, as the fans on the powercolor gfx cards are on 100% all the time? Rather noisy....

 

[Trunks9486]

Play the games and see whether you are happy or not. Most games, with the exception of Supreme Commander will be fine, and if you ever do become CPU limited just increase the image quality settings (AA + AF).

3dmark doesnt matter, its the games that you want to play that matter

 

[fizzy]

3dmark doesnt matter, its the games that you want to play that matter

Yup, very true - and as such UT3 plays fantastically at 1920x1200.

 

[drunkenmaster]

all games bar a handful, fsx(so i'm told, never played it and few people seem to), SUpreme commander with silly unit numbers and maybe, errm, i dunno a couple of others. at stock speeds a 939 chip might have been an issue at 2-2.2Ghz, very very few games show any real difference past say 2.4Ghz, 2.8Ghz should be fine for all but a couple of games. but supreme commander hardly runs at super high fps on a fantastic cpu, nor does it need to.

any decent high end card with a midrange cpu will be faster than the best cpu with a midrange cheaper card as you've spent money on cpu/mobo. gpu should always be the first upgrade in any system for gaming unless that card will be incompatible with future stuff. you made the right choice for sure.

Honestly, even if you went and bought a 3Ghz stock 45nm intel quad core and managed with phase to run it at 5Ghz, you wouldn't notice the difference in anything but supreme commander and 3dmark.

 

[Phil2008]

It'll be CPU limited. I'm gaming at 1900x1200 with 2 HD3870's and they're not liking it. I'm getting very low 3Dmark scores and Crysis benchmarks. If I clock my CPU more then the overall scores go up by more than the cpu score increase. Crossfire setups (which includes the 3870x2) seem to be very dependent on a powerful CPU with lots of cache (cache being the only thing separating my cpu from an E6xxx)

Hold on a min, I have a 3870 card @ stock speed, with a opty running at 2.8 and the low fps in crysis are pretty poor running the benchmark. Now thats not cos of the cpu slowing it down, cos while playing crysis my cpu is only at a max of 80% usage.