8800 series with an AMD64 3500

[robaylesbury]

I'll keep this one simple. Will my old, but capable CPU bottleneck an 8800 series GPU? My rig presently plays everything well at 1024 x 1280, but I'm a graphics whore and am always on the look out for the next quick fix!

Thanks.

 

[james.miller]

erm...it will, to some extent. but only in heavily cpu limited games. That wont stop you cranking up the fsaa and enjoying the smoothest and most detailed graphics you've ever seen

 

[easyrider]

8800 needs 3ghz C2D IMO to shine

 

[robaylesbury]

I only game at a max of 1024 x 1280. As such, I suspect that my trusted X1900XT will do just nicely for Crysis and UT2007. It seems to me that the 8 series comes into its own for higher resolution gaming. Am I correct in thinking this or at a misapprehension?

 

[easyrider]

At 1024 x 1280 a 8800 GTS is the way to go...

However your current card should be handling games at the res fine.

 

[james.miller]

it still does a great job at that res with everything ramped up. i wouldnt spend £400 on one unless you ARE planning to upgrade your monitor as well. its fine on my 19" acer, but has enough muscle to run games @ 1080p on my 40" sony

 

[Jabbs]

If am honest a c2d only seems to help in 3dmarks, compare real game performance and the c2d even heavily over clocked isn't much faster than a decent A64 rig.

 

[easyrider]

If am honest a c2d only seems to help in 3dmarks, compare real game performance and the c2d even heavily over clocked isn't much faster than a decent A64 rig.

I disagree,

Oblivion was massively faster across the board with my C2D @3.8ghz.

Thats coming from a 2.8ghz opty 170

 

[Kaiju]

If am honest a c2d only seems to help in 3dmarks, compare real game performance and the c2d even heavily over clocked isn't much faster than a decent A64 rig.

I agree with Jabbs...

C2D w/X6800

Athlon Systems

Only difference is the Anisotropic Filtering.

 

[EvilGrin]

Hmm, where are those charts from? From that it looks like AMD rigs would have a comprehensive advantage over c2d, better framerates with x16 AF than c2d with x8?? Even an X2 4600+ looks better there, which is £140 compared to £650. Crazy.

 

[KWJay]

Thing is, will a C2D system help with MINIMUM frame rates? You can have system that hits 200fps but if it drops to below 30 regularly then thats gonna effect your enjoyment. I must say that i find no problems with my GTS and Opty setup, F.E.A.R. with v-sync ON is getting around 35-40fps min, if i turn it off it hits about 45-50.

I haven't got any experience with C2D systems so it may be that Easy's min fps was raised with his c2d system equating to a much smoother experience. Still, as most games don't even make use of dual core cpu's if you can clock your 3500 up a bit more it may help. The GTS flies anyway, so you would LOVE the bump in fsaa and iq.

 

[Kaiju]

Hmm, where are those charts from?

The links are there above the charts. Source, FiringSquad.