CPU Bottlenecking GTX280?

[Voxination]

Hey,

I've been thinking a bit recently about bottlenecks in a system and how they can be overcome, but this then led me to thinking if I am bottlenecking my own card.

I've got my Q6700 at 3.2Ghz comfortably and I was wondering if that is still to low to make full use of my GTX280. The 280 itself is at stock, but I was wondering if pushing the Q6700 to 3.6Ghz will help any more?

Temps aren't a TRUE problem (pun intended) but I'd like to keep them within reason (Less than 75C.)

Cheers for any help, Vox.

 

[OzZie]

Yeah, i'd be tempted to push it higher. I wouldn't have said it was a bottleneck as such at 3.2ghz, but the extra power would be utilised.

 

[reygjabla]

what's the power for if you don't unleash it.

 

[Voxination]

Cool, thanks for the help guys, I'll need to put the NB voltage under manual control now to keep everything smooth, aswell as adding some extra vCore (3.4 failed last I tried, but that was still on stock volts )

I'll open a thread in the OCing forum with a few questions.

Thanks.

 

[jorzeh]

Free extra frames per second are allways welcome

 

[Voxination]

Never thought of it that way, although at 1920x1200 I don't think games are very CPU limited .

 

[JonJ678]

Its not hard to test if it's the bottleneck or not. Overclock the 280 using evga precision, and run a benchmark before and after. If the change is minimal/none, then the cpu is the limit. If the change is significant, then the 280gtx is the limiting factor

 

[Voxination]

I do get a decent change in Vantage when OCing the GPU, and only a small one with a CPU OC (P13330 odd with no OC (Can't find exact figures,) P13600 odd with CPU at 3.2Ghz and P14370 with my 280 clocked to 285 speeds.) These are with PhysX enabled btw.

By the large leap I'd assume that the CPU is not a bottleneck, however I'm now hooked to get my CPU higher .