CPU holding back graphics cards?

[MrMartyn1984]

Hi all,

I set my Ghost Recon Future Soldier to 1080 x 1920 (I think) today and whilst it seemed smooth I wasn't sure if it was running as well as it could. Could my phenom II x2 (unlocked to x3 at 3.5GHz) be holding back my crossfired 6770's?

Just so I have an idea for what to upgrade in the future.
Cheers.

 

[Orcvader]

1920x1080* .

Tried running Fraps or MSI AfterBurner and see what framerates you was getting?

 

[MrMartyn1984]

I've ran fraps and was getting around 40fps.

 

[Davedree]

what is your motherboard model?

 

[MrMartyn1984]

My motherboard is an ASUS M5A88V EVO

1x16 and 1x4 PCI e 2.0

 

[Davedree]

Nice board, Well x4 would still be fine with a 6770.

I'd say test a range of games, and maybe a heaven bench to see if you are getting good scaling. If you're happy with performance then not much more to say ,I think 6770 cf is roughly -/+ a 6970.

 

[frank_grimes]

Use afterburner to check gpu usage... if less then 99% = Bottleneck.

 

[james_2k]

or vsync/ overheating

 

[Martini1991]

Nice board, Well x4 would still be fine with a 6770.

I'd say test a range of games, and maybe a heaven bench to see if you are getting good scaling. If you're happy with performance then not much more to say ,I think 6770 cf is roughly -/+ a 6970.

It's more a 5870.

 

[Davedree]

It's more a 5870.

depends though

 

[Martini1991]

depends though

Crossfire optimisations in some games.
But to suggest it's around 6970 is really out there.
The 5770/6770 are half a 5870 pretty much. It's +/- of the 5870.

 

[Davedree]

cf scaling, not a reference 6770 overclock slightly.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/his_radeon_6770_iceqx_turbo_crossfire_review,14.html

+ all other benches put it closer to a 6970 than a 5870. But to be honest theres hardly any fps in it, bar a few games.

 

[Martini1991]

What clocks are they running?
And is that launch day 5870 drivers compared to much later 6770 Crossfire drivers?

Spec wise the 5770/6770 are half the 5870, I know the 5870 had diminishing returns in shader count to performance.

 

[Davedree]

ATI Cat 11.6, The gains could go in favour of all cards with todays drivers.
+ overclocks of all 3 cards.

Cards clocks in the overclock section 30mhz+core, 200+ memory.

Yeah basically a 4870 800sp 256 bit, then snipped the memory bus to 128bit, node shrink and rename it.

Still though those who adopted the 5870 early can't moan at how well the performance has lasted over these years.

 

[MrMartyn1984]

I do have both cards slightly overclocked but I'm away from home at the minute so I'll have a look later on as cant remember what they running at.

So if I run afterburner that'll show what the computers upto?

I'm not complaining about the performance of it as I'm still happy with the way the game plays and looks, I'd just like to know what's worth upgrading next.

 

[Davedree]

If you upgraded your gpus you'd want more vram, you'd also want more cpu grunt.
It's down to you sb or ivy is a great upgrade no denying it. but we also have piledriver in a few days so might be interesting, + 8 series gpus coming in another quarter.

 

[Martini1991]

I'd be surprised to see Piledriver in a few days, very surprised.
I'd expect mid/late October.
Unless there's been some confirmation?

By Piledriver, I mean Vishera, not Trinity.

 

[MrMartyn1984]

Had a look tonight with Afterburner and GPU usage jumps around from 85% - 98% playing Ghost Recon.

The cards are both clocked at 850MHZ and 1300MHz memory and reach about 70-75 degrees when being used for a long time.