CPU limited with ATI 58** in Crossfire?

[thebrownbottle]

Hi,

I'm looking to get two of the new ATI 58** series and place them in Crossfire on a ASUS Rampage Formula x48 motherboard. I'm currently running an E8400 at 4GHz. Will this provide enough CPU power in most games to match the 58**, or should I upgrade to i5/i7?

Cheers

Brownbottle

 

[BigRazer93]

i would say your cpu would be a bottleneck for "some" games, but most games now and upcoming games are quad core optimized so i would say yeah its a bottle neck

 

[Randell]

I beg to differ. Hardly any games now are quad optimised. At higher resolutions and with AA/DX10 eye-candy you are almost always GPU bottlenecked. Especially with your dual core at 4ghz.

 

[Randell]

Some back-up. I did research this for my own piece of mind after the 5870 launch as to whether it's worth me either upgrading to a quad or even moving to i5/i7.

Proof that for modern games, i7 doesn't offer a better gaming expereince than 'old' quad cores

http://www.insidehw.com/Reviews/CPU/Gaming-Performance-Core-i7-vs-Core-2-Quad/Page-3.html

Its a bit old, but proof that a dual core at higher frequency is better for gaming than a quad core at lower frequency.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/cpu-scaling-in-games-with-quad-core-processors/

oh and a quote from an Arma2 developer that a higher frequency dual is better than a lower frequency quad in a game that is oft touted as quad optimised

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=3807

 

[RavenXXX2]

Unless you play at 800x600 with low GFX settings, you re not going to see any extra performance going to i5/i7, your 4 Ghz is more than enough.

 

[TheRealDeal]

Its does seem that the 4870x2 in the link below benefited a bit from the extra horse power the i7 was able to provide. There was no real difference with the gtx280 though. The most interesting bit though was in ut3 where the i7 was noticeably slower than the quad using the gtx280 but this was reversed when going to the 4870x2 which was much faster on the i7.

http://www.insidehw.com/Reviews/CPU/Gaming-Performance-Core-i7-vs-Core-2-Quad/Page-2.html

 

[Randell]

yeah I wonder if i7 helps with the crossfire? Or as its just a faster GPU, the cpu power is showing in crysis. Either why, its not worth the expense of the upgrade to i7 bearing in mind new ram etc etc

 

[dpbadger]

I'm looking at the roughly the same upgrade bfg 8800gtx oc to 5870, on a e6600 at 3ghz. I think i'm going to go for it and if my cpu is a problem just do an early i7 upgrade when win7 is out. I can also talk myself into getting an ssd. I game at 1440 x 900 so not sure if i need a monitor upgrade as well..
Dave

 

[thebrownbottle]

Just to confirm, I do tend to game at 1920x1200 on a 24" monitor.

Fallout 3 still plays okay using the 8800GTX at the moment, but I've not played any of the DLC's yet.