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CPU or Graphics Card Bottleneck?

Associate
Joined
23 May 2006
Posts
16
Hi guys,

Still lost in the mire of graphic card upgrade paths!

A question for you please:-

I currently have two 6800GTs in SLi config and an A64 (Winchester core) 3500 CPU. I overclock the latter by 5% using Gigabyte Easy Tune utility when I want to play graphically demanding games such as Fear etc, although I'm limited to a max res of 1280 by 1024 on my 19" monitor.

Which would give me the best return upgrade wise please, replace the two 6800GTs with a single 7900GTX or upgrade the CPU first to say a dual core 4400 or the like?

Thanks in anticipation of sagely words of wisdom!
 
Its a tricky one because if you upgrade to a 7900 GTX your cpu would be the bottleneck.

But having said that it would be the better option in terms of game performance to upgrade the gfx rather than the upgrade the cpu.

So I would get a 7900 GTX in this case.You would recoup some money back from the sale of your 6800 GT's making the upgrade to the 7900 GTX easier on the wallet.


Also overclock the cpu in the bios instead for a 24/7 ovreclock.
 
Is it better to have a 24/7 overclock or only when you need it? Thought it would be better not to stress the components when browsing the web or working in Photoshop CS2 etc?
 
as long as you overclock it by a reasonable amount, mine runs at 2.75Ghz all the time my computers on and its never had any problems, as long as you have a good stable motherboard and good cooling it will be fine, temperature is the biggest componant killer i believe, so keep temperatures down
 
A good compromise would be to get something like a 7900GT, and then with selling your old stuff buy a dual core at the same time.
The 7900GT can be overclocked up to GTX speeds fairly easily
 
run a 24/7 overclock its easy. mine is constantly doing 2.9ghz. only problems im getting is that in this heat we are currently getting the case temps are rising quite high and its causing the boards voltages to fluctuate more than normal which in turn causes the system to crash sometimes. solved the problem so far by upping the vcore by one notch to compensate. would be lot better if i get heatsinks on the mosfets and voltage regulator.


you should easily be able to get around 100-200mhz extra out of your cpu without having to touch the vcore if your worried about overclocking that is.
 
That is a tough call. I was going to buck the trend and suggest getting a better processor, but to see a serious boost (without overclocking) you'll be be looking at £300 or so. 2 x 6800gts are not obsolete though by any means and unless you spend £200+ on a graphics card you'll see very little improvement.

I think i'd probably go for what Pinkfloyd suggested and go for a 7900gt (which you can overclock A LOT). That'll give you enough over to get an overclockable CPU (like an opteron 146) and heatsink that you can put up to 2.6-3ghz with luck. Though you'll need a tidy motherboard for that possibility.
 
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