Is my CPU too slow for this graphics card?

[CurlyWhirly]

I currently have a Radeon X800 Pro graphics card and I have recently taken advantage of a good second hand deal as I have purchased a Radeon X850 XT graphics card as a replacement.

As this has a faster memory and core speed along with 16 pixel pipelines instead of the 12 that I have now, does anyone know if my current Athlon XP 3000+ will act as a bottleneck to it's performance?

This purchase is only temporary as eventually I intend on upgrading to a 64 bit PC but I'm just curious.

Thanks.

 

[sja360]

i think it will be abit of a bottleneck nothing major but certainly once you upgrade to a 2.0-2.2ghz CPU then it maybe increase fps a good 10-20 at a guess. maybe bench a game or two and see

 

[elite]

my old 9800XT was bottleneck by my even older Athlon XP 3000, When I did upgrade to a 3500+ 64 my games ran a lot faster and felt smoother.

 

[CurlyWhirly]

So it does seem that my CPU will hold me back then?

I thought as much and you have just confirmed my thoughts.
Thanks guys

 

[Stellios]

Yeah itll bottleneck slightly, but it shouldnt really show unless your in a CPU intensive game. Im running a 2800 sempron with a 6800 and it slightly bottlenecks, but i dont notice a lot.

 

[galadial]

Sorry to hijack this thread but what are peoples thoughts on an upgrade from a 6600GT to a 6800GS or 7800GS? Would I see a big benefit from the 6800GS and do you think my athlon 2500XP running at 183x12 (2.2GHz) will be a bottleneck?

I certainly get a lot of stutter with Rome Total War running at x3 speed mode!

 

[Zefan]

I really does depend on the game. Some games utilise the GPU far heavier than they load on the CPU. Most likely with modern games your 3dcard will be the limiteing factor before your cpu.

 

[LoadsaMoney]

It will be a bottleneck, but it will still run great, i used to run an x800 XT PE on an Athlon 3000+, ran fantastic.

 

[HangTime]

A bit, but nothing huge. Basically in situations where you have a fast gfx card and average cpu, you can raise the resolution/AA/AF with little performance penalty (i.e. when you are cpu limited, you have some 'spare' fillrate etc which you can make use of). Just make sure you are careful with some of the more cpu intensive detail settings in games (shadows/lighting can be quite taxing on the cpu, even on modern gfx cards).

 

[modez]

Sorry to hijack this thread but what are peoples thoughts on an upgrade from a 6600GT to a 6800GS or 7800GS? Would I see a big benefit from the 6800GS and do you think my athlon 2500XP running at 183x12 (2.2GHz) will be a bottleneck?

I certainly get a lot of stutter with Rome Total War running at x3 speed mode!

Turn off the Vertical Syns.

 

[CurlyWhirly]

It will be a bottleneck, but it will still run great, i used to run an x800 XT PE on an Athlon 3000+, ran fantastic.

That's good news for me.
How would a Radeon X850 XT compare with the X800 XT PE?
Are they around the same performance?

 

[Vegeta]

it will be a bottleneck in some games but not massive, I run a barton 2500@ 2300 on my 6800nu and i still beat a lot of a64 users on 3dmark etc

 

[man_from_uncle]

I had an almost indentical set up as Vegeta (i ran my XP-M at 2.45 most of the time, but i couldn't unlock my card) and I was still getting 4400 on 3dmark05 and 10700 on 3Dmark03. Unless you upgrade to at least a A64 3500+ you won't really see any difference.

Also the only bottleneck you'll get will be on games like Rome: Total War, Civ 4 and maybe a few physics heavy simulators. In most GPU heavy games (all first person shooters for example) you'll get very little gain in frames a second (5-20%) even if you went right up to an FX-57.