Q6600 + BF3 + GPU Usage question.

[ToejaM]

Hey peoples, do any of you have experience with the above?

Ideally I'd like to know if you max out your GPU usage with a Q6600 in BF3.

Currently my brother has an E8600 @ 4.3Ghz but his GPU usage is all over the shop but his CPU is bottle necking at almost full capacity. So I'm looking at getting him a nice cheap upgrade, a Q6600 or better!

Short of upgrading the entire rig this is the way forward I think.

His GPU is a GTX470 if its relevant, so if you have a similar card or better and you're maxing out GPU usage before CPU it'd be interesting to know

 

[ToejaM]

I think the speed is largely irrelevant from the benchmarks I've seen but more the processing raw power/threads/how bf3 handles it but thats only by going on what I've seen in reviews

 

[ToejaM]

Whats your GPU usage graph like andy_mk3? As his is very much like a mountain range with the E8600

 

[ToejaM]

May seem you're bottlenecking to, with my setup and as the card is similar is spec.. I get a flat 99usage across the board with very very rare dips to 97% unless I tab out though my CPU usage is around 45-60

His however can drop to 60 usage, no vysnc on either

 

[ToejaM]

Anyone else with any input here?

 

[ToejaM]

He has 4x 1gb at the moment so it would be a whole new ram change, though it is 1066 so that could be the problem also.. problem with ddr2 is that its expensive but good suggestion ill have a look out for some in the MM ty

 

[ToejaM]

I was wrong, he has 2x2gb and I managed to get another 2x2gb from the members market for £20! Just waiting for it to arrive, I actually have a spare 2x1gb of 1066 sat here so gunna try that tomorrow.. just not keen on tinkering with a temp solution as I'm sure its gunna mess with the overclock.. probably different latencys on the ram aswell

Both are different brands but both are 1066 which is a plus so we'll see how this goes. I wonder if it is the ram causing the problem.. if not its definately the CPU and a quad core is the way forward.. it'll just be finding the right quad core after this that then makes the gpu a bottleneck.

What do we think I'm looking at price wise for a Q9XXX?

 

[ToejaM]

I put in that spare 2x1gb I have and its not made a difference to the GPU usage, not that I think its gunna make the world of difference having 8gb over 6gb now but I'm gunna wait for this ram to arrive and give that a go but I expect the same.

So I'm now left with finding a suitable Q775!

 

[ToejaM]

Not looked at any other games but even in SWTOR my GPU usage isnt set to 99% so not going into that heh.

L4D2 is obviously running flawlessly without maxing the GPU.

Its purely BF3 thats the issue, as its not using the full GPU and as such getting 40-80fps where as his gpu is similar to mine and i rarely drop below 60 and only in the problem areas on karkland maps tbh

Just a little frustrating that such a well clocked cpu is struggling because it needs more cores

 

[ToejaM]

My nephew uses a Q6600 @3.2ghz and a 5850. He seems to be playing fine, but I will ask him what his GPU useage is etc within the game and what settings.

That'd be great mate, I think the 5850 is similarly on par with the 470 and only a minor downgrade for the 5870 right? My brothers is running all on high, AF X16, everything else off and no AA if that helps.

I noticed no difference on a single card with my Q6600 @ 3.8 and my 2500k @ 4.5 but when I enabled xfire (tri fire in my case) the Q6600 was a big bottleneck compared with the Sandy.

Yeah had the same problem running crossfire 4870s on his dual core with BF3, was only getting 40-50gpu usage in this case and a huge fps drop.. sometimes 1fps.. average 20 but randomly would be about 50.. worked out better to have CF disabled but this was a while ago, the new CAPs may fix that but I'll never know now as I sold them on and replaced with a 470

Running BF3 with a Q6600 @ 3.6GHz, HD5870 and 4GB of PC2-6400 running at the stated 800MHz.

No problems here..

This maybe a massive ask of you bud but.. as you're amazing and all the girls (or guys if thats your thing) love you.. could you give a little love back and do a couple of tests?

Literally to find out if you're using full GPU its instant to notice if its choppy.. I'll post a screenie once I've put this new ram in shortly and have a quick go on it.. right from the spawn it gives me this "problem"

I dont quite think it matters on settings but it'd be interesting to see what you're running at.

As for the tests, could you try your cpu on stock for me and see what happens GPU usage wise? It'd be interesting to know at what speed causes the GPU to goto 99usage. I'm assuming yours is running fluently on 99 with no spikes?

Edit: oh and cpu usage if no, then np

 

[ToejaM]

Thats about 4 minutes of playing bf3 (obviously where the gpu usage starts to change) so as you can see doesn't need to be a long test heh.

I tried it with Vsync on and it was the same, I thought maybe with it only aiming for 60fps it might not need as much CPU power but clearly I was wrong.

Sometimes dropped to 30fps with noticeable stutters.. sometimes was sitting comfortably at 80fps and just as I was about to exit, where I stopped was getting over 100fps. I dont think my brother really notices so its not a huge problem but its winding me right up.. I want the most out of what there is!

Good job it has over 4gig in now tbh, I ninja installed the extra 4gig so I'll see if he notices any difference.. was definately cutting it close.. maybe after a longer game the ram usage will be a lot higher but who knows. Last night for me playing SWTOR I was sitting on 4.5gb of usage with nothing but the game and essentials open, even the AV was disabled! Was nearing 5gb with a few websites open.