Realisticly, would a x2 4400 bottleneck a x2900?

[z0mbi3]

As the title says. I see these sort of statements being thrown around lately but I'm not sure on the justification. I understand that if you run at higher resolutions you should, in theory, be shifting any potential bottlenecks over to your graphics card but I want to understand exactly why the cpu is bottlenecking in the first place. I'd of thought there'd be plenty of bandwidth knocking about, especially with it being dual core?

I'd like to add an x2900 to my existing setup (in place of my x1900), but I'm curious if my x2 4400 @ 2.6 ghz is really going to pose a problem and if so why? Seems a bit over kill to swap out my ram, mobo and cpu for Intel's core 2 duo equivalent

I know that core 2 duo is a nice boost but is it really that much if you're going from an existing dual core AMD system?

My mind boggles.

 

[Raves]

3d06 will tell you it is a bottleneck. In real games it might not be.

I have a 4600+ running at 2.6 and I think it is enough to power my 8800GTS 640MB - but just barely. I find that OC'n my vid card much past 650/1000 yields little improvement in games or benchmarks - so I'm pretty sure I'm CPU bound.

But then again, being CPU bound to 60-80 fps in CoH ain't that bad!

These 2 articles may help you out:
http://firingsquad.com/hardware/geforce_8800_gtx_gts_amd_cpu_scaling/
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/geforce_8800_gtx_gts_core_2_performance/

 

[z0mbi3]

Interesting read. So logically I'm thinking frame rates won't really become an issue for a good while yet.

 

[Corasik]

All depends what your after. If you want to play games @ 1920x1200 with all eye candy turned on, then the GPU will probably bottleneck before even quite a slow CPU.

Even in cases where CPU is totally bottlenecked already, you may well find that with a slower GPU, you can play games with 'some' eyecandy and get smooth gameplay, but then you slap in a higher spec GPU, and you can increase resolution, add AA/AF, turn on all the eye candy, and get virtually no loss in FPS.

The CPU may determine the absolute maximum FPS a game can give, given an infinitely powerfull GPU... but the GPU is more important for higher detail, more eyecandy, and better filtering etc etc.

Ok, there are exceptions. Supreme Commander on a single core processor is bottlenecked in the CPU for the AI functions. No GPU upgrade can sort that, and some newer games are putting more AI, and Physics onto the CPU.. But you already have a dual core (X2), so that shouldnt be a problem

Your X2 @ 2.6 is about comparible with a 2.1-2.4ghz Core duo depending on the game, and to be honest, there are few games which really 'sufffer' even when played on a 1.8Ghz Core Duo.

I'd say your computer is just fine, and will handle a current Top spec graphics card just perfectly, only truely showing bottlenecks if your main form of entertainment is synthetic benchmarks like 3D Mark. Real games will be fine.

 

[Dutch Guy]

Yes, it will bottleneck to a degree, but that depends on the game, some games are very CPU limited by nature and others totally GPU limited.

But generally speaking the CPU is fast enough to get decent framerates in most games, the difference with a faster CPU might be the difference between 70fps and 100fps which IMO isn't a big deal.

For games spend most of your budget on getting a GPU as fast as possible coupled with a decent CPU.

 

[z0mbi3]

Cheers guys. I'm thinking I'll hangon to my x2 for awhile longer. A new gfx card can always move with me to a new pc while the rest of it can't.

I may well still have some clocking potential on my CPU too.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

All depends what your after. If you want to play games @ 1920x1200 with all eye candy turned on, then the GPU will probably bottleneck before even quite a slow CPU.

Even in cases where CPU is totally bottlenecked already, you may well find that with a slower GPU, you can play games with 'some' eyecandy and get smooth gameplay, but then you slap in a higher spec GPU, and you can increase resolution, add AA/AF, turn on all the eye candy, and get virtually no loss in FPS.

The CPU may determine the absolute maximum FPS a game can give, given an infinitely powerfull GPU... but the GPU is more important for higher detail, more eyecandy, and better filtering etc etc.

Ok, there are exceptions. Supreme Commander on a single core processor is bottlenecked in the CPU for the AI functions. No GPU upgrade can sort that, and some newer games are putting more AI, and Physics onto the CPU.. But you already have a dual core (X2), so that shouldnt be a problem

^ this guy is speaking the truth, unless you game at low rez with low eye candy then a new cpu would be best, but for high rez high gfx settings you need more gpu power as the guy above has said, he really has hit the nail smack bang on the head.

also todays newer games are more gpu limited, like DIRT, Bioshock, TDU, etc where as mentioned supreme commander is cpu limited.

 

[z0mbi3]

Cool, my ideal scenario is 1680 x 1050 with full eye candy. I'd like to think that counts as high res.

The principle I'm working on is to get a DX10 card (ATI being my prefered choice) to see me through to next year, at which stage I'll upgrade the rest of my rig (whilst keeping the card).

I'm such a sucker for nice eye candy. All these Crysis vids knocking about and the whole orange box voucher thing has really given me the itch.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

Cool, my ideal scenario is 1680 x 1050 with full eye candy. I'd like to think that counts as high res.

The principle I'm working on is to get a DX10 card (ATI being my prefered choice) to see me through to next year, at which stage I'll upgrade the rest of my rig (whilst keeping the card).

I'm such a sucker for nice eye candy. All these Crysis vids knocking about and the whole orange box voucher thing has really given me the itch.

yea thats high rez, you will be gpu limited in the newer games.

 

[z0mbi3]

Nice. I think I can justfy this then.

Do the x2900 Saphire's OcUK stock come with the black box voucher?