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SLI x3 GTX 280 would CPU be bottleneck?

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10 Jan 2006
Posts
134
Hi, Im wanting to play Skyrim with all the Graphics Tweaks (see http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11) Now I have 2x GTX 280 in SLI at the moment, it runs Skyrim on ultra no prob, but once I introduce all the tweaks (and future tweaks and texture upgrades etc) in certain places it drops to 15-20 FPS. So now I am wondering if I should buy another GTX 280 for 3x SLI. (I can pick one up for around £60). However I am wondering if this will make much of a difference as my CPU my be a bottle neck

I have Intel Core 2 Quad 3.0ghz
4GB Ram
Win 7 64
2 x GTX 290 SLI
running skyrim at 1900 x 1200

any help on this would be really appreciated!
 
I dont think the efficiency of 3 x SLI is very good, certainly not on older generation cards, I doubt youd get much of a boost regardless of any potential CPU bottleneck. If I were you I'd just wait for Kepler and then go for new cards (whether they be 6xx or 5xx once prices drop)
 
An old review here but GTX 280 triple SLI scaled pretty well.

Wow that does seem to perform pretty well in 3Way. For £70 it seems like It could be worth it, to be honest if I get 8-10 more FPS out of it I will be very happy indeed. But not sure if I will get that much.
 
I have same chip as you and to get the most out of it you need to be up at 4 GHz mate

I was thinking maybe it's time to try overlooking. Never done it before and not totally sure how. But considering I'm a little skint at the moment, might be the best idea. Do you reckon if i overclock my cpu and both my gpus it will make a noticeable difference. I don't have water cooling but have pretty decent fan heatsink on cpu.

Also, is it worth upgrading my Ram? To 4x2gb?
Cheers
 
I would overclock chip but leave memory alone. Recently had an experience myself where I changed from dual channel back to single channel for a bit and it completely knackered up the stability of my rig.
 
id put my money on the drop in fps being the cards themselves, and not the cpu...

Little old graphics cards now, and 1gb Vram???

a lot of the time it can be down to the Vram, when there isnt enough Vram, FPS drops like crazy while the Vram refreshes etc...

Id say, two older graphics cards in a new graphical game, think about it..

Like i said in other posts across the forum..

Its better to have one decent card than to SLI two weaker cards...
 
I'm at work at the moment, but ill post my voltages etc later.

Problem is, i only really have about £100 to pay for upgrades right now. So I can't get a better single card for that much. So it's either 4x2gb ram or I purchase another gtx 280 for 3x sli or if either is not going to make a difference, I will try to learn how to overclock both my cpu and gpu if you guys think it will make a noticeable difference to my FPS.
 
I'm at work at the moment, but ill post my voltages etc later.

Problem is, i only really have about £100 to pay for upgrades right now. So I can't get a better single card for that much. So it's either 4x2gb ram or I purchase another gtx 280 for 3x sli or if either is not going to make a difference, I will try to learn how to overclock both my cpu and gpu if you guys think it will make a noticeable difference to my FPS.
I think the chances are that your CPU is bottlenecking the GTX280SLI during those scene which the frame rate drops to 15-20fps, so getting another GTX280 most likely wouldn't help, if not make it worse.

You should use MSI Afterburner to set up on-screen display for GPU usage, and then during those scene where you got 15-20fps, check to see what the GPU usage is; if both GPU are far from 100%, then you are most likely having a CPU bottleneck, or the driver is not fully optimised for SLI in that game.
 
Sorry writing this from my phone browser and it doesn't seem to like this forum for some reason, keeps double posting
 
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I think the chances are that your CPU is bottlenecking the GTX280SLI during those scene which the frame rate drops to 15-20fps, so getting another GTX280 most likely wouldn't help, if not make it worse.

You should use MSI Afterburner to set up on-screen display for GPU usage, and then during those scene where you got 15-20fps, check to see what the GPU usage is; if both GPU are far from 100%, then you are most likely having a CPU bottleneck, or the driver is not fully optimised for SLI in that game.

So I used MSI afterburner whilst playing SKyrim, now both my cards reach up to 98% however when I found some scenery that caused my FPS to stay at a steady 20 FPS I just left it there for about 5 minutes. I checked the graphs on Afterburner and both GPU,s stayed at 61% for that time. I also checked CPU usage and core 1 was around 70% whilst core 2,3 and 4 stayed at around 50%. I'm not sure if this is an indication if anything is bottlenecking my FPS?
 
Your CPU is very likely to be bottlenecking. Skyrim is very CPU bound for performance and can't take advantage of more than 2 cores. You need to look at Sandybridge to get your minimum framerate higher really.
 
going back to my original point, on my rig which also has Q9650

At stock, heaven score is 899

At 4ghz, heaven score is 1165

and that is with a gtx 470

so if it was me, before investing any money whatsoever, I would learn how to overclock, because it's free performance gains. might not get you out of your problem, but you wont know till you try.
 
Your CPU is very likely to be bottlenecking. Skyrim is very CPU bound for performance and can't take advantage of more than 2 cores. You need to look at Sandybridge to get your minimum framerate higher really.

Oh really? even though the cores were only utilising 70% and 50%?
 
going back to my original point, on my rig which also has Q9650

At stock, heaven score is 899

At 4ghz, heaven score is 1165

and that is with a gtx 470

so if it was me, before investing any money whatsoever, I would learn how to overclock, because it's free performance gains. might not get you out of your problem, but you wont know till you try.

What heat sink are you using? I think I will try overclocking my CPU then
 
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