Will I be bottlenecked?

[Fisher]

Hi, I'm thinking of buying a motherboard bundle containing an Intel 3570K o/c to 4.5GHz and a Gigabyte GA-Z77X-D3H Motherboard. I heard that it is best to have an even balance between GPU and CPU, so that one doesn't bottleneck the other. Is this bundle a good match for my overclocked MSI 6950 2gb or should I look to upgrade that aswell?

 

[RJC]

I see no real reason to upgrade the gpu.

What res do you game at?

 

[Martini1991]

The 69502GB will be the bottleneck in gaming, but that doesn't mean much as you could (And probably will) be getting plenty frames.

 

[Gregster]

That would be a good upgrade and when you decide to upgrade your GPU, you will have a decent CPU to go with it .

No bottlenecks with your suggested CPU/MOBO and current 6950.

 

[PorkPieCat]

try it out. if it doesn't cut it then upgrade, simple

 

[andybird123]

what CPU are you currently running?
if you only have a 6950 then it is very possible that your current CPU is not a bottleneck

GPU's are rarely discussed as being the bottleneck... you want the best GPU you can afford and then spec a CPU to suit rather than the other way around... having said that, a 3570k will not bottleneck any of the current GPU's so you *could* run anything up to and including a GTX690 or 7990 if you really wanted to

I would start by posting up everything you currently have so that we can get a better idea of what bits you could replace for the cheapest / good upgrade

 

[Fisher]

what CPU are you currently running?
if you only have a 6950 then it is very possible that your current CPU is not a bottleneck

GPU's are rarely discussed as being the bottleneck... you want the best GPU you can afford and then spec a CPU to suit rather than the other way around... having said that, a 3570k will not bottleneck any of the current GPU's so you *could* run anything up to and including a GTX690 or 7990 if you really wanted to

I would start by posting up everything you currently have so that we can get a better idea of what bits you could replace for the cheapest / good upgrade

Ok, my current rig:

Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1075T Processor o/c to 3.6 GHz from 3GHz
RAM: 8GB
System type: Windows 7 64 bit
PSU: 750w
GPU: MSI ATI Radeon HD 6950 OC Twin FrozR III Power Edition 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express
Motherboard: ASRock M3A770DE AM3
RES: 1920x1080

I'm mostly looking to upgrade my CPU to play the very CPU intensive Total war games. My current CPU plays them alright, but not great.

 

[Fisher]

just a quick bump

 

[IC3]

CPU allways gives 100% of its possibilities and the only bottlenecking would be a bad cpu with a high end gpu otherwise you are fine

 

[andybird123]

Ok, my current rig:

I'm mostly looking to upgrade my CPU to play the very CPU intensive Total war games. My current CPU plays them alright, but not great.

looking at 2 seperate benchmarks of CPU and 6950 performance in TotalWar2, they should both be capable of around 60FPS average on high albeit not maximum settings

I would say your current CPU is a good match for your current GPU even in a relatively CPU bound title like TotalWar

having said that, you will need to upgrade your CPU before you upgrade to another GPU so you may as well do the CPU first and then upgrade the GPU when you have the inclination

 

[Fisher]

looking at 2 seperate benchmarks of CPU and 6950 performance in TotalWar2, they should both be capable of around 60FPS average on high albeit not maximum settings

I would say your current CPU is a good match for your current GPU even in a relatively CPU bound title like TotalWar

having said that, you will need to upgrade your CPU before you upgrade to another GPU so you may as well do the CPU first and then upgrade the GPU when you have the inclination

ah ok, that makes sense.

And sadly no, in combat scenes it seems to drop well below decent fps i.e. less than 20