Cpu Bottlenecking

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dal2000

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Ok, so Ive tried various things to see if my cpu is bottlenecking my graphics card. I'm more than certain it is, however I need to know to which extent. Is there any applications I could use to find out? My current system is a AMD 5200+ x2 Dual core 2.7, graphics card is 9800gtx+. Now I have ordered a Athlon II x4 630. I'm just interested in how badly my cpu has been bottlenecking my gpu, and how much the new cpu will help. Thanks!
 
It's not bottlenecking it. It's borderline just the right processor for your graphics card.
 
run 3dmark06 with physx off, note score and cpu score

OC by 200mhz or more, run 3dmark again...check score difference
 
The best way is to run a game with built it benchmark then oc and check the score. But the quad will give you a nice boost since most games today are multi thread enabled.
 
I tried the GTA 4 benchmark and it went up by 6 fps when I overclocked by 300mhz.
 
A quad will be a nice upgrade. Saw a nice big improvement ealier this year when I went from a e5200 to q8400 with a HD4850(similar to your 9800GTX)
 
I was just thinking now. A couple years ago your cpu wouldn't have been a bottle neck. But now with games that eat up 3 cores and some loving even 4 your processor is the bottleneck.
 
Nope with all the console ports coming out a quadcore should the minimum a pc gamer buys these days. Future proofing has finally come been shown to be the way to go :D. I mean okes who spend 2-2.5k on a dual core e8400 and e8500 and e8600 must think WTf did i not listen and rather buy a 2.5k quad :D.
 
Yeah, thats what I was thinking too. Nowadays games are quite a bit more cpu intensive, but my graphics card still packs a punch. Judging by online benchmarks, if I were to try the GTA 4 benchmark with the Athlon II x4 630, I would be getting about 51 fps approximately. Could be less, however thats quite a major jump from my current 33 fps.
 
@ Killadoob - I still havn't finished GTA 4 due to the ever lasting poor performance regardless of what I tweak. I mean, it's definitely playable.... just feels like im playing gta vice city on a pentium 2 with 256mb ram xD

How long would this current GPU last me? I dont mind turning graphics down a bit, but it still needs to look at it's best. Also I dont mind sub-40 fps when it gets intensive.
 
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Your cpu will bottleneck that particular game because it's designed for quad (or tri) core performance. Bottlenecking is very context dependent and difficult to quantify. In general there is a big gap between cpu and gpu requirements - you have to scale quite high with the gpu before it becomes cpu limited. But ymmv - killadoob is right about quad core optimisation. Dragon Age Origins will get a 75% boost with quad cores.
 
dal2000 said:
@ Killadoob - I still havn't finished GTA 4 due to the ever lasting poor performance regardless of what I tweak. I mean, it's definitely playable.... just feels like im playing gta vice city on a pentium 2 with 256mb ram xD

How long would this current GPU last me? I dont mind turning graphics down a bit, but it still needs to look at it's best. Also I dont mind sub-40 fps when it gets intensive.
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Your graphics card is still ok. Gta has a tri core listed though in it's recommended specs. You'll see a big boost in gta.
 
It is an awesome game, ran like a bomb on the my 9800gx2. 60 odd FPS.

Trouble is i got bored as it is not really much better than the previous ones, seems very similar.
 
Well be happy; the DLC is coming to PC soon! Thats more than enough of a reason to get back to playing it :D
 
How'd you get it to run on the GX2?

At 1920x1080 id get a max of 15FPS because it would only use half the GPU (Hadn't supported SLi)
 
Nvidia brought out new drivers for the game just after the release to enable sli.

Even without sli i got 37-40 FPS on 1920. May have been the q9550 helping maybe. That is my only complaint with ati is that is takes them a good couple weeks to release a profile update for a new game while nvidia do it as soon as the game is out.
 
Have you tried it lately? With the new patches that have been released, although its only really one that you need, It was far more playable - even for my dual core :P. Theres multiple graphics options that have opened up too.
 
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