performance difference while going from HT 2 to HT 1

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jeanettepgouge

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May 22, 2013
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hi everyone, my pc specs are:
gpu: gtx 650 ti boost
processor: amd athlon 64 x2 4800+ 2.5ghz
motherboard: M68M-S2P(AM2/AM2+/AM3)
ram: 2gb
now as you can see my current processor is seriously bottlenecking the GPU(when i start many games, both the cores work at full capacity but still lag is there because of them), so i have planned on upgrading the processor only(not the motherboard)
but the only thing i am stuck at now is this warning on gigabyte website:"(Note) If you install an AMD AM3/AM2+ CPU on AM2 motherboard, the system bus speed will downgrade from HT3.0(5200 MT/s) to HT1.0 (2000 MT/s); however, the frequency of AM2+ CPU will not be impacted. "
so what i don't understand is that, is this bus speed between the processor and gpu or is this bus speed between processor and chipset (nvidia 7025/nforce 630a)
also how will this downgraded bus speed affect the performance
 
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photonboy

photonboy

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Jun 20, 2006
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperTransport

This affects the CPU communication between BOTH the main chipset and your memory.

It's difficult to say exactly how much difference this would make while gaming. I think a much better CPU will be a large improvement (such as an FX-6300) over your existing setup but not quite as good as it could have been.

Due to the throttled bandwidth it's difficult to say if an FX-8350 would be much better than an X4-965. At about $90 the AMD Phenom 2 X4 965 might be your best value.

*Be certain that the CPU you choose is supported, and if necessary flash the BIOS to the latest before switching CPU's.

Here's how a game works:
1. Game copied from Hard Drive into main memory (DDR2/3)
(your 2GB is also an issue; 4GB would be far better)

2. CPU talks to main memory, runs some calculations and forwards some to GPU

The main problem with HT being throttled is that while the CPU can theoretically operate at full speed, it's not getting the information to process as fast as it could and that will be quite a problem.
 
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photonboy

photonboy

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*WARNING:
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3498#

Make sure to read the CPU support list under the Support section. It appears that "NA" means not supported. The X4 965 appears to NOT be supported.

From what I saw comparing what's available with the list, the only processor you can get might be this one:

AMD Athlon II X4 640

You'll get a faster CPU with four cores, but a big bandwidth issue and it's really difficult to say how much better things will be. I'm willing to bet an i5-3570K setup with that graphics card would get at least DOUBLE the performance you'd get even with the CPU upgrade on your current system. You're really holding that card back.
 
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jeanettepgouge

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May 22, 2013
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yeah i had already seen the page and also selected a cheap processor for the time being(i am going to assemble a new pc in December or something), this one http://www.flipkart.com/amd-athlon-ii-x2-270-processor/p/itmdf7rf2k89ezzg?pid=PSRDF7RFUC8QVFAP&ref=070e7c39-f93e-43b0-bbbf-f85c6e2b4562 and right now also searching on ebay(not the first priority since it doesn't support cash on delivery on nearly all products). So i just came for the details on HT, u didn't tell the performance difference if i used this (or other am3 processor) on ht1
 
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photonboy

photonboy

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I have no idea how much HT being bottlenecked would affect performance. I have no idea if the X4 965 would be faster than the X2 270 despite the HT issue.

If you are building a new system you might be better off just saving that money though.
 
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jeanettepgouge

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May 22, 2013
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i have been using a shitty pc from like ever and i am going to assemble a better one in few months so till that i would like to go with something atleast, if you say they are going to give same performance i might get the x2 270 then because it is cheap too...
 
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photonboy

photonboy

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If you can get the X2 for under $100 it might be your best value. I could find no tests for the downclock of HT issue but it sounds like it could be a serious bottleneck.

You can probably estimate the performance increase by comparing the 270 to your 4800+ for similar benchmarks. If it appears you'll get about 50% improvement then you MIGHT go up from 25 to 35FPS on average in games. It will vary.

Regardless of setup, always aim for the highest frame rate rather than highest quality.

NVidia has a nice feature called Adaptive VSYNC (VSync is only on as long as you can achieve that minimum frame rate). If you want higher quality and find 30FPS to be acceptable for a particular game, here's how you would set that up:
1) run the game then close it
2) Open NVidia Control Panel -> Manage 3D Settings -> Program Settings -> ADD
3) Ensure the proper game is selected (such as Battlefield 3)
4) Choose "Adaptive Half Refresh" and APPLY

Now what happens is the game will run at 30FPS as long as the CPU/GPU are fast enough but if it drops to say 27FPS for a short time it won't cause the STUTTER of unsynching then the STUTTER of resynching to the monitor (VSYNC).

*I strongly recommend tweaking your quality and resolution to the optimal settings with VSYNC OFF as it's easier that way. You could simply glance at the FPS in FRAPS or setup FRAPS to monitor it for at least two minutes of TYPICAL GAMEPLAY. Whether your goal is 30FPS or 60FPS, I like to get a minimum of 90% of the frames above that.

VSYNC has two main purposes:
1) eliminate the SCREEN TEARING (which varies from barely noticeable to horrible)
2) reduce the frame rate when not needed (why generate 300FPS if the screen can only show 60FPS) which also reduces the noise. Noise often jumps up significantly from a 90% to 100% load of the GPU.
Cheers.
 
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jeanettepgouge

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May 22, 2013
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well right now whichever game i try to run at medium or higher settings utilizes full cpu and ram(so obviuosly they are seriously bottlenecking the gpu) and less than 50% of the gpu, so i don't think it will be a loss if i buy the x2( it is for 2913rs thats nearly 50.564$), although if i knew exactly how much performance difference HT downgrading would cause i would consider getting a processor(preferably phenom) of nearly 100$ if it is not much
 
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photonboy

photonboy

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HT bottleneck:
If you use the AM3 CPU, you bus throttles to only 38% (5200/2000) of it's maximum. That's very significant. There may be scenarios where a high-end AM3 would outperform an AM2 CPU but I think you should avoid the AM3 for your purposes as I believe the AM2 without bandwidth limitations would be a better gaming solution.

CPU/RAM bottleneck:
It's your CPU that is the bottleneck. It's not your CPU as well as the RAM.

*Basically since your CPU is such a bottleneck, you'll get an improvement in games that is almost as much as the ratio of CPU2/CPU1. So if CPU2 is 50% better you might get a 40% frame rate improvement in some games (will vary).

SUMMARY:
Get the best AM2 CPU your motherboard supports for now and build a completely new system in the future.
 
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jeanettepgouge

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May 22, 2013
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but not many AM2 processors are available in market, and those who are are highly overpriced
 
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jeanettepgouge

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May 22, 2013
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also you may want to consider these 3 pages: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Athlon+II+X2+270 , http://www.passmark.com/baselines/V8/display.php?id=9330013247 & http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M4N68TM_LE/#overview
And the main thing is that this mb is strikingly similar to mine(except ddr2 and ddr3), the bus speed is 2000MT/s limited like in mine and still it is giving this benchmark so it doesn't really look like it is impacting performance much(since the benchmark is higher than average one! but on better boards it is more, but still it is higher than my current CPU)
one more from this forum only: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/323635-28-will-socket-ddr2-memory-slow-computer-down
 
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