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A question about bottlenecking

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  • Bottleneck
  • Graphics
Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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June 28, 2013 11:43:29 PM

Hi guys, I am going a bit crazy, it seems every other thread I read the word "bottleneck" comes up and I am a bit confused.

I am on a i7 920 at 2.66, this is a dell, so it's a locked mobo, no overclocking (even when I built machines back in the day I didn't like overclocking) even if I wanted to I can't. I have 12gb ram and have the chance of getting a rather cheap gtx 770 windforce 4gb. I am currently using a Radeon 5870 so the increase in power will be substantial.

My problem is every time I try to google something about this card I see about 10 threads about bottlenecking, I even asked a question about a PSU related to this card and the first response in the thread was about how I should just upgrade the whole machine because of bottlenecking.

So what the heck? I know my i7 920 at stock speeds isn't the fastest anymore but is it so bad that it will completly ruin my gtx 770? Or will I still see a substantial increase in capability compared to my radeon 5870?

It'ts just that some people say things like "yeah it'll bottleneck but you'll still get a good kick out of it" while others flat out go "no it'll be a massive bottleneck! just upgrade your whole machine!"

So I really don't know which is it. It also is quite annoying that nvidia, amd or no one for that matter offers a sensible explanation on which cpu's should be used with the cards they are selling. No matter how hard I look for a minimum system spec to use "x" gpu, I simply can't find it.

I guess I should still get the gtx as I plan on buying an nvidia shield later on (the only person on earth) for the whole streaming thing they have going on with the gtx, but I am not sure if the machine will see any significant improvement.

I mean come on, the i7 920 2.6 is old but it's not yet obsolete, it's still has a few good years left in it!

Thanks!

More about : question bottlenecking

June 29, 2013 12:01:13 AM

Most games wouldn't have any issues but there may be a slight bottleneck on CPU intensive games with the 770. Also, have you considered the HD 7970 over the GTX 770? It is currently going for $310-330.
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June 29, 2013 12:19:37 AM

HD 7970 or any other HD cards uses less power and are light with the system they wont bottleneck your system go for it dude
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June 29, 2013 4:26:36 AM

If it's fairly 'cheap' the 770 is a great card but if you're gaming below 1080 res you'll be better off with a GTX760/GTX660Ti/HD7950/GTX670 class of card with 2Gb (3 for the 7950) of framebuffer.
As you've already been told, (I hope) any 'bottleneck' will depend on game and screen resolution.
If you do n't know how bottlenecking occurs, drop us a line and we'll clarify the situation.
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June 29, 2013 9:21:24 AM

Yeah i definitely don't know how it occurs so thanks for the friendly advice. :) 

My monitor is old and doesn't do more than 1080p so maybe I'll be fine. The problem was Metro last night really gave a frame rate beating to my hd5870
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June 30, 2013 3:38:38 AM

In this case the 'bottleneck' means a reduction in framerate.
Computer games, like all animation, use a trick of vision to give the impression of smooth movement by displaying a series of slightly different still images in quick succession-these images are called frames.
Movies display at 24 FPS (frames per second) which is about the minimum needed for smooth animation but the higher the FPS the smoother the result will be.
Two main parts are involved, the CPU which deals with AI, producing the 3D scene and, usually, physics and the GPU which actually renders the scene-in this case 'render' is used to mean colour or paint.
Different games load the CPU differently, some, like the Total War series have a heavy AI load as the computer must control hundreds if not thousands of units at once, others may have a heavy physics workload, fog, smoke, water and explosions can all demand significant CPU time to simulate.
Creating the 3D scene is done mathematically, so screen resolution has a low impact on the CPU workload, complexity however does: The more objects in the scene and the more complex they are the longer it takes to produce the scene.
Screen resolution has a strong impact on the GPU workload, ultimately it's calculating the colour of each pixel (dot) for the chosen resolution. The higher the chosen resolution, the more pixels it has to calculate, the longer it takes. Post processes like transparency, reflections, fog, Anti aliasing (AA) and Anisotropic filtering (AF) all add to the GPU workload, slowing it further.
Both the CPU and GPU can only work so fast and if one finishes its workload before the other it will be held up, hence the bottleneck.
After this it gets increasingly technical ;) 
What settings did you use in Metro? If it's anything like Metro 2033 you can kill the framerate by selecting certain features.
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