Is my CPU going to bottleneck this beast of a GFX?
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- Bottleneck
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Last response: in CPUs
thedudes1120
August 31, 2014 12:15:39 PM
At the moment, I have a AMD Phenom II X4 965 processor o'c to 3.8 megahertz with a HD 6850 system, but soon I will be updating said HD 6850 GFX to a R9 290 (not 290x). I guess my question is; will my CPU bottleneck the performance of this beast of a graphics card? If so, will getting a more beef'ed up CPU help or should I try to increase the CPU hertz to a hot 4.0 - 4.2 if possible? And yes I am aware I will have to get a more powerful PSU. 430w isn't going to cut it for the 290.
If you'd like more info on my system:
AMD Phenom II X4 965 o'c to 3.8 Hertz
8GB Rip Jaws RAM
M5A97 Motherboard <- relatively good o'c motherboard; would recommend
250GB 2.5 inch hard-drive
500GB 7200RPM hard-drive
HD6850 GFX
CX430 V2 PSU
Also added the motherboard. Completely forgot about it.
If you'd like more info on my system:
AMD Phenom II X4 965 o'c to 3.8 Hertz
8GB Rip Jaws RAM
M5A97 Motherboard <- relatively good o'c motherboard; would recommend
250GB 2.5 inch hard-drive
500GB 7200RPM hard-drive
HD6850 GFX
CX430 V2 PSU
Also added the motherboard. Completely forgot about it.
More about : cpu bottleneck beast gfx
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Reply to thedudes1120
The 965, as much as I love it, can only support a 270X/760 @4GHz. Anything more than that and clock speed increases dont mean much more. There will be a fairly wide bottleneck on a 290, however, if you plan to upgrade the processor soon it would still be a large performance increase until the processor can be replaced.
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Reply to Gam3r01
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^Agreed. I loved my old 965, too, but it's starting to show its age these days, and I probably wouldn't put much more on it than a 270X. You might be able to drive a 280 with some serious overclocking.
If you do plan on doing a whole platform upgrade to a faster processor, though, a 965 is more than enough power to notice a definite improvement, even if it does hold a 290 back a bit. I wouldn't go with a cheaper GPU for the sake of not bottlenecking your current processor if you plan on upgrading it anyway.
Just my opinion.
If you do plan on doing a whole platform upgrade to a faster processor, though, a 965 is more than enough power to notice a definite improvement, even if it does hold a 290 back a bit. I wouldn't go with a cheaper GPU for the sake of not bottlenecking your current processor if you plan on upgrading it anyway.
Just my opinion.
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Reply to someguynamedmatt
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thedudes1120 said:
At the moment, I have a AMD Phenom II X4 965 processor o'c to 3.8 megahertz with a HD 6850 system, but soon I will be updating said HD 6850 GFX to a R9 290 (not 290x). I guess my question is; will my CPU bottleneck the performance of this beast of a graphics card? If so, will getting a more beef'ed up CPU help or should I try to increase the CPU hertz to a hot 4.0 - 4.2 if possible? And yes I am aware I will have to get a more powerful PSU. 430w isn't going to cut it for the 290. If you'd like more info on my system:
AMD Phenom II X4 965 o'c to 3.8 Hertz
8GB Rip Jaws RAM
250GB 2.5 inch hard-drive
500GB 7200RPM hard-drive
HD6850 GFX
CX430 V2 PSU
If you have a good 970 or 990 board with an 8+2 power phase delivery a 6300 would be a really good kick in the pants. Rumor has it the FX cpu's are going to see some good price drops in September. A word of caution though. Your psu is cutting it really close.
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Reply to bmacsys
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thedudes1120
September 1, 2014 7:36:13 PM
Gam3r01 said:
The 965, as much as I love it, can only support a 270X/760 @4GHz. Anything more than that and clock speed increases dont mean much more. There will be a fairly wide bottleneck on a 290, however, if you plan to upgrade the processor soon it would still be a large performance increase until the processor can be replaced.The FX 8350 is a relatively well priced CPU for its cores/processing power. That couldn't possibly bottleneck it, can it? I doubt it would, but thought I should ask for good measure. I want to be settled for the next couple of years of playing GTA 5.
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Reply to thedudes1120
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thedudes1120
September 1, 2014 7:36:56 PM
bmacsys said:
thedudes1120 said:
At the moment, I have a AMD Phenom II X4 965 processor o'c to 3.8 megahertz with a HD 6850 system, but soon I will be updating said HD 6850 GFX to a R9 290 (not 290x). I guess my question is; will my CPU bottleneck the performance of this beast of a graphics card? If so, will getting a more beef'ed up CPU help or should I try to increase the CPU hertz to a hot 4.0 - 4.2 if possible? And yes I am aware I will have to get a more powerful PSU. 430w isn't going to cut it for the 290. If you'd like more info on my system:
AMD Phenom II X4 965 o'c to 3.8 Hertz
8GB Rip Jaws RAM
250GB 2.5 inch hard-drive
500GB 7200RPM hard-drive
HD6850 GFX
CX430 V2 PSU
If you have a good 970 or 990 board with an 8+2 power phase delivery a 6300 would be a really good kick in the pants. Rumor has it the FX cpu's are going to see some good price drops in September. A word of caution though. Your psu is cutting it really close.
Agreed. A 650w PSU should do the job though right?
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Reply to thedudes1120
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thedudes1120
September 3, 2014 10:49:30 AM
Best solution
The answers to this thread regarding CPU/GPU balance are fundamentally flawed. Your CPU represents the exact same performance limitation in compute intensive games whether you use an HD5770 or R9 290. Your CPU should be appropriately "sized" to match your desired FPS in the most compute intensive gaming conditions you anticipate regardless of which GPU you decide to pair it with.
Said another way, dropping down to an R9 270 won't improve the CPU performance compared to the R9 290. Any CPU performance issues you have (minimum FPS/stutters/etc) will be present either way. The GPU should be sized to match your monitor/s resolution, detail, and FPS goals. Obviously, your FPS goals for the GPU shouldn't be higher than those limits imposed by the CPU otherwise you'll have wasted hardware overhead in an expensive place.
The GPU, handles a broadly adjustable workload. You can keep the GPU busy regardless of what CPU it is paired with by adjusting the visual quality (resolution, post processing, texture detail, effects, etc).
All other things being equal, the R7 250X, R9 270, and R9 290, will have the same FPS performance at 720P, 1080P, and 1440P respectively. If your goals are 30-60FPS in most games, any of these 3 GPUs at their respective ideal resolutions will work well. Sizing the R9 290 to a 720P monitor, represents a greater hardware imbalance than sizing the R9 290 to a Phenom II @ 3.8ghz.
-------------
With that said, what games do you want to play, under what conditions, and what are your FPS expectations and goals? The answer to this question will determine whether you need a new CPU or not. Your new GPU selection has nothing to do with it.
When you go to select your GPU, select based on desired visual quality/resolution settings and the FPS goals (or limits imposed by CPU) for those settings.
If you think about it, you're not sizing the GPU to the CPU, or the CPU to the GPU, you're sizing the CPU to the compute workload, and the GPU to the render workload.
-Eric
Said another way, dropping down to an R9 270 won't improve the CPU performance compared to the R9 290. Any CPU performance issues you have (minimum FPS/stutters/etc) will be present either way. The GPU should be sized to match your monitor/s resolution, detail, and FPS goals. Obviously, your FPS goals for the GPU shouldn't be higher than those limits imposed by the CPU otherwise you'll have wasted hardware overhead in an expensive place.
The GPU, handles a broadly adjustable workload. You can keep the GPU busy regardless of what CPU it is paired with by adjusting the visual quality (resolution, post processing, texture detail, effects, etc).
All other things being equal, the R7 250X, R9 270, and R9 290, will have the same FPS performance at 720P, 1080P, and 1440P respectively. If your goals are 30-60FPS in most games, any of these 3 GPUs at their respective ideal resolutions will work well. Sizing the R9 290 to a 720P monitor, represents a greater hardware imbalance than sizing the R9 290 to a Phenom II @ 3.8ghz.
-------------
With that said, what games do you want to play, under what conditions, and what are your FPS expectations and goals? The answer to this question will determine whether you need a new CPU or not. Your new GPU selection has nothing to do with it.
When you go to select your GPU, select based on desired visual quality/resolution settings and the FPS goals (or limits imposed by CPU) for those settings.
If you think about it, you're not sizing the GPU to the CPU, or the CPU to the GPU, you're sizing the CPU to the compute workload, and the GPU to the render workload.
-Eric
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Reply to mdocod
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mdocod said:
The answers to this thread regarding CPU/GPU balance are fundamentally flawed. Your CPU represents the exact same performance limitation in compute intensive games whether you use an HD5770 or R9 290. Your CPU should be appropriately "sized" to match your desired FPS in the most compute intensive gaming conditions you anticipate regardless of which GPU you decide to pair it with. Said another way, dropping down to an R9 270 won't improve the CPU performance compared to the R9 290. Any CPU performance issues you have (minimum FPS/stutters/etc) will be present either way. The GPU should be sized to match your monitor/s resolution, detail, and FPS goals. Obviously, your FPS goals for the GPU shouldn't be higher than those limits imposed by the CPU otherwise you'll have wasted hardware overhead in an expensive place.
The GPU, handles a broadly adjustable workload. You can keep the GPU busy regardless of what CPU it is paired with by adjusting the visual quality (resolution, post processing, texture detail, effects, etc).
All other things being equal, the R7 250X, R9 270, and R9 290, will have the same FPS performance at 720P, 1080P, and 1440P respectively. If your goals are 30-60FPS in most games, any of these 3 GPUs at their respective ideal resolutions will work well. Sizing the R9 290 to a 720P monitor, represents a greater hardware imbalance than sizing the R9 290 to a Phenom II @ 3.8ghz.
-------------
With that said, what games do you want to play, under what conditions, and what are your FPS expectations and goals? The answer to this question will determine whether you need a new CPU or not. Your new GPU selection has nothing to do with it.
When you go to select your GPU, select based on desired visual quality/resolution settings and the FPS goals (or limits imposed by CPU) for those settings.
If you think about it, you're not sizing the GPU to the CPU, or the CPU to the GPU, you're sizing the CPU to the compute workload, and the GPU to the render workload.
-Eric
Though this was well said, its not entirely true. A CPU will live up to its own performance regardless of the card, HOWEVER, the CPU is tasked with supplying the GPU with its necessary work load. If the CPU is too slow, or has too weak of cores, the graphics card will not receive its full work load capacity. Thus rendering the extra performance momentarily disabled. If you can supply a 760 with enough information to run at 100%, but a 770 at 80%, they will have the same performance levels.
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Reply to Gam3r01
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Gam3r01,
The render workload is vastly adjustable. If the end user fails to adjust the available visual quality settings into the headroom afforded by a GPU selection, then that's more a user error than a CPU performance problem. If the GPU is not running at full saturation and we are at our goal FPS or higher, then the CPU bottleneck is not actually a problem. In these circumstances the best way to better utilize the available hardware is to simply increase the workload for the GPU by increasing the visual quality settings and/or post processing. On the flip side, if the CPU is holding back FPS to a performance level that is BELOW the goal FPS, then we have a CPU performance problem that can not be solved by adjusting the size of the GPU either direction. Reducing the size of the GPU to match the CPU does not solve the problem here, it only reduces "waste." In this case, the only solution is a more powerful CPU (replace or overclock).
I think you have misinterpreted what I have said as it sounds to me like you are saying the exact same thing I am saying, except with one key element missing: The vastly adjustable render workload. In the case of the CPU that can keep a GTX760 busy but not a GTX770, the same CPU can keep the GTX770 running at 100% all the time if the render workload is increased to fill the headroom afforded by the increase in the size of the GPU; just switch to a 1440P monitor instead of a 1080P. Blam, bottleneck shifted back to the GPU.
What I'm trying to do here, is get this old-mentality CPU/GPU matching philosophy flushed out here. It's fundamentally flawed because it is traditionally approached as if the bottleneck is the primary problem that needs to be solved, rather than the resulting performance. Achieving "zen" with high workload saturation on both the CPU and GPU (minimal bottle-necking) is only useful from a budgeting perspective, and doesn't actually solve play-ability/performance issues in and of itself.
Does dropping from a GTX770 to a GTX760 in order to eliminate the apparent CPU bottleneck actually solve anything other than a budgeting issue? No.
The render workload is vastly adjustable. If the end user fails to adjust the available visual quality settings into the headroom afforded by a GPU selection, then that's more a user error than a CPU performance problem. If the GPU is not running at full saturation and we are at our goal FPS or higher, then the CPU bottleneck is not actually a problem. In these circumstances the best way to better utilize the available hardware is to simply increase the workload for the GPU by increasing the visual quality settings and/or post processing. On the flip side, if the CPU is holding back FPS to a performance level that is BELOW the goal FPS, then we have a CPU performance problem that can not be solved by adjusting the size of the GPU either direction. Reducing the size of the GPU to match the CPU does not solve the problem here, it only reduces "waste." In this case, the only solution is a more powerful CPU (replace or overclock).
I think you have misinterpreted what I have said as it sounds to me like you are saying the exact same thing I am saying, except with one key element missing: The vastly adjustable render workload. In the case of the CPU that can keep a GTX760 busy but not a GTX770, the same CPU can keep the GTX770 running at 100% all the time if the render workload is increased to fill the headroom afforded by the increase in the size of the GPU; just switch to a 1440P monitor instead of a 1080P. Blam, bottleneck shifted back to the GPU.
What I'm trying to do here, is get this old-mentality CPU/GPU matching philosophy flushed out here. It's fundamentally flawed because it is traditionally approached as if the bottleneck is the primary problem that needs to be solved, rather than the resulting performance. Achieving "zen" with high workload saturation on both the CPU and GPU (minimal bottle-necking) is only useful from a budgeting perspective, and doesn't actually solve play-ability/performance issues in and of itself.
Does dropping from a GTX770 to a GTX760 in order to eliminate the apparent CPU bottleneck actually solve anything other than a budgeting issue? No.
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Reply to mdocod
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thedudes1120
September 4, 2014 11:31:38 AM
mdocod said:
The answers to this thread regarding CPU/GPU balance are fundamentally flawed. Your CPU represents the exact same performance limitation in compute intensive games whether you use an HD5770 or R9 290. Your CPU should be appropriately "sized" to match your desired FPS in the most compute intensive gaming conditions you anticipate regardless of which GPU you decide to pair it with. Said another way, dropping down to an R9 270 won't improve the CPU performance compared to the R9 290. Any CPU performance issues you have (minimum FPS/stutters/etc) will be present either way. The GPU should be sized to match your monitor/s resolution, detail, and FPS goals. Obviously, your FPS goals for the GPU shouldn't be higher than those limits imposed by the CPU otherwise you'll have wasted hardware overhead in an expensive place.
The GPU, handles a broadly adjustable workload. You can keep the GPU busy regardless of what CPU it is paired with by adjusting the visual quality (resolution, post processing, texture detail, effects, etc).
All other things being equal, the R7 250X, R9 270, and R9 290, will have the same FPS performance at 720P, 1080P, and 1440P respectively. If your goals are 30-60FPS in most games, any of these 3 GPUs at their respective ideal resolutions will work well. Sizing the R9 290 to a 720P monitor, represents a greater hardware imbalance than sizing the R9 290 to a Phenom II @ 3.8ghz.
-------------
With that said, what games do you want to play, under what conditions, and what are your FPS expectations and goals? The answer to this question will determine whether you need a new CPU or not. Your new GPU selection has nothing to do with it.
When you go to select your GPU, select based on desired visual quality/resolution settings and the FPS goals (or limits imposed by CPU) for those settings.
If you think about it, you're not sizing the GPU to the CPU, or the CPU to the GPU, you're sizing the CPU to the compute workload, and the GPU to the render workload.
-Eric
Gam3r01 said:
mdocod said:
The answers to this thread regarding CPU/GPU balance are fundamentally flawed. Your CPU represents the exact same performance limitation in compute intensive games whether you use an HD5770 or R9 290. Your CPU should be appropriately "sized" to match your desired FPS in the most compute intensive gaming conditions you anticipate regardless of which GPU you decide to pair it with. Said another way, dropping down to an R9 270 won't improve the CPU performance compared to the R9 290. Any CPU performance issues you have (minimum FPS/stutters/etc) will be present either way. The GPU should be sized to match your monitor/s resolution, detail, and FPS goals. Obviously, your FPS goals for the GPU shouldn't be higher than those limits imposed by the CPU otherwise you'll have wasted hardware overhead in an expensive place.
The GPU, handles a broadly adjustable workload. You can keep the GPU busy regardless of what CPU it is paired with by adjusting the visual quality (resolution, post processing, texture detail, effects, etc).
All other things being equal, the R7 250X, R9 270, and R9 290, will have the same FPS performance at 720P, 1080P, and 1440P respectively. If your goals are 30-60FPS in most games, any of these 3 GPUs at their respective ideal resolutions will work well. Sizing the R9 290 to a 720P monitor, represents a greater hardware imbalance than sizing the R9 290 to a Phenom II @ 3.8ghz.
-------------
With that said, what games do you want to play, under what conditions, and what are your FPS expectations and goals? The answer to this question will determine whether you need a new CPU or not. Your new GPU selection has nothing to do with it.
When you go to select your GPU, select based on desired visual quality/resolution settings and the FPS goals (or limits imposed by CPU) for those settings.
If you think about it, you're not sizing the GPU to the CPU, or the CPU to the GPU, you're sizing the CPU to the compute workload, and the GPU to the render workload.
-Eric
Though this was well said, its not entirely true. A CPU will live up to its own performance regardless of the card, HOWEVER, the CPU is tasked with supplying the GPU with its necessary work load. If the CPU is too slow, or has too weak of cores, the graphics card will not receive its full work load capacity. Thus rendering the extra performance momentarily disabled. If you can supply a 760 with enough information to run at 100%, but a 770 at 80%, they will have the same performance levels.
Crap
. I didn't mean to put that as the answer, but definitely well said. With that out of the way, I don't know exactly what the workload is going to be like. I am just trying to future-proof my system so it can last me a rather long and non-troublesome (stuttering and lowframes) time. For example, GTA 5, is a game that I plan on buying and playing the heck out of when it is eventually released for PC. I imagine it isn't going to be an easy game to run. Especially with the edition of mods, horrid optimization and the likes. This is purely a gaming system with some light photo editing here and there. So to really answer your question, I want to be able to play upcoming games, such as GTA 5, at ultra with a maximum of 60 and minimum of 30 without any stutters or fps drops. Or even recent games that are immensely recourse intensive such as Metro Redux and the likes.
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Reply to thedudes1120
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Best value solution to dealing with badly optimized up and coming console ports will be an overclocked i5 haswell. Whether or not this is actually necessary to achieve your FPS goals is difficult to predict of course for software that doesn't yet exist.
*UNLESS game developers start to release HSA/hUMA optimized binaries for desktop games. In which case, an FM2+ system with Kaveri and an AMD dGPU could prove to be better than an i5. Unfortunately, at this time, I'm not aware of any significant strides being made in this direction.
*UNLESS game developers start to release HSA/hUMA optimized binaries for desktop games. In which case, an FM2+ system with Kaveri and an AMD dGPU could prove to be better than an i5. Unfortunately, at this time, I'm not aware of any significant strides being made in this direction.
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Reply to mdocod
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