Shall my AMD Athlon 3500+ Bottlenect a 1950 Pro Video Card?

[I_Like_Computers]

I have a CPU (AMD Athlon3500+). And wonder if my CPU should bottleneck the new Video card 1950 Pro that I want to buy. I want to my computer to play the demanding games (such as Oblivion, Company of Heroes etc). I need some advice on this Please!

 

[apt403]

Nah, it shouldnt bottleneck it, atleast not by a noticeable amount. Although a new cpu couldnt hurt...

 

[unclepauly]

On the two games you mentioned yes. On other games like FEAR no. It's not a cut and dry percentage, it's more app dependent. In RTS games you can be really cpu bound when there alot of characters on screen. Source games tend to get cpu bound also because of the A.I. and physics. My advice is just to overclock. Push it to 2.5ghz or higher and you should be fine. Although my opty at 2.8ghz still bottlenecks some games.

 

[reader850]

As UnclePauly says, a 2.5 overclock would probably help, and is very easy to achieve if your motherboard allows you to adjust your bios settings. I have an A64 3500+ running at 2.5GHz using these settings: 10x multi, 250 HTT, 4x HT, 5:6 166(DDR333) divider. This gives me a processor speed of 2.5 GHz, and a memory speed of 208, which means you probably don't have to change your voltages or memory latency settings. This is a conservative overclock that doesn't increase your operating temperature noticably.

 

[jitpublisher]

A X1950Pro will work great with your 3500+.
Even if your 3500+ is not top of the line anymore, it's still a very fast processor.

 

[Dahak]

Overclock it by a couple hundered mghz and you'll never see a bottleneck from it.Although I doubt you would see one at stock speed either.Goodluck.

Dahak

 

[quantumsheep]

I have a CPU (AMD Athlon3500+). And wonder if my CPU should bottleneck the new Video card 1950 Pro that I want to buy. I want to my computer to play the demanding games (such as Oblivion, Company of Heroes etc). I need some advice on this Please!

No bottleneck would occur, Tom's did an article a few days ago with a 3400+ and there was no real bottlenecks present.

 

[I_Like_Computers]

Thanks guys! Ya, I saw the review and it should work. Though I need to read more about that overclocking stuff. I'm scared that i'll burn my processor to a crisp. :?

 

[quantumsheep]

Thanks guys! Ya, I saw the review and it should work. Though I need to read more about that overclocking stuff. I'm scared that i'll burn my processor to a crisp. :?

That's pretty much impossible in todays day and age. A CPU will automatically turn itself off if it gets too hot.

 

[overlandpark4me]

Kids on a 754 board with a 2800 chip, so I'm guessing bottlenecking will occur with us. Anyone have a good experience with O/C ing this CPU. We've got pretty cheep memory to boot. Tough to find a CPU upgrade because of limited supplies and high prices. He has a 6800GT now that would upgrade my 6600GT in my P4 box. Never OC'd anything before, so I'm a little edgy about nuking his gaming system when he has Cevo and Cal matches on his weekly schedule.

Thanks

 

[quantumsheep]

Kids on a 754 board with a 2800 chip, so I'm guessing bottlenecking will occur with us. Anyone have a good experience with O/C ing this CPU. We've got pretty cheep memory to boot. Tough to find a CPU upgrade because of limited supplies and high prices. He has a 6800GT now that would upgrade my 6600GT in my P4 box. Never OC'd anything before, so I'm a little edgy about nuking his gaming system when he has Cevo and Cal matches on his weekly schedule.

Thanks

Pretty easy to overclock, though i'm not to sure abuot overclocking 754 semprons. They should reach around 2.4-2.5ghz on the stock cooler. I'd look at an overclocking guide which would give you a great starting place.

 

[overlandpark4me]

It's not a Sempron. Sry, should have included the specifics, it's a 64......

 

[unclepauly]

I have a CPU (AMD Athlon3500+). And wonder if my CPU should bottleneck the new Video card 1950 Pro that I want to buy. I want to my computer to play the demanding games (such as Oblivion, Company of Heroes etc). I need some advice on this Please!

No bottleneck would occur, Tom's did an article a few days ago with a 3400+ and there was no real bottlenecks present.

You sir, have no idea about game bottlenecks. True, there are alot of games where his cpu is just fine, but there is also alot where it will underperform. I'll give one example that I've tested. My opty 144(with an overclocked 1800xt) at 1.8ghz in oblivion scored 10fps in a cpu heavy city section of a city. So I saved the game at that point, restarted the system and overclocked the cpu to 2.8ghz and scored 15fps in that very same section. That screams cpu bottleneck. I need more cpu power than a single core athlon can provide to get playable framerates. That's why I'm going conroe atm. To be fast enough for single threaded games and ready for multi-threaded games when they start hitting this year.

 

[overlandpark4me]

Yeah, the kid plays a couple of source games (CSS COD) and a bit of BF2. Not much else, with CSS getting most of the play...

 

[everett]

Yea if my old winchester core 3000+ can hit 2.5ghz on the budget gear I am using, as long as you have some decent options on your board a 3500+ should hit 2.5ghz without much trouble. If you have a decent cooler I would try to get it to 2.6-2.8 if possible. You will probably have to do some voltage and memory adjustments as well to do it. I also did the ddr333 divider for my ram and htt to 4x to achieve my overclock. Also had to relax the memory timings and up the voltage .025 to get it to stay stable though. But if you do not want to mess with voltage at all I would say 2.5 should be easy enough and will help. Your only other choice is a different cpu.

Very good OC for 3000, I never hit 2.6 on my old 3500+ clawhammer. Although it was 110nm, might have been a ram issue. :?

 

[kmjohnso]

If he is truly worried about Oblivion scaling he should look at this. With the x1900pro sitting between the x1900xt and x1800xt. Just because the performance is saturated it doesn't mean that the difference is huge.

 

[unclepauly]

See that's what I don't like. When they do a cpu comparison and don't include minimum/maximum rates along with the avg. rates. Avg rates are not noticeable because they are almost always over 30fps. Fluctuations that high don't affect gameplay. The ones that affect gameplay are the minimum rates(or slowdowns). In oblivion my minimum rates went up 50%(10 to 15fps) from a 55% cpu overclock. That is near perfect scaling, and is most definitely cpu bound gameplay. When my core 2 duo arrives tuesday I'm going to test how much higher it goes then. I'm hoping the cpu bottleneck is removed completely.

 

[kmjohnso]

They have the minimums on the previous page. There are always places/situations that he may be more cpu bound, but still doesn't make the card less useful as it makes the rest of the game playable.

 

[everett]

See that's what I don't like. When they do a cpu comparison and don't include minimum/maximum rates along with the avg. rates. Avg rates are not noticeable because they are almost always over 30fps. Fluctuations that high don't affect gameplay.

So 30fps or over, is not noticeable :roll:

 

[unclepauly]

I said >30fps. It's all in the details.

 

[kmjohnso]

Well to be fair frames rates over 30fps are noticeable do to the lack of motion blur that occurs. I believe the 30fps number is based of a number of experiments performed during Bell labs glory days, in which observations where made on acquired data.

 

[unclepauly]

They have the minimums on the previous page. There are always places/situations that he may be more cpu bound, but still doesn't make the card less useful as it makes the rest of the game playable.

Oh I know, you're right about that. I wasn't trying to say it would be totally unplayable. I was just saying their are still situations where his cpu is underperforming as a couple people said there would be no cpu bottlenecking occuring(which is bs). Thanks for pointing out the previous page also. From what I gathered oc'ing to 2.8ghz(from 2.0ghz) gathered about 10-20fps on avg. That's not small potatoes when the fps are only at 25-50fps. That's around a 40% increase in framerate, and just so happens to be a 40% increase in clock speed also. With no diminishing returns it means Oblivion wants even more cpu speed.

 

[MasterLee]

Thanks guys! Ya, I saw the review and it should work. Though I need to read more about that overclocking stuff. I'm scared that i'll burn my processor to a crisp. :?

Only if you plan on leaving the heatsink/fan off of it.
The things you hear.....

 

[ryokinshin]

i hav a 3000 64bit with a 7600gt, socket 754. would cpu bottleneck gpu?

im getting a lot of hitching when playing games, even if i tune down gfx settings. esp on games lik dark messiah and gothic 3

 

[randomizer]

I had that cpu with a 9800 pro. If its a C0 clawhammer core then good luck OCing, coz you're gonna need it. Thats the one I had and I got to about 2.2Ghz stable (enough for me anyway, probably not rock solid). Drop the memory divider and you might get further, but I didnt really try since my KV8-MAX3 mobo was impossible to play around with. Any HT multi change and I got a failed POST. What board you got?