CPU Bottleneck Question regarding 8800GT

if u change to am2, it will be cheaper than moving to intel. but ofcourse in intel u will get much more improvement than in amd. yes, your current cpu will bottleneck with the vga card. 4200+ will not bottleneck as far as i know. its up to u. the reason y i say intel is that in core 2 duo, if u get the slowest one of it aswell, even then your gpu will not have a bottleneck with the cpu. e4300 will not also have a bottleneckwith the cpu. hope i helped.

keep ur current setup but instead of an AMD x2 4200,get yourself an AMD opteron 175/185.these are dual core processors and overclock them .there wont be any bottlenecks.

Contrary to your belief, your CPU will NOT be a bottleneck... unless you game at 800 x 600 ~ 1024 x 768.

buy the cheapest amd chip around 1.8-2ghz and it will run 2.4-2.6ghz

you get a massive increase in playablity especially if you run antivirus and anti spware.

you be able to play the game and tunes at once! or hook up 2 monitors and im on one game and listen to music with the other!

How do you know there wont be a bottleneck? Where do you research this or where are the charts

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html?modelx=33&m...

Take a look at those charts. It shows a huge bottleneck for that processor.

If you can afford it, I would suggest a cheap C2D and overclock it. Intels C2D is hard to resist with its overclocking potential.

what graphics card are they using in the test

what resolution do you run at, that should have been the FIRST question asked.

1280x1024

That's a pretty low res, yeah you'll be bottlenecked quite a bit, especially on multithreaded games, considering the 8800GT is within 5% of 8800GTX levels.

I like the advice of getting a cheap Opteron 165/175/185, should allow you to overclock to 2.8GHz and is dual core, hey it's no C2D, but it'll be more than enough to run most games, and it's the most cost efficient and convenient upgrade in your situation.

what is C2D?

 

Core 2 Duo mate, it along with Core 2 Quad are currently the fastest CPUs available... where have you been the past 12 months dude?  

hehe i know what core 2 duo is...didnt know it went by C2D..makes snese now..lol

where have you been for 12 months?
 

I went from a 3000+ to a 4400+ on my 939 and I got a huge increase in speeds on my multithreaded games just from that. I'd say if you want to keep it cheap go with the 4200 you were looking at or an Opteron. It might still be a little of a bottleneck but not as bad. I'm planning on either an 8800GT or a 3800 series ATI for mine also. The C2D's might be faster but my 939 is not dead yet!

long live 939! Kinda in the same boat. I have a 4800 chip and need this rig to last six more months as a big time gaming machine and a 8800gt is the ticket

Well, my configuration is exactly what you are thinking about buying. --Edit: I have a 8800GTS 640, not a GT

Said that, my answer is: YES, the CPU will be a bottleneck.

In Crysis demo, at the sunrise scene (over a hill), my FPS stays locked at 19, even if I turn down the graphical detail from all High to all Medium, a strong indication that the bottleneck is the CPU.

Looking around for a replacement, I really think I will wait for the Phenoms to come out. Another possibility that I am thinking of is the Athlon 64 X2 5000+ black edition.

I will surely stay away from any 90nm processor from AMD. Mine runs hot and no overclocking possibility whatsoever. Yesterday I tried a little bit and the temperature went sky high with system reset. And I have one of these little monsters: http://www.evercool.com.tw/products/hpc-925.htm.

My advice would be: right now, wait for new AMD CPUs, or buy Intel. Oh, I like AMDs, my only intel was a Pentium 100, but right now is not the time to buy AMD  

Assuming that you already have 1.5-2gb of DDR RAM and an adeuquete power supply, any sub-$100 s939 dual-core (overclocked to 2.6ghz+) will be a huge improvement over your 3500 in more CPU intensive games.
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html?modelx=33&m...

On the other hand, an e2160/2gb DDR2-800/P35 motherboard combo can be had for a little over $220 USD and will destroy nearly any AMD chip when overclocked. That would be a fantastic budget gaming machine for $620-$690:

$83 - e2160
$95 - P35 Gigabyte mobo
$60 - rebated Corsair or Crucial 2gb DDR2
$55 - Corsair 450vx
$199-249 - Nvidia 8800GT
$40 - Coolermaster Centurion 5
$60 - 250gb Sata
$30 - DVD burner

Hmmm, I wonder how much I could sell my aging Opteron 165/7600gt rig for...

I dont think any e2150 will blow away any amd chip.. Prove it