hello, I recently bought a new graphics card (geforce 8800gt 512mb) and I was so excited about it that I forgot to think of such problem (bottleneck) >< I dont know about it much but im pretty sure thats what im getting, because games dont work so much better than with the 7900gt I had before that, and the 3dmark05 score is only 9200~ (8500~ with the 7900gt, 256mb).
my pc is
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+
2.02 GHz, 2gb ram DDR SDRAM
so its a bottleneck right? if so, what should I do about it?
thanks

You could try overclocking your CPU, if you have the money a new mobo and CPU would be a good solution too, perhaps a X2 4400+, I'v herad they're quite cheap these days, and of course you could overclock that one too.

Try overclocking first, it's cheaper

Ya, You could try overclocking first, but if you are not into that then you can try to upgrade your processor (if you are running AM2) to higher end model. You can even get the 6400+ @3.2 ghz for $179.99
which should remove the bottleneck.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103191

Cant you do SLI?

I would rather upgrade the CPU than do SLI. It's obvious that the OP's CPU is the bottleneck.

thanks for the replies, I tried overclocking to 2.4ghz with ntunes and the 3dmark score went to like 12k, but I dont see a difference in games and everytime I restart pc it goes back to 2.02ghz (dont know much about overclocking either) getting average 20-25 fps (in games, seems to have effect only on 3dmark). I thought of upgrading but I used most of my money on the card so maybe a cheaper processor that wouldnt bottleneck?

Well to be honest, I think you have a bit more of a problem than the cpu bottleneck!

I have virtually the same specs;

amd 3800+ x2 (stock settings)
2gb ram CL2
8800gt 512mb - upgraded from 7800gtx

Now I know my 7800gtx is different to your old card but in terms of performance, there's not too much of a margin between them and yet with the 8800gt I find it's worlds apart.

I mainly play the call of duty series games (at the moment more cod4) and find the difference in fps levels quite substantial.

For example, playing at 1680x1050 resolution with a few settings on low for multiplayer performance I was achieving anything between 50 and 115 fps with the 7800gtx but now with the 8800gt, I'm getting frames from anywhere between 125 to 300+. I even tested on 1280x1024 for a friend of mine and saw fps levels in buildings hitting the 400fps mark using his preferred low settings.

Even though our cpu will be a bottleneck in some way, it shouldn't be having the effect it is for you.

I know it sounds silly and I don't mean to belittle you but is the 6pin power connector fitted properly? A friend of mine did this and was wondering why his fps was not what it should be

Also, what psu do you have installed?

I wanted to SLI another 7900 but I couldnt find any place that sells it anymore lol + no dx10

@siggsy, have you tried 3dmark05? if so what score did you get? and crysis/ call of juarez/ graw 2? i get around 15-25fps in highest settings and 1280x1024 (no aa). and im not sure about the power connector but i remember there are 2 and i only connected one cause it was the same with the 7900gt (connected by the seller) so i figured thats how it should be. also im not sure whats psu and how do i find out which one i have? thanks

To be honest, I haven't tried any of the 3dmarks ( think they're a waste of time and are not real life scenarios ). I test games ( after all, that's what this card is about ).

Call of Duty 2 I sit at 250fps set on dx7 (I capped it at that for official matches - it's the highest fps leagues allow) - Cod2 was coded badly so that dx9 was almost unplayable on multiplayer.

Call of Duty 4 - mentioned in my post above.

Crysis - Haven't tested yet but can tonight (only have the demo though)

Counter Strike Source - 150+ fps with everything on max and hdr

Will test a few other games tonight and let you know the outcome.


The easiest way to check what psu you have is to take the side of your case off and there should be a label on the side of your power supply. If you can let us know the make and model it might help

kk, it says "EZcool switching mode power supply 420w".
also ill get the cod4 demo and see how much fps im getting there

Agreed.
Once again everyone is jumping on the "your CPU is your bottleneck nonsense"---I get so tired of everyone spouting this over and over and over. The OP's cpu is strong enough to run any video card out there. There is another issue here as some of the more savy posters have mentioned. Power supply, drivers, something is not configured correctly.
My old 3200+ with a X1950pro will post 8200 in 3Dmark05

[quotemsg=1763095,12,65686]Agreed.
The OP's cpu is strong enough to run any video card out there.

it is? good to know lol cause i was kinda disappointed and didnt really want to spend more money to make this card work right... like i said i really dont know much about bottleneck and all those stuff, just didnt know what else could be the problem, cause i already tried few drivers and configurations and its still the same

Well, of course a faster processor will increase your GPU's performance, but with your processor, the 8800gt should perform quite a bit strongert than the results you are getting. A small overclock will of your CPU will help, but the help you get from that will really be irrelevent if for some reason the card is not performing up to it's full capability.
That's kind of like putting a band-aid on a broken arm.

I assume you have completely uninstalled all the old drivers, and your power supply is feeding enough juice to new card?

ohh i see
and no i havent uninstalled, should i have? i figured the new 8800 driver would overwrite the old 7900 driver.
and well the minimum requirements on the 8800 box says 400w and my power supply is 420w so i guess yes

Its not a bottle neck. Is your mobo a real 16x or just 16x slot but 8x bandwidth. But in for sure 7900GT is a fast video card. The price is almost the same with 8600GT if I am correct and performs the same though lacks same enhancement.
The procie should not be the bottleneck, your mobo has the greatest chance. 8800GT is a PCIe2.0 runs better in newer mobo.

just the low setting in game the CPU will be the bottleneck perhaps the different between the 200fps and 120fps, but in the hight quantity setting, there is no much difference,like the 60fps and 50fps~~

Field Value
PCI-E x16 port #0 In Use @ x16 (NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT [NoDB])

^ does that say anything? from everest

ok so i tried the cod4 demo and im getting only 25-40 fps outdoors and 40-60 indoors

Yes and no. You need 3Dmarks to give you a "score" so you can compare with other scores outside in the same setting. It should be the initial step for you to get an idea, are you doing ok, fine, or terribly wrong.

Depending on games that you play, every game is written differently. Some depends more on GPU, and some on CPU. Getting a balance is hard. Reading benchmark reports can give you an idea what your games requires more on. Afterall, it sounds to me you want to tweak your system according to the specific games you play.

I agree we should not jump into conclusions of bottleneck, since there are many factors that determine if a system is properly configured. However, I dont believe CPU bottleneck is a "nonsense". I have been reading for months through benchmarks, game benchmarks, reports forums, from what the idea i've gathered.... allow me to base on an assumption that a e6300 with 8800GTX, the e6300 appears to be a bottleneck since higher models of CPU will increase benchmark in exponential proportions and not limited to just CPU mark. Since e6300 wins 3800x2 almost in all fields (other than memory bandwidth), and 8800GT is roughly on average 4%-6% slower than 8800GTX. My guess is 3800x2 more or less is a bottleneck.... and also depending "how" you define bottleneck.

Generally speaking, any part of our system can be a bottleneck... there must be some part of the component capable of running faster than another and have to wait for it to finish....