AMD 5000+
8800GT
4 gig ddr2 800 5-5-5-12
Vista 64
 
Somebody was telling me my computer is underperforming because of my CPU. How fast of a CPU would I need for it to all even out?
 
Thanks for the help/info.

Why don't you simply download a cpu usage indicator or something like PC wizard before you decide it is the cpu? What programs do you run? There is also another program that will bench your specs against other specs, so you get an idea of what your money will get you.
 
http://www.cpuid.com/pcwizard.php

Pretty much just for gaming...

Are we talking X2 here? or just an Athlon?

Are you running crysis? See what sort of load your cores are under while your playing before upgrading to a new board and CPU. Also are you running high res on a big monitor? Perhaps running games in wow64 might be slowing it down too.

Thats an impossible question to answer as it depends upon what settings you use in games. If you play at max settings, high resolutions and with filters enabled then in nearly all recent games you will be limited by your gpu. However if you just play at 1280x1024 with no filters then your cpu is likely to be be the bottleneck in all but the most demanding games (ie crysis). However even when your cpu is the bottleneck, it is only likely to be limiting you to say 50fps which is hardly terrible.  
 
Your system seems fairly well balanced, if you feel that some of the power of your gpu is going to waste then simply crank up the resolution and add more filters until your 8800gt starts to sweat.

For me, Cyrsis was entirely GPU bound.  
 
e4300 @ stock vs. e4300 OC'd 50% showed ZERO benefit.  I was using a 8800 320 GT card.

The short answer is yes the 5000+ running stock on a few games at higher resolutions can't keep up.
 
If however you crank it up to around 3Ghz then no ... for most of the games.
 
Any dual core X2 @ 3Ghz or Core2 @ 2.66Ghz is more than enough for a single card like that ... providing the rest of the system is good.
 
Simply take a look at any of the charts wrt 3D06.
 
For Crysis and some of the other new games a quad core and GTX or SLI / CF rig will yeild quite a bit of an advantage at the highest res ... bit the scaling isn't perfect either.
 
Remember anything over 40 FPS (average) is good enough ... not ideal but playable.
 
Do most agree with these comments as a general rule or should I crawl back into my Koolaid ??
 
heh heh.
 

Why don't you get a Q9*** and another 8800GT?

I run at 1440 x 900. I try to run games in the highest setting but cant.
 
Its an am2 btw for the person that asked.
 
Ill do some more messing around with it, but i just got this video card and was wondering why it was under performing :|
 
Im playing Hellgate london right now and need the best I can get for when AoC is released.

So its a X2 5000+? That would seem like plenty to keep the 8800GT happy. Almost seems like something is wrong with your CPU.
 
Post your full specs.

My system is AMD 5000+ BE running@3.264Ghz with 2 gigs of 800 ram and a single 8800 GT. I don't have any problems with Crysis or CoD4, but I can't run Crysis on anything but med settings. I run @ 1024x768.

That overclock makes that a very decent cpu...faster than the 6400x2. It should easily be able to keep up with your 8800gt.
 
However with that setup and those resolution you should be able to get high settings (dx9 under xp) at a playable framerate (ie not dropping below 30fps).
If you are using dx10 and vista that could explain matters at least in part (i dont know much about vista)
 
List you OS and your 3dmark 06 score.

Ooops i though that jmchristian was OP. jm that post refers to you then ^

If your CPU is running at Stock, test some of your current games now.
Then OC your CPU a decent amount and test again.
 
Did performance change noticably?
 
The proof is in the pudding.
As others noted, it's impossible to say w/o knowing more.
 
But suffice it to say, that CPU is not bad and should be OK for most things.

I also don't think your CPU is the bottleneck here.
It seems plenty fast - especially at your OC'd clock speeds.
 
For non-multithreaded applications, try setting the CPU afifnity to a specific core when running the game. Since the AMD CPUs have a smaller cache size than Intel's, I'm not sure if cache-coherency becomes an issue when a thread has to keep bouncing around between core 1 and core 2... (Doesn't AMD use exclusive cache design philosophy?)
 
Disable any background processes like Folding@Home, if you have it running. I found it doesn't really place nice in detecting full-screen games when running Vista 64...
 
I also found certain drivers tend to over-ride the application game settings and use excessive amounts of AA and Aniso, unless told otherwise. Try setting everything to "let application decide" and do a baseline first.

 
Wow.... something is up with your rig. I have a Q6600 @ 3GHz and a HD2900Pro 1GB and I can ply Crysis @ 1280x1024 with most on very high and some on high none on medium with no AA/AF and I am running Vista and get 30FPS.
 
I would wounder if your powersupply is not powerful enough to keep your CPU @ that speed and keep your GPU happy.