Is my new gpu being bottlenecked by a athlon 64 3500+?

[rickzor]

Short story, my xfx 7900gt died partially, i rma it and after a long time i got back a new xfx 9600gt alhpa dog edition.

Till now i was using a geforce 3 ti500, and heres a pic with the old and the new for your viewing pleasure:

My question now is, does my cpu holds back the card by a long amount?

I Scored 28890 on 3dmark 2003, 6050 on 3dmark 2006 and 3175 on vantage, all under vista.

Assassins creed doesnt have the sweetest performance i might say, but im plyaing it with all maximazed, without multisampling @ 1280x1024.

UT3 plays good sometimes, and then it drops its fps to 45, and in heavy fights 35, but it raises back to 60 or more in no time.

Im not sure if this is entirely cpus fault or if the card would get much more (in these and other games) with newer cpus.

Thanks in advance.

 

[cjl]

I would say that you are probably CPU bottlenecked in many cases.

 

[Craxbax]

+1.....try to find a s939 X2 or Opty. Dual cores should help a lot.

 

[mactronix]

Sounds like its possable you have V-sync on ? if so try running without.
Also turning up post processing AA/AF can help
Ideally you do want to be upgrading the CPU though. Also tripple buffering may help if you have the option.
Mactronix

 

[rickzor]

Well, upgrading my pc isnt really in my plans as it would be a waste of money because regardless its age and poor performance on recent games it does everything i want from it. Im guessing waitint a bit longer and buy a good intel quad and ddr2 would be better.
Btw, Also "turning up post processing AA/AF can help " you didnt meant "turning up AA/AF" did you?
As for post processing, i dont know what it does, if im better with it, or without it

 

[mactronix]

You never mentioned the V-sync is it on or off ? From what you described with the frame rates in UT3 it sounds like it is on.
When you have a system that is unbalanced as yours is with a newer GPU teamed with a older CPU, the CPU can sometimes struggle to keep the GPU supplied with enough info to render the frames in time ready for when the display calls for them. This causes the PC to effectively skip frames which is how you get the drops in frame rates you described as V-Sync makes it display in divisors or integers of the refresh rate.(usually 60 on a LCD).
Yes i did mean turning up the AA/AF. By turning up the AA/AF you are trying to give the GPU more to do and this can in some cases be enough to give the CPU the space it needs to keep up. Its not guaranteed to work, it depends on how bad the restriction is. Also some times increasing the monitor resolution has been known to help. You could try Overclocking your 3500+ but I'm afraid i couldn't help with that.
As i said ideally you want a better CPU but the things i have suggested may get you some more playability.

Mactronix

 

[rickzor]

Thanks for the heads up, ill try that.
As for vsync, no ut3 doesnt have vsync on, the game is just limited to 60 fps, but the limit can be taken by editing the ini files.
As for overclock, the cpu is already overclock at its maximum with this board 2515 mhz
Maybe i should give the whole ideia of a upgrade a second thought.