Overclocking and gaming

[megabyteme6662002]

I have a feeling there has been a review on it, but I can't find it. I'm debating a i7 920 build, or one of the new x2/x4 Phenom II builds. I'll be overclocking to a reasonable overclock on air. My question is this. I keep seeing that most of the gaming stuff is done in the GPU now.. If i overclock the crap out of both of these CPUs, and use the same great video card.. will I see any difference?

For instance ( i might be wrong here) but the physics is done on the CPU, and the other stuff is done in the GPU... Is there any downfall to having a phenom system versus an i7 build right now?

I'm building this system to use for a long time. The 1366 i7 has some sexy features I might want to keep just for those features, but if I can cut 300$ of the cost of system, that wouldn't be too bad either. I'm debating waiting for nvidia to release fermi chipsets before I buy a system, so if they are expensive, thats another good reason to spend the money on AMD etc... Any help, or other posts you can point me to that are relevant to this question would be great, thanks guys!

 

[sirheck]

If you are going to be gaming at a resolution of 16x10 or higher the CPU choice wont make a whole lot of difference.

You cant really go wrong either way.

 

[megabyteme6662002]

So how does the resolution change anything? Serious question, trying to wrap my head around this

 

[sirheck]

For the most part, higher resolutions transfer more load towards the GPU.
So to speak.

 

[megabyteme6662002]

Toms did a review earlier on I think Phenom II x4 OC'd/reg and i7-920 OC'd/reg... Most games were a close call, some games teh i7 smoked the Phenom.. but as far as general purpose gaming, the Phenoms are ok.. There are other issues to consider though and I'm not sure where I stand yet.. I want to be able to play the newest games, however, I don't game ALOT... Seems silly to buy a super i7 Not sure yet.

 

[andy5174]

Read this article: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3641&p=7

 

[megabyteme6662002]

Looks like 920 is going to be my friend next year.. maybe the 930 if I wait long enough

Thanks!

 

[overshocked]

Yeah, personally i would wait for the 930. The overclocking potential is goint to surpas the 920 by a significant margin anyway.

 

[megabyteme6662002]

Yeah, personally i would wait for the 930. The overclocking potential is goint to surpas the 920 by a significant margin anyway.

Sorry I might have read it wrong but you mean it IS or ISN'T going to surpass it by a big margin..?

 

[bystander]

Check out this: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd5870-cpu-scaling.html

You'll find that most games are GPU bound unless you have a high end SLI or CF setup. If you go with a 920 now, it should perform great for a good while. If you have a CF setup, it'll take full advantage of your GPU's.

 

[overshocked]

^ yeah, i agree with bystander. When you go from 3.0-4.0 ghz with the 920 there is little gain in performance (maybe 3-4 FPS). You need a CF/SLI set up to take advantage of it.

But the 930 is going to overclock VERY well. Anyways, the 920 will go way down in price when the 930 comes out.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

For instance ( i might be wrong here) but the physics is done on the CPU, and the other stuff is done in the GPU... Is there any downfall to having a phenom system versus an i7 build right now?

That's correct for the most part.....PhysX titles do things a bit different.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/batman_arkham_asylum_physx_performance/page2.asp

 

[megabyteme6662002]

Sigh, you had to show me what PhysX does...

I was just about to make up my mind to go all out on ATI...

Ok so... I'm assuming that I can't run PhysX on any radeon cards...

Is there anything like it for radeon?

Can I run an Nvidia GPU (not in SLI, just alone) on a AM3 board..? Will THAT allow me to have PhysX?

 

[bystander]

Sigh, you had to show me what PhysX does...

I was just about to make up my mind to go all out on ATI...

Ok so... I'm assuming that I can't run PhysX on any radeon cards...

Is there anything like it for radeon?

Can I run an Nvidia GPU (not in SLI, just alone) on a AM3 board..? Will THAT allow me to have PhysX?

With a little bit of a work around, you can have a nvidia card used as a dedicated physX card while you use an ATI card to render. You don't even need a fast card for the physX, just as long as the card supports physX.

I personally use a 5870 with an old 8800gt as a dedicated PhysX card.

Here are some directions: http://www.overclock.net/graphics-cards-general/633137-guide-enable-ati-nvidia-physx-single.html

Make sure the drivers are 190.xxx for the nvidia drivers. Despite them saying to use 190 or newer, it doesn't work on anything beyond 190.xxx.

An nvidia card rendering and doing physX has a huge hit on performance, but with a card to render and a 2nd one for physX, you get frames nearly the same as without physX with all the eye candy.

ATI does have something that the nvidia don't currently have as well, it's all the new DirectX 11 stuff which includes hardware tessellation, which increases polygon counts by a ton as well.

 

[hundredislandsboy]

I have a feeling there has been a review on it, but I can't find it. I'm debating a i7 920 build, or one of the new x2/x4 Phenom II builds. I'll be overclocking to a reasonable overclock on air. My question is this. I keep seeing that most of the gaming stuff is done in the GPU now.. If i overclock the crap out of both of these CPUs, and use the same great video card.. will I see any difference?

For instance ( i might be wrong here) but the physics is done on the CPU, and the other stuff is done in the GPU... Is there any downfall to having a phenom system versus an i7 build right now?

I'm building this system to use for a long time. The 1366 i7 has some sexy features I might want to keep just for those features, but if I can cut 300$ of the cost of system, that wouldn't be too bad either. I'm debating waiting for nvidia to release fermi chipsets before I buy a system, so if they are expensive, thats another good reason to spend the money on AMD etc... Any help, or other posts you can point me to that are relevant to this question would be great, thanks guys!

You're talking about cutting cost and being value minded. Then consider the i5 before the i7. And consider AMD CPUs before the i5. Not sure what you mean about sexy i7 features? I doubt it downloads porn any faster. Lol

 

[megabyteme6662002]

You're talking about cutting cost and being value minded. Then consider the i5 before the i7. And consider AMD CPUs before the i5. Not sure what you mean about sexy i7 features? I doubt it downloads porn any faster. Lol

if I could vote you off the Island, I would have

The only cost/value im talking about is the CPU/motherboard/RAM. From the PhysX video I saw, I will readjust my price ideas in order to get that option if need be.. It looks like it might be worth the cost.