Will a QX6850 OC 3.5ghz bottleneck 2 HD 4870 x2?

I've always been curious as to my gaming setup. I'm running a QX6850 OCed to 3.5 ghz on an x38 with dual HD 4870 x2. Will the performance of the graphics card be bottlenecked by the CPU?

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If you have already went and bought the damn things why not just test it yourself??????????????

------------------------------ I'm a git, deal with it.

Antec 1200,PC Power & Cooling 750,Gigabyte DS4-x48,Intel Q9550@3.4 W/Xigmatek S1283,8GB OCZ DDR2 800,ATI 4870X2,X-FI>CA 640C amp>Tannoy R300/Senn 595's
Reply to strangestranger

unless 1 of the cores are being used at 100% during gaming i would say no lol.

Message edited by Sharft6 on 04-16-2009 at 01:38:01 PM

Reply to Sharft6

If you ever notice there's a bottleneck while playing a game using that set up, probably the bottleneck is you.

Just kidding. No you won't be bottlenecked with a quad @ 3.5ghz. But if you are...

Reply to jassao

Thanks for the replies. I am new to this word "bottleneck" and its kind of confusing because according to the word, in order to get the full potential of the cards you would need to get a faster cpu. Wouldn't the performance gain be from the CPU? I wouldn't know how to tell.

Reply to unpunished

No matter what, unless you can balance absolutely everything, One part of your computer will always bottleneck the rest. But with your CPU I wouldn't worry too much about your 4870 getting bottlenecked.

Message edited by Aloid on 04-18-2009 at 04:07:45 AM

Reply to Aloid

unpunished wrote :

I've always been curious as to my gaming setup. I'm running a QX6850 OCed to 3.5 ghz on an x38 with dual HD 4870 x2. Will the performance of the graphics card be bottlenecked by the CPU?

You should be good. I mean, something will always "bottleneck" something. That word is just stupid, imho... I mean the only relevant use for it is for very obvious issues with component balence... for instance if someone was running a 4870x2 on an old Athlon X2 CPU... now that would be a bottleneck. Now sure, one part of your system (either the CPU or GPUs, but likely the CPU) is probably "slower" than the other, but not to the extent where you'd really call it a legitimate bottleneck. That word is just thrown around all the time these days, and it's stupid.

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------------------------------ Antec 1200 - Corsair 1000HX - Intel Core i7 920 (4GHz) - MSi Eclipse Plus - 12GB Corsair DDR3 1600 XMS3 - 2x Radeon 4870x2 QuadFire w/ Arctic Cooling Accelero XTREME - 2x 300GB WD VelociRaptor RAID 0 - 1x 1TB WD Caviar Black - Windows 7 RC 64-bit
Reply to EQPlayer

Hey EQ! Thanks for the reply and thanks for shedding new light to that word "bottleneck". The whole issue makes sense to me now and it does get used way too often without any clear and thorough understanding of it.

Reply to unpunished

EQPlayer wrote :

You should be good. I mean, something will always "bottleneck" something. That word is just stupid, imho... I mean the only relevant use for it is for very obvious issues with component balence... for instance if someone was running a 4870x2 on an old Athlon X2 CPU... now that would be a bottleneck. Now sure, one part of your system (either the CPU or GPUs, but likely the CPU) is probably "slower" than the other, but not to the extent where you'd really call it a legitimate bottleneck. That word is just thrown around all the time these days, and it's stupid.

I can see your rig in your sig EQ, it is quite the beast! On a side note, can you post some pics ?

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Reply to annisman

well seeing how a 4870 x2 is bottlenecked by a i7-965.........

Reply to Helloworld_98

*Slaps the above noob*

Ye, i bet that sort of system crawls along at 15fps in solitaire.

------------------------------ I'm a git, deal with it.

Antec 1200,PC Power & Cooling 750,Gigabyte DS4-x48,Intel Q9550@3.4 W/Xigmatek S1283,8GB OCZ DDR2 800,ATI 4870X2,X-FI>CA 640C amp>Tannoy R300/Senn 595's
Reply to strangestranger

actually toms did a review on a gfx card or something and the i7 965 bottlenecked a single 4870 x2.

Reply to Helloworld_98

No, it did not, i assure you it did not.

------------------------------ I'm a git, deal with it.

Antec 1200,PC Power & Cooling 750,Gigabyte DS4-x48,Intel Q9550@3.4 W/Xigmatek S1283,8GB OCZ DDR2 800,ATI 4870X2,X-FI>CA 640C amp>Tannoy R300/Senn 595's
Reply to strangestranger

annisman wrote :

I can see your rig in your sig EQ, it is quite the beast! On a side note, can you post some pics ?

Yeah sure.

------------------------------ Antec 1200 - Corsair 1000HX - Intel Core i7 920 (4GHz) - MSi Eclipse Plus - 12GB Corsair DDR3 1600 XMS3 - 2x Radeon 4870x2 QuadFire w/ Arctic Cooling Accelero XTREME - 2x 300GB WD VelociRaptor RAID 0 - 1x 1TB WD Caviar Black - Windows 7 RC 64-bit
Reply to EQPlayer

Very nice! I don't particularly love the case, but everything else is outstanding.

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Reply to annisman

annisman wrote :

Very nice! I don't particularly love the case, but everything else is outstanding.

I'm a big fan of the case, personally... I was debating between this and the CM HAF, but I think black cases with non-painted interiors just look akward... In any case, the 1200 is HUGE! <3 it.

------------------------------ Antec 1200 - Corsair 1000HX - Intel Core i7 920 (4GHz) - MSi Eclipse Plus - 12GB Corsair DDR3 1600 XMS3 - 2x Radeon 4870x2 QuadFire w/ Arctic Cooling Accelero XTREME - 2x 300GB WD VelociRaptor RAID 0 - 1x 1TB WD Caviar Black - Windows 7 RC 64-bit
Reply to EQPlayer

EQPlayer wrote :

You should be good. I mean, something will always "bottleneck" something. That word is just stupid, imho... I mean the only relevant use for it is for very obvious issues with component balence... for instance if someone was running a 4870x2 on an old Athlon X2 CPU... now that would be a bottleneck. Now sure, one part of your system (either the CPU or GPUs, but likely the CPU) is probably "slower" than the other, but not to the extent where you'd really call it a legitimate bottleneck. That word is just thrown around all the time these days, and it's stupid.

What word should be used then...? "Bottleneck", as incorrect as it may be, is a lot easier to use than "will X part slow down the performance of Y part so much that I see a large deficit in performance?"

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Reply to efeat

efeat wrote :

What word should be used then...? "Bottleneck", as incorrect as it may be, is a lot easier to use than "will X part slow down the performance of Y part so much that I see a large deficit in performance?"

The problem isn't that it's wrong, the problem is that no matter what combo of CPU / GPU you use, you'll never get perfectly matched parts. One bit will always be slower / faster than the other bit.

------------------------------ Antec 1200 - Corsair 1000HX - Intel Core i7 920 (4GHz) - MSi Eclipse Plus - 12GB Corsair DDR3 1600 XMS3 - 2x Radeon 4870x2 QuadFire w/ Arctic Cooling Accelero XTREME - 2x 300GB WD VelociRaptor RAID 0 - 1x 1TB WD Caviar Black - Windows 7 RC 64-bit
Reply to EQPlayer

I prefer cpu limited or gpu limited. Bottlenecking would have to be a noticable restriction in performance in a system. Noticeable being in a realistic way IMO.

So using fraps does not count, only if you can see it or notice it some other way in an app.

Bottlenecking makes people think of huge performance issues if they combine two parts together. Fearmongering is not something that should be used to help people.

------------------------------ I'm a git, deal with it.

Antec 1200,PC Power & Cooling 750,Gigabyte DS4-x48,Intel Q9550@3.4 W/Xigmatek S1283,8GB OCZ DDR2 800,ATI 4870X2,X-FI>CA 640C amp>Tannoy R300/Senn 595's
Reply to strangestranger

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