Tom's Hardware > Forum > Graphic & Displays > Graphics Cards > [Solved] Will I be bottlenecked? (5870)

[Solved] Will I be bottlenecked? (5870)

Forum Graphic & Displays : Graphics Cards - [Solved] Will I be bottlenecked? (5870)

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Best answer from hallowed_dragon.

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I want to upgrade my gcard (currently a 8800GTS G92), and right now I am looking into either the 5870 or the 5850. However, I am wondering if anything on my system may bottleneck the GPU performance. Which I suspect it will.

Current Specs:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 (this may be the problem)
8g DDR-800 (4x2g in Dual Channel.)
Western Digital Caviar 750GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
PC Power & Cooling S61EPS 610W Continuous @ 40°C EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready

Message edited by TMLewiss on 10-07-2009 at 12:24:11 PM

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I am in the same situation as you. I currently own a 4870 and want to buy a 5870. The bad news is that there will be a bottleneck at that CPU speed. As soon as I get the 5850 I will OC the quad to at least 3 Ghz and at that speed any bottleneck under the resolution of 1920x1200 will be almost eliminated (maybe we will lose 2-3 FPS, but that is minor). As soon as you crank up the details (AA&AF and the resolution) the power will shift to the graphic card and bottlenecks due to the CPU will disappear.

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Reply to hallowed_dragon

Depending on your motherboard and ram, you should be able to overclock that cpu close to 3.2ghz. As hallowed_dragon stated you will want to try to hit at least 3.0ghz or higher to help eliminate any cpu bottlenecks...

Reply to englandr753

At 3ghz your Q6600 will be fine. At 2.4, yes thats a bottleneck.

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Reply to zipzoomflyhigh

zipzoomflyhigh wrote :

At 3ghz your Q6600 will be fine. At 2.4, yes thats a bottleneck.

SHHHH................S/S will hear you.
Besides i totally agree with him its not a bottleneck its a restriction.

Mactronix

Reply to mactronix

I have yet to overclock anything, ever. I am always to afraid I will mess something up. Though, I pretty much figured my processor would bottleneck me, there are not a ton of quad core processors that even come as 3ghz+. So either spend 400+ on that or overclock. I will read up on the guide on overclocking, anyone have any suggestions as well?

I would also imagine that if I overclocked I would need to get a better CPU fan than just the stock fan.

As a note my RAM is 2x: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800

If I must, i will just upgrade everything, as I said though, it seems like I am going to need to overclock my CPU no matter what if I want Quad core... and lord I do.

Message edited by TMLewiss on 10-07-2009 at 05:22:02 PM

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