E8400 bottleneck?

[shady06]

I currently use an Intel Core 2 Duo e8400 at stock speed, 4 gigs of Gskill ram, EVGA Mobo and 2 EVGA Nvidia Gtx 260 216 Superclocked editions in SLI. I was wondering if the processor is good enough to handle the 2 cards? I am unable to run WoW at max settings which I figured I would be able to with those cards. It's worth noting that I'm playing on a Hanns G 28" monitor at 1920x1200. What do you think? I don't really want to spend a whole lot on a new i5 or i7 and have to buy a new mobo and ram too. Should I upgrade to a Quad maybe?

 

[C00lIT]

Your cpu is already really strong.
You would see a fair difference with a Q9550 but that cpu does cost a pretty penny.


I dont think that wow will use more then 2 cores so you might not see a difference on that cpu.
Overall... that upgrade is not mandatory to you atm.

 

[Mousemonkey]

That depends on what mobo you have at the moment.

 

[BadTrip]

The simplest answer would be to overclock the processor and see if that helps first.

 

[shady06]

Sorry I didn't specify what motherboard I am currently using. I am using an EVGA 750i SLI FTW motherboard.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188026

Also using 4 gigs of Gskill RAM.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231209

I am kind of a noob when it comes to overclocking and am afraid of messing something up so thats why I haven't tried to OC it yet, but I might have to just do it. Thanks.

 

[BadTrip]

easy overclocking guide

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=9808

 

[jonpaul37]

The 260 is basically equal to the 4870, keep this in mind for what i'm about to tell you.

I had an E8400 & ATI 4870 running WOW at full settings (except for the shaders, i had those @ half) all on a 22 inch monitor running 1650 x 1050. I tried to crossfire in another 4870 and i actually lost FPS. In otherwords, SLI or crossfire & SLI are not supported in WOW, so one card is your only option.

 

[welshmousepk]

i dont understand how you cant max out wow on a gtx260?...

i used to max it out on my 9400gt. that seems like theres another issue here.

 

[avenger386]

i doubt the e8400 is the bottleneck....
but as another user suggested, try a OC

i'd kick the default 3GHz to 3.3 or 3.5GHz (more if you have good airflow and cooling) and see if you notice a difference

 

[werxen]

If you overclock to 4 gigahurts, which you should be able to do depending on your ram speed, then you will not *notice* a bottleneck. That being said whether there actually is a bottleneck or not is up to you if you want to be a cpu-tuner lol. You should be fine though.