X4 955 BE: what Video card will it bottleneck

[xtian63]

i apologize for the ignorance being new to AMD and ATI, but im curious up to which nVidia and ATI video cards can my X4 955 handle? i mean what would be the limit, what are the video cards that my CPU will bottle neck both in single and Crossfire config? i know i can handle 5850 Crossfire, can i go above that and which video cards would be the "bottleneck" limit

 

[amnotanoobie]

Probably a tri-sli 480, or a XFire 5970 (though I doubt it).

 

[unknown_13]

The limit would probably be 2x GTX480/HD 5870. Tri SLI GTX480 and 2x HD 5970 with a heavy OC

 

[roofus]

It bottlenecked dual 295's for me but I don't know how much impact it would have on dual 5870's. Comparable performance but the 5870's aren't as needy as the 295's.

 

[Raidur]

Probably anything above crossfire 5850's.

+1

Unless you use a 30" screen or eyefinity, 5850 crossfire is about as high as i'd go.

 

[builderbobftw]

That would limit 3 480s or higher.

Under 3 480s you should be fine.

 

[megamanx00]

That just depends on the game and resolution. If your looking to game with full AA and AF above 1080p then the video setup is just about always gonna be the limit, at least as far as the games out today are concerned. If you overclock the CPU, I'd say up to two 5870s in CF (which may be slightly bottlenecked depending on the situation). For anything more than that go with an overclocked i7 setup.

 

[builderbobftw]

I think he should be fine with 2 480s under normal circumstrances.

Nobdt with a fast rig plays at 800x600, mi settings, with no aa, and like getting 1,200frames.

Peopel would rather play Maxed at 19x12 with 16aa and 16af at 60frames.

 

[Raidur]

If Phenom II could run GTX480 sli w/o a bottleneck on 1920x1080 we'd all have one.

 

[builderbobftw]

It can.

As long as you crank up the visdual settings to a normal realsitic level

 

[Raidur]

All benchmarks I've seen (using 5870 crossfire) use highest settings minus AA/AF.

Newer games are going to need more calculations per frame as well. Meaning when 8/16xAA isn't going to be usable. And even though the card is being stressed out more, so will the CPU.

Even then I haven't seen a bench with AA used on a GPU setup strong enough to tell the difference between deneb/nehalem anyways so neither of us know for sure.

 

[xtian63]

Best answer selected by xtian63.