Bottleneck on system

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Martin 71

Martin 71

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Hey guys, I have a computer that I just put in a new gpu, and I was wondering if you could tell me where the bottleneck in the system is for gaming. because I'm not getting adequate framerates. here's my specs,

amd athlon 6000+ dual core at 3.0 ghz
ati radeon 5770 1 gb ddr5
4 gb ddr2 at 667mhz
my mobo has pci-e 1.0 slots
500gig hdd at 7200 rpm
 
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randomkid

I saw you were interested in the MSI 790FX-GD70 but unfortunately it does not support your AM2 CPU and DDR2 RAMs. If you want Crossfire, I recommend this motherboard with excellent customer review and it is even below $100:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130265&cm_re=am2%2fam2%2b_motherboard-_-13-130-265-_-Product
In the future when you are up for an upgrade, you can buy any Phenom II or Athlon II CPU and it will fit right into this motherboard.
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geofelt

geofelt

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To assess the possibilities, try a couple of tests:

1) Run your games, but reduce the resolution and eye candy to a minimum. This will simulate what will happen if you upgrade to a stronger graphics card. If your FPS improves, it indicates that your cpu is capable of driving a stronger graphics card to higher levels of FPS.

2) Keeping your graphics resolution and settings the same, reduce your cpu power. Do this by removing the overclock, or by using windows power management to set a maximum cpu% of perhaps 70%. If your FPS drops significantly, it indicates that your current cpu is a limiting factor, and that a faster cpu would help.
 
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randomkid

randomkid

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Could be the mobo at pci-e 1.0 is limiting your 5770. I am in hurry and can not find good link that benchmarks the performance of PCIe 1.0 vs PCIe 2.0 on newer 5XXX series video cards but I would think these maybe bottlenecking now.

What games are you playing and at what resolutions, anyway? The HD5770 should hit very decent framerates in 1920x1080 resolution at med to high settings. And what is your target framerate?
 
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dndhatcher

dndhatcher

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I think he means Athlon 64 x2 6000+, which is a decent dual core CPU.

"Not getting adequite frame rates" means what exactly? What game, settings, resolution? You may be getting perfectly normal frame rates and are just expecting too much.

The performance drop from x16 v2 to x16 v1 is not that much. If your motheboard does not have an x16 slot it might be significant.
 
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dndhatcher

dndhatcher

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Crysis is a GPU hog. I played it on an athlon x64 5400 OC to 3.2Ghz and a 5770 at medium/no AA on a 1680x1050 monitor. High settings were too choppy. My motherboard was newer since it has two pcie x16 v2 slots and I had 4GB DDR2-800 RAM. Can you play at medium settings at a higher resolution ok?


Try what geofelt says to do and lets see if the motherboard/cpu is limiting that 5770.

Your exact motherboard model might help. It may be an old design and is limiting your CPU throughput. Also what OS are you using?

According to the Toms 5770 article (from last september) the 5770 can play crysis at 40FPS on 1680x1050, no AA, High settings. But that is with a powerful, new CPU behind it.

Given all that I have seen, my intuition is that your motherboard may be limiting you since I know that CPU and a 5770 can do better.
 
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Martin 71

Martin 71

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I can play at medium settings and high res ok, but my monitors only go up to 1280x1024... I have the standard mobo in the hp m8200n never bothered to change it... I did what geofelt said, and the game hardly loses a frame per sec with the cpu speed changed, and it gets a crapload more when i lower the settings
 
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randomkid

randomkid

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Change your mobo into a newer one. The CPU is quite decent so just get an AM2/AM2+/AM3 motherboard that can handle up to 125W processor and you should be fine. These are good investments since they can still handle Phenom II CPU's when you are up for an upgrade. I just think that your Athlon X2 6000+ have enough juice to run even crisys at good fps with your HD5770.
Pick from these ( rule out those that can not handle 125w ):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=am2%2Fam2%2B+motherboard&x=0&y=0
 
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megamanx00

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Your CPU is somewhat limited by the RAM speed. Also, if you're motherboard is based on the nVidia 6100 chipset I believe those only have 8x PCI-E 1.0 lanes available for the graphics card. A good newer motherboard that will allow you to overclock your RAM and CPU will probably help some. I played Crysis on medium with an Athlon X2 5000+ with 2GB of DDR2 800 and a single Radeon 3850 at 1024x768. When I played warhead, I had upgraded my to two 3850s in CF and overclocked the 5000+ to 3.24GHz, but then I was also using a res of 1680x1050 so it was a bit hard to go past medium till I got the Phenom II 955 which let me go up to high (gamer) ^_^.

...... Anyway, yeah the CPU is probably limiting the 5770 in Crysis a bit so overclocking it should certainly smooth out the gameplay. You can probably set your RAM to DDR2 800 just by slightly raising the voltage and loosening the timings, but the only way to find out is to try. If you want to get new RAM to overclock with then it would be a good idea to use good DDR2 1066 or 1000 for only a few bucks more than standard DDR2 800 . Even when overclocking my Athlon 5000 X2, the switch from DDR2 800 to low latency DDR2 1066 (Ran like at 924 due to the 7 memory divider) provided an across the board increase.
 
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geofelt

geofelt

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geofelt

geofelt

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1) It would appear that your cpu is strong enough to drive a stronger graphics card. If you get a stronger card, jump a couple of tiers in capability, otherwise you may be disappointed. A 5770 is a good card, so you are looking at a 5870 or GTX480 class card.

2) All motherboards will operate a stock cpu at about the same speed. More modern motherboards can allow higher overclocks. On balance, I do not see much value in changing a motherboard unless it will not run your cpu or unless you need some feature that an add-in card can't provide.
 
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randomkid

randomkid

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I saw you were interested in the MSI 790FX-GD70 but unfortunately it does not support your AM2 CPU and DDR2 RAMs. If you want Crossfire, I recommend this motherboard with excellent customer review and it is even below $100:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130265&cm_re=am2%2fam2%2b_motherboard-_-13-130-265-_-Product
In the future when you are up for an upgrade, you can buy any Phenom II or Athlon II CPU and it will fit right into this motherboard.
 
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