Where is my bottleneck?

[lardacus]

Vid card: Palit NE5X460HF1102 GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) Sonic Platinum Overclocking Edition 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814261076

Ram: 8 gigs (4x2) G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231277

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-MA770T-UD3P AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128392

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 945 Deneb 3.0GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDX945FBGIBOX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103675

PSU: OCZ GameXStream OCZ850GXSSLI ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V 850Watts Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341003

Display: Acer X223Wbd Black 22" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009145

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit

HD: SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 HD322HJ 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive -Bare Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152096

A couple of my biggest questions are:
1. How big would the performance boost be if I were to go with two 500 gb Spinpoint F3s in Raid 0?
2. Is my current monitor's 2500:1 ratio and max res. of 1680 x 1050 a hindrance to my build?
3. i7 is currently out of my price range, is the leap to an i5 from my current CPU worth the cost?

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been moved from the section Video Games to section Systems by Mousemonkey

 

[ms5555]

How is your monitor's resolution a hindrance? If you're asking if your system is overkill for that resolution, then yes, it probably is a little, but not by much. A 5770 will run most games on highest settings at that resolution, but a couple might only run well at good settings, while the gtx 460 will run anything you throw at it at that resolution.

Bottleneck on that comp I would have to say is the graphics card. But your setup is more than fine for your resolution.

8 gigs of ram is overkill. You probably only need 4 and can always add more later.

I personally don't feel the i5 760 is worth the price over the amd, but it does get a lot better benchmarks. It's just that for every game out there the amd's are more than adaquate, and you'll get better performance upgrading your gpu. With the $80 or so you save on that cpu you could buy an hd 5850 card. It's only about 50-80$ more than the gtx 460.

Also you may want to look into the amd x4 955. Afaik it has an unlocked multiplier so you can overclock much easier. I don't believe the 945 has that.

 

[lardacus]

Bottleneck on that comp I would have to say is the graphics card. But your setup is more than fine for your resolution. With the $80 or so you save on that cpu you could buy an hd 5850 card. It's only about 50-80$ more than the gtx 460.

In the more recent benchmarks the Palit GTX 460 Sonic platinum is keeping up with the 5850 and actually surpassing it in some situations.

http://www.techspot.com/review/299-palit-inno3d-geforce-gtx-460/page8.html


Thanks for your input on the CPU, I'll probably just end up waiting for the i7 to drop in price. As far as my monitor question, I was just wondering if a monitor with a higher contrast ratio or refresh rate would show any significant performance increase. Same thing applies to the HD question. I've heard great things about the spinpoint F3, and even better things about Raid 0; is this something I should look into?

 

[lardacus]

bump

 

[jaguarmatt]

The GTX 460 Sonic Platinum is an overclocked version of the 460, while the 5850 in that review is at stock speeds.

You shouldn't have much of a bottleneck at that resolution, but if you want to move up to +1920x1080, I'd recommend a stronger graphics card and an overclock on the CPU. (3.2GHZ on a quad core is usually a major boost in most games)

 

[tecmo34]

Your system's bottleneck is your older Samsung Spinpoint F1, at this point. Upgrading to a newer Samsung Spinpoint F3 or SSD will provide a nice performance boast.

Your CPU and GPU are more than powerful for your resolution and will handle most games fine at 1920x1080. The GTX 460 is one of the best cards you can purchase at this moment (Pending release of ATI 6xxx cards).

 

[lardacus]

Best answer selected by lardacus.

 

[ms5555]

Your system's bottleneck is your older Samsung Spinpoint F1, at this point. Upgrading to a newer Samsung Spinpoint F3 or SSD will provide a nice performance boast.

Your CPU and GPU are more than powerful for your resolution and will handle most games fine at 1920x1080. The GTX 460 is one of the best cards you can purchase at this moment (Pending release of ATI 6xxx cards).

How is a SSD going to increase performance in games? I don't disagree for normal use, just wondering what the op's major use is.

 

[tecmo34]

I was truly referring to the overall system compared to OP's old drive, along with a newer 500GB platter hard drives.

A SSD will improve on game load times. Also, a SSD will have an impact on certain games that are like WOW with large battles. It processes the information faster than hard drive since it doesn't require Cache.