Quad Core bottleneck Gefore 560ti?

airjam

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Mar 28, 2011
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Hello

am new here and i wanted to ask a question!

would my pc bottleneck an nvidia gtx 560ti? and which brand of gtx 560ti should i take?

specs
Quad Core Q9450 2.66 ( forgot how much cache memory but i think its 12?)
4gig ram ( thinking of adding 4 more)
xfx nvidia 790i ultra sli mobo
PSU thermal take 1200 ( A MONSTER!)

old gpu is gtx 280 which is NOT giving me what i need with the new games

plz bare in mind that i am going to sli a few months after my first 560ti
 
well it will be bottlenecked a bit but if you can oc your cpu to around 3.6 or more that should take care of it but at stock yeah, the cpu will hold you back a bit, but in the end its not going to be a huge upgrade, a decent one but not huge, the 560 also can oc very well at reach 570 levels from what ive heard to put things into perspective
 

airjam

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Mar 28, 2011
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well thanks for the advice
ive never really oced anything so i dont know how to do that:p

and is i want a somewhat big upgrade from my original gpu i mean an upgrade to start running new games at the highest settings? what gpu should i be looking at and do i need to upgrade my other components?

am thinking something along these lines

i7 950
Rampage III extreme
corsair dominator 4-8 gigs
 

airjam

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Mar 28, 2011
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thnx alot man!

i think am going with these specs

i7 950
Rampage III extreme
gtx 470 ( sli in 3 or 4 months after the first one )
corsair dominator 4-8 gigs
sticking with the psu i already have ( thermaltake 1200 SLI ready )
 
nice 470 sli will be a nice performer, but personally Id put in the extra money for 570 sli but either will kick some major ass, 570s will be cooler and offer better minimums and they scale better than 580 sli so they are pretty close
 
For a single card you only need to get above 3ghz and any thing from there on is mostly all gain. The 790i is about as good as Nvidia based 775 gets and you should have a lot of head room with that board and sample. For sli however things are not as straight forward and 775 never had good system i/o performance.
 
It depends on the memory controller and the pin layout. Am2+ board users like my self are screwed but AM3 users got a good chance of some limited support. I am planning to move over to am3 any way as there is no decent ddr2 boards any more and may as well give my 780i that 8gb of ram. The only chance will be samples that don't have the integrated graphics that still maintain the same or similar pin layout or at least the option of going without by default when socketed in an older board.
 
i would honestly stick with the q9450. no reason to upgrade it. if you feel like, bump it up to 3ghz. no volt increase necessary for that. it will play anything you can throw at it. wait till bulldozer and intels new SB with die shrink and decide your upgrade path.
 

wickedsnow

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Jul 25, 2007
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Airjam,

I completely agree with JJB8675309's statements on your current C2Q 9450 being a bottleneck, at almost any OCed speed for a new sli setup with modern cards.

I also agree with him that 570's (factory superclocked or not) are the best bang-for-buck out there right now, as I currently have x2 570SC's.

While I also agree that 560's very overclocked can reach raw FPS of 570's in some games, sometimes, they don't share the raw bandwidth or memory frame buffer of the 570's. Additionally, OCed 570's are very powerful.

I also agree with the statement of the sandybridge (anything) being a better bang-for-buck that the previous generation cpus, I must make a note of caution on this.

The current sandybridge lineup is awesome for being only the mid-level of the road offering of this generation. But if you plan on running sli, the older generation still is the best for raw gaming. Here's why.

The current sandybridge cpus only run in x8 mode when running sli, not x16. You WILL bottleneck and holdback your card's performance if you plan on using anything faster than a 550ti. The bottleneck only gets worse as the cards get faster. here is an article about 5870s being bottlenecked by 4%. Keep in mind that this is an older card and this result only gets bigger as cards get faster.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/p55-pci-express-scaling,review-31780-6.html

Additionally, while I can't find the article, there's one about the 480 being held back by 8%. (in x8 mode)

Here's a sidenote. You will find my system in my profile or sig, try both. Anyways, a friend of mine built the exact same system as mine, videocards and all. But he got the 2600 non-k and an asus sabertooth P67 with 8 gigs of dualchannel ram. (it runs the same timings and mhz as mine)

We both did a fresh install (with updates and drivers) of W7Pro 64-bit. With 3dmark11, he scored 9341 while I scored 11522. We ran both our CPU's at 4ghz. The kicker? The only difference in our systems was my triplechannel ram and dual x16 pci-e slots. After declocking, further OCing, and fiddling with his cpu and videocard speeds, his score only changed by a few digits. Hence the bottleneck of the pci-e slots.

Now i'm not saying that sandybridge sucks, no way! Sandybridge clock-for-clock is 20% faster and uses less power than the previous generation. Additionally, it has usb 3.0 connectors on the motherboards, and supports EFI bios's. For any single card solution, it rocks. But if you really wish to run sli. Don't waste your money on very high end videocards only to stick them in x8 pci-e slots.

You have 3 options in my opinion.

1. Wait for the high-end version of sandybridge later this year with more core/speed/ quad x16 slots.

2. Buy an i7-950 and run sli (whatever cards you want)

3. Buy a sandybridge and run one single powerful card. Like a 580/6970/6990/590 and get the factory OC model if your not comfortable OCing.

I suppose the last option is to OC the heck out of your current processor and run sli, because you do have x16 pci-e slots. But your bottleneck (while not too bad) would simply be the other direction, the cpu. But I didn't list this option because you mentioned being uncomfortable OCing.

I must stress that my post is ONLY my opinion/suggestion. Do whatever makes you happy. I do firmly believe after much personal testing, and way too many websites agreeing, that x8 pci-e slots bottleneck higher-end gpu is unfortunately, a fact. And is not an opinion.

If your wondering, hey Wickedsnow, what would you do in my situation? I would say.....

Buy 2 570SC's and run them in sli on your current setup. if your running a single 1080p monitor, then your bottleneck wont be too bad. Save the money that you planned on using for an i7-950 with new corsair dom. ram and the rampage 3, put it aside until later this year when the new sandybridge cpu's are available. (which is rumored for sept - october this year)

Whatever you decide on doing, just make sure that you confident and happy about it. If you even have a small doubt about anything, don't spend your cash and do more research.

Have a great day man!
 
Wickedsnow:

Mostly true except for one thing.

NF200.

The NF200 chip duplicates PCIe info, so it "artifically" turns 16 lanes into 32, meaning a P67 board with it can actually run 16x/16x. Certain P55 boards came with it too. It's definitely more expensive, and any board without that I agree would bottleneck the cards somewhat, but it is an option.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128480&cm_re=p67-_-13-128-480-_-Product

$330, but it supports 16x/16x :)
 
^^wow great info thanks, SB E series for the Enthusiast series SB will be damn expensive though, the i7 950 might be a better buy as they have gone down and might continue once its replacement arrives
 

wickedsnow

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Jul 25, 2007
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Wolfram23,

Interesting thought. I didn't think about that. Good suggestion!

My problem is that i'm an ASUS-only guy and firmly loves the 5-year warrenty on sabertooth mobo's. So in my friend cases, it doesnt apply. But I did forget that the NF200 is out there. So again, great suggestion.

I thought that there was some degree of overhead with the NF200?
I also thought that because of the overhead, the NF200 is not as fast as x2 genuine mechanical x16 slots? I'm asking because I don't remember.

Know of any websites comparing the 2?
 

wickedsnow

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JJB,

No problem my friend.

If your near a microcenter, you can get an i7-950 for $199 and a sabertooth for $179, plus 6 gigs of ram for around $99.

Please keep in mind that I am a longtime ASUS fanboy and love the sabertooth series. So i'm a bit skewed. Just take the information with a grain of salt. Seasalt if possible, it has more flavor!

I don't know if you saw my profile rig, but here's what I run. (I spent too much and the wife got pissed!!!)

i7-950 OCed to 4.0GHZ
Corsair H70
Asus Sabertooth X58 motherboard
12 gigs of corsair XMS3 7-8-7-20 ram @1600mhz
Samsung 24X dvd-burner
X2 EVGA 570 SCs with Hi-flow brackets
Creative Fatality pro titanium sound card (PCI express)
OS drive is a 300GB Velociraptor
Data drive is a 2TB WD Black (Sata3 model)
Corsair HX1000W PSU
HAF-X case / with megaflow fans.
 
Yep, except it was P55+NF200 vs X58.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/3-way-sli-p55-nf200,2758.html

image011.png
 
Yeah, in the distant future (at least 2 years) I'll make sure whatever system I upgrade to will have native 16/16 support. For now my measily P55 chipset is fine - when I need to replace my 5850s I'll just get a single card like a 6990 lol.