Salty crackers
Distinguished
- Jun 25, 2011
- 10
- 0
- 18,510
If I'm not mistaken that is a dual core CPU, correct? And you neglected to list what type of RAM and what it's clocked at.
ok found it,
DDR2
4096 mbytes
dram freq~: 400.0 mhz
would i see a better performance with
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/264750
i was going to buy it soon
DDR2
4096 mbytes
dram freq~: 400.0 mhz
would i see a better performance with
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/264750
i was going to buy it soon
gidgiddonihah
Distinguished
- Oct 24, 2009
- 1,104
- 0
- 19,310
Yes, by quite a bit (But you can always throw the 6950 in a later machine)... If it was an i3 dual core, then you would be fine, but the e8400 is an older, slower dual core...
I LOVE G. Skill RAM. They are cheap, reliable, most units have lower voltage ratings, and they overclock nice. I have a 2x2GB set in my machine, planning on bringing it up to 2x2x2x2GB with the same stuff
.
BUT!! It will NOT be compatible with your mobo if you really have DDR2 right now as you linked it to a DDR3 set. And if your a pre-built machine (Dell/HP/Ect) the motherboards are picky about what size and frequency your RAM is.
Plus, depending on what you do, the difference between 4GB and 8GB of RAM would be small to negligible (Unless you video edit, or game at a crazy rez).
I LOVE G. Skill RAM. They are cheap, reliable, most units have lower voltage ratings, and they overclock nice. I have a 2x2GB set in my machine, planning on bringing it up to 2x2x2x2GB with the same stuff
. BUT!! It will NOT be compatible with your mobo if you really have DDR2 right now as you linked it to a DDR3 set. And if your a pre-built machine (Dell/HP/Ect) the motherboards are picky about what size and frequency your RAM is.
Plus, depending on what you do, the difference between 4GB and 8GB of RAM would be small to negligible (Unless you video edit, or game at a crazy rez).
ok cheers, im building a whole new pc (i5 2500k, ddr3 ram, z68 motherboard) in about 2 months, but i cannot wait that long (gts 250 is dying) so i just got the 6950 for now
ill put it in the new machine when i get it and get another because the xfire scaling goes up to 100%
gidgiddonihah
Distinguished
- Oct 24, 2009
- 1,104
- 0
- 19,310
Cool I just built a machine a few months ago. I'm already planning on scrapping most of it :lol: and getting a Bulldozer 6970 Crossfire setup with my GTX 460 as a Physx/CUDA card.
Windows 7 Home Premium
Athlon II X3 445 (Unlocked to Phenom II x4 B45)
MSI 870-G45
4GB G. Skill 1600 DDR3 RAM
GTX 460 @815/1000/1630
I just built a machine a few months ago. I'm already planning on scrapping most of it :lol: and getting a Bulldozer 6970 Crossfire setup with my GTX 460 as a Physx/CUDA card. Windows 7 Home Premium
Athlon II X3 445 (Unlocked to Phenom II x4 B45)
MSI 870-G45
4GB G. Skill 1600 DDR3 RAM
GTX 460 @815/1000/1630
photonboy
Titan
- Jun 20, 2006
- 21,567
- 13
- 85,015
Checking for CPU bottlenecks:
NOTE: every game uses a different amount of the CPU even if it uses 100% of the graphics card. Also, you may not be able to use 100% of the CPU's cores depending on how the game was written (remember when you could only use a single core even if you had a dual-core CPU?)
On to it...
1. Open the Task Manager (CTRL-ALT-DEL)
2. set Task manager to View all the cores (not the average)
3. update view speed to LOW
4. leave TM running, then open a video game and play for at least FIVE minutes
5. Close the game and look at the Task Manager
Analysis:
- under "Performance" observe that you show all the core graphs
- if NO cores reach 100% your CPU is not the bottleneck (you can also see how close you come)
- in a multi-core CPU, a single core at 100% does not guarantee a bottleneck (it's probable in a dual-core only possible in a quad-core)
- if TWO of the cores in a CPU are at 100% it's pretty certain that your CPU is the bottleneck
*REPEAT this process for several video games and see if your CPU is bottlenecked. If you owned 20 games and 10 were bottlenecked by the CPU and 10 were not (graphics bottlenecked) this is what's called a perfectly balanced system (for the processing part).
I suspect you'll find some games that are not CPU bottlenecked and most that are.
OTHER:
VSYNC - if VSYNC is not enabled then the game creates frames until either the CPU or the graphics card are bottlenecked, even if the frame rates are higher than what the monitor can handle. You may have difficulty going above 60FPS anyway.
HYPERTHREADING - a quad-core CPU with HT enabled shows eight individual graphs under "Performance" in Task Manager. Many games don't use these hyperthreads (the 2nd, 4th, 6th and 8th graph. Graph #1 is the first physical core, called Core0 and it's hyperthread is graph#2 called Core1.)
Hyperthreads are also averaged for the total CPU average which is part of the reason analyzing just the average CPU graph is useless. Even if your CPU uses 100% of all it's physical cores, it's average would only show 50% usage even though the game isn't even using those hyper threads. Additionally the hyper threads can't process at the same level of the core (max of about 30% of the physical core).
What is a hyperthread?
A way of processing some data in parallel through a physical core. It's not a separate physical entity, it's the same core processing another set of instructions at the same time (roughly).
SUMMARY:
You can use the Task Manager to see if your CPU is the bottleneck when playing games. No cores at 100% means no CPU bottleneck. One means possible bottleneck, and two means almost certain bottleneck at the CPU.
NOTE: every game uses a different amount of the CPU even if it uses 100% of the graphics card. Also, you may not be able to use 100% of the CPU's cores depending on how the game was written (remember when you could only use a single core even if you had a dual-core CPU?)
On to it...
1. Open the Task Manager (CTRL-ALT-DEL)
2. set Task manager to View all the cores (not the average)
3. update view speed to LOW
4. leave TM running, then open a video game and play for at least FIVE minutes
5. Close the game and look at the Task Manager
Analysis:
- under "Performance" observe that you show all the core graphs
- if NO cores reach 100% your CPU is not the bottleneck (you can also see how close you come)
- in a multi-core CPU, a single core at 100% does not guarantee a bottleneck (it's probable in a dual-core only possible in a quad-core)
- if TWO of the cores in a CPU are at 100% it's pretty certain that your CPU is the bottleneck
*REPEAT this process for several video games and see if your CPU is bottlenecked. If you owned 20 games and 10 were bottlenecked by the CPU and 10 were not (graphics bottlenecked) this is what's called a perfectly balanced system (for the processing part).
I suspect you'll find some games that are not CPU bottlenecked and most that are.
OTHER:
VSYNC - if VSYNC is not enabled then the game creates frames until either the CPU or the graphics card are bottlenecked, even if the frame rates are higher than what the monitor can handle. You may have difficulty going above 60FPS anyway.
HYPERTHREADING - a quad-core CPU with HT enabled shows eight individual graphs under "Performance" in Task Manager. Many games don't use these hyperthreads (the 2nd, 4th, 6th and 8th graph. Graph #1 is the first physical core, called Core0 and it's hyperthread is graph#2 called Core1.)
Hyperthreads are also averaged for the total CPU average which is part of the reason analyzing just the average CPU graph is useless. Even if your CPU uses 100% of all it's physical cores, it's average would only show 50% usage even though the game isn't even using those hyper threads. Additionally the hyper threads can't process at the same level of the core (max of about 30% of the physical core).
What is a hyperthread?
A way of processing some data in parallel through a physical core. It's not a separate physical entity, it's the same core processing another set of instructions at the same time (roughly).
SUMMARY:
You can use the Task Manager to see if your CPU is the bottleneck when playing games. No cores at 100% means no CPU bottleneck. One means possible bottleneck, and two means almost certain bottleneck at the CPU.
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