[Video card] New GFX card vs CPU bottleneck.

[Soulless86]

Hello guys

I've looked around the forum for an answer for afew hours and haven't really found one.

Because of the inevitable launch of BF3, skyrim etc in the next few months I've come to the conclusion that It's time again to consider upgrading.

I've been overseas the past year and haven't really needed/been bothered to stay ontop of hardware since building my PC afew years ago. I've been trying to catch up with the current gen hardware, but I've still got a way to go before I'm savvy enough to figure it all out by myself.

plus at the moment I can't really afford to buy awhole new system in one go, traveling sucked me dry.
now my question is;

My PC is currently a Stock Q9550 - 2.8ghz,
X48T-DQ6,
8gig of DDR3,
2xHD4870's in CF.

Now if I were to buy say a 6900 series of video card would it be bottle necked by my cpu and if so how badly?

thanks in advance.

 

[dalmvern]

Being that your processor is a quad core, if you overclocked it you probably wouldn't see much bottlenecking. I checked out your mobo and it looks like it has good overclocking capacity as well so I think you would be fine to upgrade to and 69XX series video card.

 

[Soulless86]

Being that your processor is a quad core, if you overclocked it you probably wouldn't see much bottlenecking. I checked out your mobo and it looks like it has good overclocking capacity as well so I think you would be fine to upgrade to and 69XX series video card.

Thanks for the Quick reply, I've not had much OCing xp but from what I've read on this site I'm pretty sure I've got it down.. only problem is tweaking voltages and unwarranted fear of damaging hardware.

I've got the 3 reccomended programs for OCing Prime,realtemps,CPU and GPU-z.

Only thing left is to suck it up and get on with I guess - I'm thinking a 6970, so when I actually upgrade to a new CPU/Mobo I can crossfire with a 2nd one.

 

[dalmvern]

Yeah, its not as hard as you expect really. I have never overclocked one of your processors so I am not sure how well it manages heat, but if you get an aftermarket cooler you should have no problem going to at least 3.4GHz.

And good call on the 6970...great card, any preference of manufacturer?

 

[Soulless86]

Best answer selected by Soulless86.