Bottleneck

[rohanp3]

Hello guys, I've had this build for 2-3 years now, and have been upgrading it occasionally. I'm just wondering if it's running at maximum potential (without overclocking) and if anything is currently bottle necking it.

Motherboard: ASUS M4A79XTD EVO AM3 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard
PSU: OCZ ModXStream Pro 500W Modular High Performance Power Supply
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz Socket AM3
RAM: Patriot G Series ‘Sector 5’ Edition 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)
HDD: Seagate Barracuda ST3500418AS 500GB 7200 RPM
GPU: XFX HD-687A-ZNFC Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit DDR5

Thank you,
Rohan

 

[rohanp3]

Could someone please answer this question?

 

[jerreddredd]

I guess it would depend on what you are using your system for.

looking at it, I would say it was good for most games @1920x1080 on high settings, some on very high. This should take you thru another year of happy gaming.

Bottle necking, yes at the CPU, GPU and Disk systems.

I would wait and see how Ivy Bridge and the new AMD Chips pan out. the decide what plateform to upgrade with and what budget you have to spend. If you are burning to upgrade right now then just let us know what your budget is.

if you have extra Cash laying around, I would add a SSD drive 120-256GB. this can be used on any future build and you will be amazed at the new life it will breath into you system. I recommend SAMSUNG 830, Corsair M4 and Muskin as good stable SSD's.

 

[AdrianPerry]

Bottle necking, yes at the CPU, GPU and Disk systems.

Totally disagree with this.....

There's no way a X4 955 is Bottlenecking a 6870, nor the other way round. HDD isn't bottlenecking anything either, for a start, that's hardly even possible, let alone with a 7200RPM drive....

SSD is a nice addition to any build, but mechanical HDD's don't cause bottlenecks in gaming.

I do agree however, stick with your current set up for around another 2-3 months+ and then see what AMD vs. Intel IvyBridge vs. Intel SnadyBridge is benching, and then make an informed decision based on your needs. You'll also have a range of GPU's to pick from including Nvidia 6xx series, and AMD 7xxx series.

 

[jerreddredd]

Totally disagree with this.....

There's no way a X4 955 is Bottlenecking a 6870, nor the other way round. HDD isn't bottlenecking anything either, for a start, that's hardly even possible, let alone with a 7200RPM drive....

SSD is a nice addition to any build, but mechanical HDD's don't cause bottlenecks in gaming.

you missed the point. if you thew a super GPU in the system, then the CPU is the bottle neck and vice versa. right now neither are bottle necking as they pretty much compliment each other.

CPU Bottle neck:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-fx-pentium-apu-benchmark,3120-6.html
Look at the 10FPS difference between the Intel Quad cores and the AMD quad cores..... Bottle neck
same goes for GPUs

the HDD bottle necks the data storage infrastructure, where an SSD pushes SATA 3G to the limits requiring SATA 6G to see its full potential. for gaming its not in FPS it is in level loads. My ssd loads levels at least twice as fast, if not faster.

shows the performance of mechanical drive/hybird/SSD
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hybrid-hard-drive-flash-ssd,3116-4.html

shows the difference in SSD's using SATA 3G and 6G.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sata-6gbps-performance-sata-3gbps,3110-3.html

Bottle Necking is all a matter of what a person sees as his/her point of reference or expected results.

 

[rohanp3]

Thanks for teh answers.

 

[AdrianPerry]

you missed the point. if you thew a super GPU in the system, then the CPU is the bottle neck and vice versa. right now neither are bottle necking as they pretty much compliment each other.

CPU Bottle neck:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-fx-pentium-apu-benchmark,3120-6.html
Look at the 10FPS difference between the Intel Quad cores and the AMD quad cores..... Bottle neck
same goes for GPUs

This is not true. The reason they bench lower is because the CPU is slower. It's very well known that Intel CPU's can process many more instructions per second, per core, than AMD can.

A bottleneck is when something is limiting something else from running faster.

For example, your GPU is running balls to the wall at 99-100% constantly using up every single bit of its memory and power just to load whats on the screen, then the CPU is running around 30% usage on each core. In this scenario the GPU is the obvious bottleneck.

Just because performance is lower on one component than another, HDD vs SSD for example, does NOT mean its a bottleneck.

 

[jerreddredd]

This is not true. The reason they bench lower is because the CPU is slower. It's very well known that Intel CPU's can process many more instructions per second, per core, than AMD can.

A bottleneck is when something is limiting something else from running faster.

For example, your GPU is running balls to the wall at 99-100% constantly using up every single bit of its memory and power just to load whats on the screen, then the CPU is running around 30% usage on each core. In this scenario the GPU is the obvious bottleneck.

Just because performance is lower on one component than another, HDD vs SSD for example, does NOT mean its a bottleneck.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottleneck
A bottleneck is a phenomenon where the performance or capacity of an entire system is limited by a single or limited number of components or resources. The term bottleneck is taken from the 'assets are water' metaphor. As water is poured out of a bottle, the rate of outflow is limited by the width of the conduit of exit—that is, bottleneck. By increasing the width of the bottleneck one can increase the rate at which the water flows out of the neck at different frequencies. Such limiting components of a system are sometimes referred to as bottleneck points.

it would seem to me that a component that limits the overall performance of a system would be a bottleneck too some extent.

the OP's system is balanced pretty much as is, but all are a bottleneck to the maximum potential of the overall system when looking at it from the upgrade aspect . ie. inserting a better GPU or CPU will cause the older one to be the bottleneck.

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree.