Do I need to worry about bottlenecking?

[alexander0884]

What kind of motherboard?

 

[Gnarry]

Hello. I have decided to buy a HD7950 for my system. My system curently rocks a I5 670 3.4ghz dual core processor. Should i need to be worried about it slowing down the video card?.

 

[Maxx_Power]

Hello. I have decided to buy a HD7950 for my system. My system curently rocks a I5 670 3.4ghz dual core processor. Should i need to be worried about it slowing down the video card?.

It won't slow down the video card. Bottle necking is referenced with respect to the application usually. So if you have a CPU intensive game, you MIGHT be worried that the CPU is slow such that the video card is under-utilized.

Your CPU seems to be a fine choice. I'm guessing it is a Ivy Bridge i5. By the time you are being bottle necked in some application, you are either at multi-monitor scenarios, or a few years in the future...

 

[panwala95]

It won't slow down the video card. Bottle necking is referenced with respect to the application usually. So if you have a CPU intensive game, you MIGHT be worried that the CPU is slow such that the video card is under-utilized.

Your CPU seems to be a fine choice. I'm guessing it is a Ivy Bridge i5. By the time you are being bottle necked in some application, you are either at multi-monitor scenarios, or a few years in the future...

sir i5 670 is a nephalem (first gen) core processor
it should be fine in most games (except bf3 multiplayer, gta iv etc (any other cpu intensive game))

 

[alexander0884]

It won't slow down the video card. Bottle necking is referenced with respect to the application usually. So if you have a CPU intensive game, you MIGHT be worried that the CPU is slow such that the video card is under-utilized.

Your CPU seems to be a fine choice. I'm guessing it is a Ivy Bridge i5. By the time you are being bottle necked in some application, you are either at multi-monitor scenarios, or a few years in the future...

His CPU is not that good. Its outdated.


Secondly you cant make assumptions like that without knowing the rest of his system. A bad motherboard WILL bottleneck his graphics card and thats a fact that you need to realise.

For all yuo know he is running DDR2 SDRAM, gg have fun playing BF3 on low settings with a top range card.

 

[Maxx_Power]

sir i5 670 is a nephalem (first gen) core processor
it should be fine in most games (except bf3 multiplayer, gta iv etc (any other cpu intensive game))

Sorry, I mis-read. I saw the 670 and assumed some type of modern video card. Completely forgot about the early i5's.

Still, you should be fine.

EDIT: Try StarCraft 2, with a large map and lots of units maxing the game play, if you have no lag issues, you are fine CPU wise.

EDIT2: I checked out the 3dmark06 scores of your CPU from the past, and you are about as fast per core as 2 Phenom II cores. I think you will be okay. Recently there was a thread here about 1 game that can make use of 4 cores, but then showed that HT enabled core i3's one generation newer than your CPU is still plenty FPS wise. So another reason that you are okay for a while.

 

[Maxx_Power]

His CPU is not that good. Its outdated.


Secondly you cant make assumptions like that without knowing the rest of his system. A bad motherboard WILL bottleneck his graphics card and thats a fact that you need to realise.

For all yuo know he is running DDR2 SDRAM, gg have fun playing BF3 on low settings with a top range card.

How can he run DDR2 ram with that CPU ? That CPU only has DDR3 memory controller!

That is not an assumption, the motherboard is statistically the least relevant in performance NOW that the PCI-E, Memory Controllers are integrated on CPU.

 

[geofelt]

Hello. I have decided to buy a HD7950 for my system. My system curently rocks a I5 670 3.4ghz dual core processor. Should i need to be worried about it slowing down the video card?.

No, don't worry. The only question is how much benefit you will get from stronger graphics. There will always be some gain.

If you want, run this test:
Run your games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.

 

[coozie7]

Some games (as mentioned) are going to be hurt by the dual core CPU, but most will take little or no performance hit, so, Gnarry, what games do you intend to play?
Perhaps a more valid question is : What is the monitor resolution?
As resolution rises, the workload shifts: At low resolutions, it's the CPU that will restrict framerates, at high resolutions it's going to be the GPU that slows things down.

 

[horaciopz]

His CPU is not that good. Its outdated.


Secondly you cant make assumptions like that without knowing the rest of his system. A bad motherboard WILL bottleneck his graphics card and thats a fact that you need to realise.

For all yuo know he is running DDR2 SDRAM, gg have fun playing BF3 on low settings with a top range card.

Wow! Such a nice guy and kind guy over here! :lol: THat I5 uses DDR3 1333... Sir..

Well back to the topic.

That processor will not have much porblems in todays games, it is about the same or better performance in some situations than the I3 2100.


Why? It has different architecture, but its still capable, having 3.4ghz and turbo about 3.7ghz, that dual core with enough cache and has HT. As the I3 it wont have many problems for todays games. For sure it will bottleneck that high end card in a very intensive CPU game, but you will notice your card runing at 100% usage most of the times.

See this, the diferences are about little, and as you should know the I3 2100 is a capable CPU that will outperform all FX processor and most Phenom II x4...

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/145?vs=289

Happy gaming!

 

[verbalizer]

His CPU is not that good. Its outdated.


Secondly you cant make assumptions like that without knowing the rest of his system. A bad motherboard WILL bottleneck his graphics card and thats a fact that you need to realise.

For all yuo know he is running DDR2 SDRAM, gg have fun playing BF3 on low settings with a top range card.

you are so incorrect....