6850 possible disappointment.

[CuriousMike]

From the reviews I read, and from a couple of questions I asked earlier, I sorta thought plopping a new 6850 into my box would give me insto-blammo continuous 60FPS in all the games I play ( at desktop res with med to high options enabled.)

That sorta hasn't turned out to be the case.

Per my spec below, I'm running an e5200 at 3.2ghz on a pretty basic Gigabyte 945 mobo.

With my stock 4770 installed, I could run Battlefield BC2 at 1280x800 / medium settings and average 30-50fps.
With the 6850, I'm running the same game at 1680x1050 at high settings and averaging 30-60fps. Does that sound right?

Formula 1 2010 on the 4770 ran 20-40fps at 1280x800/mid, on the 6850 I'm running 1680x1050/mid at 25-60. (Dirt 2 and F1 seem to crucify my machine; Dirt1 and GRID seemed to run much faster. I do love racing games...)

Starcraft 2 shows very similar bumps -- with nothing on screen, the 6850 shows >100fps, but with lots of action drops to 25-30fps for periods. Very 4770 like (albeit I ran the 4770 at 1280x800)

I feel like I've bought a card that essentially handles bumping my resolution from 1280x800 up to 1680x1050 with similar levels of detail, while retaining the same framerate.

Did I expect too much?

 

[happy medium]

Your cpu is holding you back, you need a quad core @ 2.6 or more for those games.

 

[MentalIlness]

Your cpu is holding you back, you need a quad core @ 2.6 or more for those games.

Happy is right. Your cpu is killing your performance.

 

[CuriousMike]

Interesting. I had earlier asked what would be a better upgrade path, a CPU or a GPU and the result seemed to indicate the GPU was what I wanted to upgrade.

It did help... but I guess I'm now mismatched the other way.

 

[MentalIlness]

What is your current motherboard ?

 

[CuriousMike]

Gigabyte GA-945GCM-SC2 -- pretty basic board.

 

[Rifter]

CPU bottleneck

 

[happy medium]

Interesting. I had earlier asked what would be a better upgrade path, a CPU or a GPU and the result seemed to indicate the GPU was what I wanted to upgrade.

It did help... but I guess I'm now mismatched the other way.

With those peticular games you need cpu,with other games you wil see nice gains.

 

[Powermoloch]

upgrade cpu bro

 

[Childs]

Microcenter has the Q9300 for $99. You should be able to OC it to 3Ghz. My Q6600@3Ghz and 460 did 60fps in BFBC2 with most high settings, 4AA16AF HBAO off.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2125582

 

[Sickamore]

Cpu is really holding you back. Upgrade time.

 

[GaiaHunter]

Interesting. I had earlier asked what would be a better upgrade path, a CPU or a GPU and the result seemed to indicate the GPU was what I wanted to upgrade.

It did help... but I guess I'm now mismatched the other way.

You went from mid to high. From 1280x800 to 1680x1050. You spent your performance increase in IQ.

Drop you resolution back to 1280x800 and high settings to mid settings and see how is your frame rate.

And as other people noted, some of those games (but not SC2) can use more than 2 cores.

 

[flopper]

It runs better but as noted ur cpu limited with such a cpu.
lot of games needs a balance between cpu/gpu.

I run quadcore at 4.3ghz and had 6850 in crossfire and smoked the games I played in.
that isnt a typical setup but I dont want any slow downs.
3.2ghz to 4.2ghz showed me a 30fps drop in average and even more minimum fps.
that is with 2 cards.

no need to be dissapointed.

 

[Lonyo]

I had the same with SC2, went from 3.2GHz E5200 to 3GHz Q8300 (didn't expect an improvement in SC2, I got the quad for other things) and HD4850 to HD6850.

Testing a replay of Nexus Wars where it slowed to below 1fps, I got the exact same performance with both, and on the HD6850 whether I had everything on high or on low.

Most websites test with a good CPU (e.g. Core i7 at 3.33GHz or higher, typically), which means the differences they see between cards are typically the peak differences. Most end users won't see such large differences if they don't have a high end CPU because it will hold them back in various situations, like yours with SC2 specifically.

An easy way to test would be to keep increasing settings in BF2 if you can and see if fps drops or whether it stays the same, in which case you can just have even better quality at the same fps.

 

[BFG10K]

I think the problem here is that you shifted the goal-post of your settings too much. What you should do is put your settings to how they were before the upgrade, and then check your FPS. Then you’ll get an apples vs apples comparison. It’s also possible your CPU is holding you back at such low settings.

I’ve just finished benchmarking a 6850 compared to a 5770 (faster than your 4770) in over 30 games. In terms of overall averages the card was between 17% - 46% faster depending on the situation.

The article should be up in a few days.

 

[Arkaign]

Microcenter has the Q9300 for $99. You should be able to OC it to 3Ghz. My Q6600@3Ghz and 460 did 60fps in BFBC2 with most high settings, 4AA16AF HBAO off.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2125582

That's a good idea in 99% of cases, though the OP has a 945-based board. Frankly I'm surprised even the E5200 on there. It'd be a good idea to research his model to see if anyone else had success running the Q9300 on there, I know a lot of those older mATX mobos had trouble reaching decent OCs with quad-cores, though that was the Q6x00 days. It's kind of amazing, I don't think I've ever seen a 945 with a 45nm chip.

 

[toyota]

Interesting. I had earlier asked what would be a better upgrade path, a CPU or a GPU and the result seemed to indicate the GPU was what I wanted to upgrade.

It did help... but I guess I'm now mismatched the other way.

because this is one of the many cases where you need both a cpu and gpu upgrade. it always drives me nuts when people only focus on saying the gpu will be a bigger upgrade. once you get the faster gpu then you need a faster cpu to actually get all the benefits especially in cpu intensive games.

people like BFG10K always want you to compare your new gpu to your old one at settings your old one could not even really handle. in other words he wants you to create a gpu bottleneck and then compare it to your new card. he rarely understands that many people upgrade to get better playability and performance NOT just run some higher settings like AA. he also doesn't seem to get that many settings also impact the cpu so getting a faster gpu doesn't always mean being able to crank up everything.

bottom line is you are going to need a faster cpu if you want an actual playability increase in cpu intensive games like Bad Company 2.

 

[happy medium]

@ Curiousmike

What is your exact motherboard model?

 

[GundamF91]

One thing is that you bumped up on resolution. I game at 1680x1050, and it's a good resolution to have. Q9xxx should be a pretty good match for that resolution.

 

[GaiaHunter]

because this is one of the many cases where you need both a cpu and gpu upgrade. it always drives me nuts when people only focus on saying the gpu will be a bigger upgrade. once you get the faster gpu then you need a faster cpu to actually get all the benefits especially in cpu intensive games.

people like BFG10K always want you to compare your new gpu to your old one at settings your old one could not even really handle. in other words he wants you to create a gpu bottleneck and then compare it to your new card. he rarely understands that many people upgrade to get better playability and performance NOT just run some higher settings like AA. he also doesn't seem to get that many settings also impact the cpu so getting a faster gpu doesn't always mean being able to crank up everything.

bottom line is you are going to need a faster cpu if you want an actual playability increase in cpu intensive games like Bad Company 2.

As if 1680x1050 isn't 70% more pixels than 1280x800...

So increasing resolution and IQ settings making it more than 70% extra work for the GPU and getting slightly improved frame rates isn't an upgrade...

 

[toyota]

As if 1680x1050 isn't 70% more pixels than 1280x800...

well yes but I was sort of speaking in general terms. if he wants games like BC 2 to play better then he will now need a faster cpu.

I never said it wasnt an upgrade. I was talking about sometimes a video card upgrade will not always let you play at the settings you think it will because of your cpu.

 

[Lonyo]

That's a good idea in 99% of cases, though the OP has a 945-based board. Frankly I'm surprised even the E5200 on there. It'd be a good idea to research his model to see if anyone else had success running the Q9300 on there, I know a lot of those older mATX mobos had trouble reaching decent OCs with quad-cores, though that was the Q6x00 days. It's kind of amazing, I don't think I've ever seen a 945 with a 45nm chip.

I doubt the Q9300 would do much. The E5200 only has a 200MHz FSB so it overclocks super easily (240MHz for 3GHz from stock 2.5GHz). To get a Q9300 overclocked would need a lot more than that, which the board (and possibly RAM) wouldn't handle, since their FSB starts at 333MHz, and 945 official support tops out at 266MHz/1066MHz FSB for the CPU.
Something like a Q6600 might work though, depending on RAM, but would be more expensive probably (and have to be bought second hand), and even then they start at 1066MHz/266 FSB.

Not really worth a CPU upgrade, and if he went for a slower clocked CPU, then Starcraft 2 performance would suffer.

 

[Arkaign]

I doubt the Q9300 would do much. The E5200 only has a 200MHz FSB so it overclocks super easily (240MHz for 3GHz from stock 2.5GHz). To get a Q9300 overclocked would need a lot more than that, which the board (and possibly RAM) wouldn't handle, since their FSB starts at 333MHz, and 945 official support tops out at 266MHz/1066MHz FSB for the CPU.
Something like a Q6600 might work though, depending on RAM, but would be more expensive probably (and have to be bought second hand), and even then they start at 1066MHz/266 FSB.

Not really worth a CPU upgrade, and if he went for a slower clocked CPU, then Starcraft 2 performance would suffer.

Yeah that the reason for my reply in the first place, I'm hesitant to endorse a new CPU for such an ancient chipset. It's bad enough even trying to do a decent CPU on a 965/975-based board, let alone a 945 lol. 99% of C2D 45nm Socket 775 users probably have at least a P35/G31/P45/etc already, in which case a Q9300 will really help once overclocked in games that benefit from Quad (BC2, GTA4, SC2, etc).

OP doesn't specify memory, if he already has quality 4gb 800mhz ddr2 (questionable considering the ancient board), then moving to a AM2+ 7xx series gigabyte board with PhII X4 BE would be a nice move. If the more likely truth is OP has DDR2 533 or 667, possibly even 2gb, then it's time to look at i5/i7/sb + ddr3. As it sounds like he uses things for a while, I can't recommend a new dual core or the unsure proposition of trying to unlock something.

 

[Arkaign]

well yes but I was sort of speaking in general terms. if he wants games like BC 2 to play better then he will now need a faster cpu.

I never said it wasnt an upgrade. I was talking about sometimes a video card upgrade will not always let you play at the settings you think it will because of your cpu.

This is so true it hurts. Even if OP was given a GTX580 Super OC liquid cooled edition or whatever, he'd be able to crank all the detail settings to hell and back, it'd look great, but the chug/minimum fps bog would still be exactly the same due to CPU choking. BC2 does kinda suck on old 2MB cache duals, and this will be true of a lot of the more demanding games. SC2 comes to mind, ouch.

Luckily it's not insanely expensive to get a better platform in place. A PhII BE, i5-760, etc, would do wonders for him, particularly with a modest OC.

 

[CuriousMike]

I couldn't tell you the brand or quality of my 4GB of DDR2 memory; it was mid-range-ish at the time I bought it.

One of the reasons I'm hesitant to upgrade the CPU is because it'll likely entail purchasing a new mobo - which is fine except the new mobo will entail purcashing new memory.

Fry's often has quad-core AMD CPU's on sale for ~$99, and pairing it with another $80 mobo seems reasonable. But then I have to put another $80 into 4GB of memory, which is half the price of the damned CPU upgrade; my feelings are that DDR3 isn't that much of an upgrade over DDR2, but I haven't looked at this since 2007.