Am I GPU or CPU bottlenecked?

[NaOH]

Originally posted by: robertk2012

Originally posted by: SparkyJJO
ditch the intel get amd that'll fix it

Or wait for a conroe. That will fix it.

Im kind of glad intel is going to take the lead. Im tired of hearing all of these snobish mine is better than yours type comment. That processor is plenty to play any game with a good video card and a good system around it.

AMD is not the answer to all of lifes questions.

Well the point of the thread was that his friends comp. crushes his. We looked at the specs and came up with an answer. Simple as that. This is the first AMD I have owned and before that I have had p4 p3 and a pentium 133. Stick to his question please.

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: pkrush
What memory configuration do you have? I'm guessing you're using 3 sticks of 512 megs each, which means you're running in single channel which kills performance. Try pulling one of the 512 Meg sticks and putting the other two in the appropriate slots for dual channel. Intel processors are far more bandwidth starved than AMD's, so switching to dual channel should mean a noticeable improvement. if you want more than 1 gigabyte of memory, then you should eaither buy one more 512 stick and run 4x512 or go with 2x 1 gigabyte sticks.

BINGO. I didn't notice that he had 1.5GB.

Yes, for P4's, dual channel makes a HUGE difference.

 

[NaOH]

Also, they run the same rig. Except for the CPU and that his PSU is pretty weak. So his lack of performance compared to his friend could either be CPU or PSU related. More than likely it is a combination of both because 300W is pathetic. Especially when the GPU needs it's own power directly fed to it. His overclock will probably give him insignificant gains that prob would not be noticeable to complain about.

 

[NaOH]

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: pkrush
What memory configuration do you have? I'm guessing you're using 3 sticks of 512 megs each, which means you're running in single channel which kills performance. Try pulling one of the 512 Meg sticks and putting the other two in the appropriate slots for dual channel. Intel processors are far more bandwidth starved than AMD's, so switching to dual channel should mean a noticeable improvement. if you want more than 1 gigabyte of memory, then you should eaither buy one more 512 stick and run 4x512 or go with 2x 1 gigabyte sticks.

BINGO. I didn't notice that he had 1.5GB.

Yes, for P4's, dual channel makes a HUGE difference.

couldnt he have 2 sticks of 512 and 2 sticks of 256?

 

[LiquidImpulse]

Originally posted by: AMDUALY
I would guess CPU. also, my god man, upgrade your PSU.

 

[Smartazz]

yeah, AMDUALY was right, I have 2 256's, and 2 512's.

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: Smartazz
yeah, AMDUALY was right, I have 2 256's, and 2 512's.

Do you have them in the right slots? Should be...

Slot1 - 512MB
Slot2 - 256MB
Slot3 - 512MB
Slot4 - 256MB

 

[Smartazz]

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Smartazz
yeah, AMDUALY was right, I have 2 256's, and 2 512's.

Do you have them in the right slots? Should be...

Slot1 - 512MB
Slot2 - 256MB
Slot3 - 512MB
Slot4 - 256MB

whoa, would this help?
I really don't wanna switch them because I think I'd have to take out the video card in order to replace it, I'll spend some time doing it if it would help though.

 

[cpacini]

Download CPUz and verify that they are running in dual channel. If they aren't, get out you screw driver.

 

[LW07]

I would definitely get a 450w fortron or better. You are not bottlenecked by GPU or CPU at all. The GPU is the most important factor in your gaming experience. You wouldn't feel the bottleneck unless you were running something like a celeron or other super-budget-class CPU(which you're not).
Important factors in gaming from most important to least important:
1. Stability of PSU and Motherboard(because if that's not stable, even having 4 Radeon X1900XTXs in Quad-Crossfire(not out yet) would do you much good.)
2. GPU horsepower. This will determine how much settings you can enable for a game. My personal acceptance level is 1024*768 with 8xAF(it doesn't impact performance, at least, not noticibly) and medium settings because you're not going to be staring at the little holes in a brick wall when the enemy is shooting at you in the game. Generally, High end GPUs(Like the 7800GT or X1900XT) get you 2-3.5 years of performance. Mid-Range GPUS(like the 6800GS and 7600GT today) get you 1-2 years of performance depending on the model. Budget-Midrange(like the 6600GT today) GPUs get you 0.5-1 year of performance. Anything less(I'm talking like Geforce FX 5200s and X300s and X600s and stuff like that) and you should save up for something better. The GPU determines the majority of your performance.
3. Amount of Ram- Just the amount. Ram is important because it determines load times and determines if you'll get stutters or not. This is just a notch below GPUs in importance for gaming experience. I remember when I had 512mb of ram and a EVGA Geforce 6800(the non-ultra, vanilla 12-pipe version) 128mb, which was a pretty high end card in December of 2004. I played Far Cry with it and it stuttered like HELL on 1024*768 resolution with 2xAA and 4xAF. I know it was the ram because Guru3d had it going good at 1280*1024 with a Gig of ram. Today, I recommend 2 gigs of ram for smooth experience, unless you like stuttering.
4. CPU- The least important factor in gaming. You should not be worried about the CPU unless you have something like a Celeron or other super-budget-class CPU. Even then, you could still get a smooth gaming experience with a high end GPU.

 

[Smartazz]

Could my mobo be the problem? I have an intel 915GV, I now know that it's def. not the cpu, I just recently saw benchmarks with my cpu, probobly tonight I'm going to order:
1. A forton 450 psu.
2. 512mb more ram to up it to 2048mb.
Anything else you think?

 

[LW07]

Just get the ram and the PSU.

 

[Bobthelost]

Originally posted by: Smartazz

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Smartazz
yeah, AMDUALY was right, I have 2 256's, and 2 512's.

Do you have them in the right slots? Should be...

Slot1 - 512MB
Slot2 - 256MB
Slot3 - 512MB
Slot4 - 256MB

whoa, would this help?
I really don't wanna switch them because I think I'd have to take out the video card in order to replace it, I'll spend some time doing it if it would help though.

Have you done this yet? It would make a very noticable difference to performance.

 

[Smartazz]

Slot 1:256
Slot 2:256
Slot 3:512
Slot 4:512
Should I change it to how you suggested?

 

[Bobthelost]

Originally posted by: Smartazz
Slot 1:256
Slot 2:256
Slot 3:512
Slot 4:512
Should I change it to how you suggested?

Yes, the reason for this is to get your RAM to run in dual channel. The way it works is the slots come in pairs: Slot 1+3 and Slot 2 + 4. If you have different sized memory sticks in the same "paired" slots ie. 256 in slot 1 512 in slot 3, then it can't run dual channel.

There's a whole wealth of information on the topic floating about and while i'd be more than glad to give you the short version it'd be better if you go do a bit of googling to find a fuller answer.

That is sssuming you want to find out why it's important, if you'll just take our words for it then all the better.

 

[Smartazz]

cpu-z says:Channels #: Dual. Does this mean it's in dual channel now?

 

[Bobthelost]

Sounds like it is

 

[Smartazz]

Is my computer at risk of being destroyed because of the tiny psu on it?

 

[Bobthelost]

IF the PSU had a sensible power distribution (ie more than 18A on the 12v rail) and IF it could source that much power then no. It'd be fine.

HOWEVER, it's probably a no name generic, which often fail to supply thier rated power, don't have enough amps on the 12v rail and use cheap components which mean that the PSU will degrade over time faster than a good one.

If i were you i'd get a new PSU as soon as is practical. It's not life or death and it's more than likely that the PSU won't die in the near future, but it's better to be safe than sorry. You could go with the 400W fortron too, plenty of juice there.

 

[pkrush]

Actually, after a quick look on Intel's Site, I think you could actually improve your performance most by getting a new motherboard. Apparently, the Intel 915gv chipset only provides 4 PCIe lanes, which could definitely be bottlenecking your video card (PCIe card normally run in x16 mode, and yours is in x4 mode so you only have 1/4 of the bandwidth to your graphics card that you should have). Replacing this board with anything that has a full x16 PCIe slot should definitely increase your performance.

 

[Smartazz]

The PSU is a no name psu btw, I have the money ready to buy a new psu, I just need to order it and I might want to buy something else while I'm at it, any suggestions?

 

[Smartazz]

Originally posted by: pkrush
Actually, after a quick look on Intel's Site, I think you could actually improve your performance most by getting a new motherboard. Apparently, the Intel 915gv chipset only provides a 4 PCIe lanes, which could definitely be bottlenecking your video card (PCIe card normally run in x16 mode, so you only have 1/4 of the bandwidth to your graphics card that you should have). Replacing this board with anything that has a full x16 PCIe slot should definitely increase your performance.

whoa, are you sure, because these programs say it's 16 lanes:
1. cpuz
2. Nvidia's forceware
3. Everest

I don't think that's my chipset, mine only has 1 1x pci-e slot and 1 16x pci-e slot, I think I gave you the wrong mobo. The D915GRO is my motherboard, thanks for researching the other mobo for me, I really appreciate your help in helping me figure out how to tune my system.

 

[Bobthelost]

Originally posted by: pkrush
Actually, after a quick look on Intel's Site, I think you could actually improve your performance most by getting a new motherboard. Apparently, the Intel 915gv chipset only provides a 4 PCIe lanes, which could definitely be bottlenecking your video card (PCIe card normally run in x16 mode, so you only have 1/4 of the bandwidth to your graphics card that you should have). Replacing this board with anything that has a full x16 PCIe slot should definitely increase your performance.

I think you're looking at the wrong chipset there, as that one's for an integrated graphics chipset that doesn't have support for PCIe graphics cards at all

 

[Smartazz]

Originally posted by: Bobthelost

Originally posted by: pkrush
Actually, after a quick look on Intel's Site, I think you could actually improve your performance most by getting a new motherboard. Apparently, the Intel 915gv chipset only provides a 4 PCIe lanes, which could definitely be bottlenecking your video card (PCIe card normally run in x16 mode, so you only have 1/4 of the bandwidth to your graphics card that you should have). Replacing this board with anything that has a full x16 PCIe slot should definitely increase your performance.

I think you're looking at the wrong chipset there, as that one's for an integrated graphics chipset that doesn't have support for PCIe graphics cards at all

yeah, I think you're right because that mobo he mentioned had only 1x pci-e slots, my mobo has writing over the slot that says: pci-express 16x.

 

[pkrush]

What chipset does Everest say that your motherboard has, then?