Am I GPU or CPU bottlenecked?

[Smartazz]

I played on a friend's computer same as mine except his GPU is only 400,1000 clock speeds and he has an AMD 3500+ CPU. In need for speed most wanted his computer crushes mine, is it a bottleneck somewhere?

Here are my specs:
Pentium 4 HT 3GHZ
1.5GB RAM 3-3-3-8 timings
200GB SATA 7200 RPM HDD
7800GT CO oc'd to 490,1220
300 PSU, I know it should be the 450 Forton soon
SB Xfi Xtreme music sound card

 

[kmrivers]

that PSU is tiny....

 

[NaOH]

I would guess CPU. also, my god man, upgrade your PSU.

 

[mwmorph]

cpu bottleneck. THe 7800gt want to reach 7.5-8k 3dmakr05s, but the cpu is holding it back.

 

[Smartazz]

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

Could my psu hurt my performance?

 

[NaOH]

Not really, but your constantly putting it (PSU) at load with that kind of hardware. You might end up burning it out. And the rest of your system.

 

[kmrivers]

if you are starving your components for power, hell yes it can.

 

[NaOH]

I stand corrected. hahah. But yeah, maybe your components aren't getting enough juice. I know I was able to boot my computer and use it without power to my 7800.

 

[Smartazz]

Originally posted by: AMDUALY
I stand corrected. hahah. But yeah, maybe your components aren't getting enough juice. I know I was able to boot my computer and use it without power to my 7800.

Same, I booted my computer without power to my 7800 before, I kept it like that for about a month before realizing it.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

You have the PCIe connector hooked up to the 7800GT right? It probably is the CPU. 3500+ kills a 3.0ghz P4. Another problem could be the PSU.

 

[Smartazz]

That's correct, I have the PCIe connector in it now, I think it might be the PSU I really need to find out what it is, my friend's computer only outperforms mine in a few games, Mine owns in F.E.A.R. and many other games, his is better in Need for speed most wanted and Call of Duty 2.

 

[robertk2012]

get a new PSU. That 3.0 ghz p4 isnt really a bottleneck. I would bet that everyone that said it is uses amd cpus

 

[bamacre]

I have a pentium 630 running with a 256MB GTX, and it's not bottlenecked. I see this as a PSU problem. Especially if it's a crappy PSU. What is the brand?

But his A64 3500+ is faster than your Pent 3Ghz, however, that should not make a dramatic difference as the video card is the most important factor in gaming.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

does your 300 watt psu even have a PCI-E connector? lol

 

[Malak]

My hardware is similar and I play NFSMW at max settings without a problem. Your bottleneck is the PSU like others have said. Any other performance problems are related to any extra software you are running.

 

[alimoalem]

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
does your 300 watt psu even have a PCI-E connector? lol

lol that's what i was thinking

OP, my friend upgraded his unbranded 350w psu and he saw a performance increase. you're probably underpowering ur rig

 

[SparkyJJO]

ditch the intel get amd that'll fix it

 

[alimoalem]

hmm...if all games were better on his rig, i would say it could be the monitor too. my friend had a 9800AIW (the highest 9800 series card..wahtever it's called) and his friend had a weaker card like 2 years ago but his friend's games looked better cause his monitor was better. but in your situation it's only in some games so i doubt it's the monitor

 

[Maximilian]

His computer crushes yours because his is an AMD, they are better for gaming, but unless your experiancing severe lag in your games then you have nothing to worry about

I dont know if your PSU could be holding you back, generally i thought that if a component dosent get enough power it simply will not function or mal-function crashing your system. Either way upgrade to a quality PSU, the fortron you mention should be perfect.

 

[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.

 

[bamacre]

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

:roll:

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: Soviet
His computer crushes yours because his is an AMD, they are better for gaming, but unless your experiancing severe lag in your games then you have nothing to worry about

:roll: X 2

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

I'll have to agree with power supply. Most modern games are GPU-bound instead of CPU-bound.

 

[Smartazz]

No, I only experiance lag in 2 games, COD2 and need for speed most wanted, in those two games his computer crushes mine. and my psu has a pci-e slot, but I'm going to upgrade the psu really soon anyway because I heard I'm putting the parts of my computer in danger of getting fried. I have two diffrent monitors, crt and lcd, they look the same, the lcd slightly better which is the monitor I'm using now, so I really think that the PSU is the problem. Also I think that once AA is turned on it's a GPU bottleneck and not a CPU bottleneck at that point am I right?

 

[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.