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Am I GPU or CPU bottlenecked?
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NaOH
Diamond Member
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.
LiquidImpulse
Platinum Member
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.
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.
Bobthelost
Diamond Member
Have you done this yet? It would make a very noticable difference to performance.
Bobthelost
Diamond Member
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.
Bobthelost
Diamond Member
Sounds like it is 😕
Bobthelost
Diamond Member
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.
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.
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.
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
Diamond Member
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 😉
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