Athlon 64 3800+

[athfbum]

Would an AMD Athlon 64 3800+ at 2.6ghz bottleneck an X1900XT?

 

[athfbum]

Or maybe at 2.8ghz?

 

[harpoon84]

It depends, what resolutions do you play at?

Many games at 1280x1024 or below are CPU limited, above that you tend to find GPU speed is more important.

Regardless, I think a 2.6 - 2.8GHz X2 will match an X1900XT very well.

 

[cmdrdredd]

It will be fine. Seriously would you cry if you could only get 80fps and not 90?

 

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
It will be fine. Seriously would you cry if you could only get 80fps and not 90?

I'd cry a river, lol.

On a more serious note, regarding gaming performance, it's not the AVERAGE framerate that is important (80 vs 90 in your example), but rather the MINIMUM framerate you should look out for.

It's all fine and dandy to have an average framerate of 100fps, but not if you get dips to 30fps all the time.

Most people won't notice much difference in smoothness above 60fps, but below that things get progressively worse.

 

[athfbum]

Okay thanks guys.

 

[athfbum]

1280x1024 is what i usually play at

 

[SunSamurai]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
It will be fine. Seriously would you cry if you could only get 80fps and not 90?

The real question is; would you bitch if someone did want to gain that 10fps and went to an online forum where they help with just those things, we'll call is anandtech? get a life much?

I think we all know the answer to that one.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I play the games, I don't watch the fps counter. If the game is smooth, playable, and not jittery in any way with high quality settings (AA + AF etc) then why worry about 10 more fps?

 

[athfbum]

Kinda unrelated but would a Fortron AX450-PN 450 watt PSU run the X1900XT?

 

[athfbum]

Or would an Antec Smartpower 2.0 500 watt be better? (I think it would)

 

[WaTaGuMp]

I today bought a 4000+ to run my X1900XT and I hardly say its a bottleneck

 

[cmdrdredd]

I'd only get Antec Trupower series...no NeoHE or Smartpower. For other brands go for PC Power and Cooling, Enermax (some ppl don't like these), or OCZ. People also like Seasonic but I've never used them.

 

[athfbum]

I'll get a Enermax Noisetaker EG495P-VE 485watt then