Bottleneck my GPU?

Dice144

Senior member
Oct 22, 2010
654
1
81
Thinking since I play at 1920x1080 and like to use AA when possible my GTX 460 768mb is my main bottleneck.

Games I play or plan to play:
Bad Company 2
Mass Effect 2
Battlefield 3
LFD2
Starcraft 2

As my sig states my AMD x6 1090 is OC to 4 Ghz right now. I was going to buy Sandy (not sure BD FX chips will be in my price range). My current board supports Xfire but not SLI. But after thinking about it believe my video card is holding me back way more then my CPU. I was debating on 6950 2GB incase I wass Xfire later. But 570 from all I have read is faster at my current res.

What does the AT crowd think?
 

mnewsham

Lifer
Oct 2, 2010
14,539
428
136
The 6960 is more then enough BUT that being said the 570 IS the faster card (for more money)
 

Dice144

Senior member
Oct 22, 2010
654
1
81
I kinda got turned off with AMD drivers kept crashing (in AMD defense was using onboard IGP trying to 2 bot Everquest). Buddy at work gets beta drivers and has a direct Nvidia contact for inside tips on how well they support new games etc. From what he says Nvidia seem to put more effort into there drivers. And I am starting to agree. (not nvidia fanboi) I normally buy whatever is best bang for buck at the time I got a hole in my pocket.

The frugal in me would LOVE staying under $350 but I been cheap since Dec and just want to be able to play games without video lag. So the $350 570 is within my price range. (gogo rice and beans for 2 weeks!)

Asus (does not come with free games)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121432
Or EVGA possibly

Giga
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125365
 

hawtdawg

Golden Member
Jun 4, 2005
1,223
7
81
Your CPU is fine. Tomshardware.com did an article 5-6 months ago that basically showed that as long as you have a dual core CPU @3ghz, then you should only worry about GPU upgrades.
 

mnewsham

Lifer
Oct 2, 2010
14,539
428
136
I kinda got turned off with AMD drivers kept crashing (in AMD defense was using onboard IGP trying to 2 bot Everquest). Buddy at work gets beta drivers and has a direct Nvidia contact for inside tips on how well they support new games etc. From what he says Nvidia seem to put more effort into there drivers. And I am starting to agree. (not nvidia fanboi) I normally buy whatever is best bang for buck at the time I got a hole in my pocket.

The frugal in me would LOVE staying under $350 but I been cheap since Dec and just want to be able to play games without video lag. So the $350 570 is within my price range. (gogo rice and beans for 2 weeks!)

Asus (does not come with free games)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121432
Or EVGA possibly

Giga
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125365

The frugal you can buy a 6950 1GB for $225, it performs the same as the 2GB at 1920x1080 and OC's to fairly high levels.
 

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
765
126
Besides BF3 which hasn't been released, a GTX460 768mb overclocked to 900mhz will max out every single one of those games at your resolution. How exactly is the card not fast enough? The only game that may give you trouble is BF:BC2. All of the other games are a not intensive at all. In fact SC2 may be more CPU limited with the Athlon.
 

snarl

Member
Oct 10, 1999
61
0
61
The Phenom X6 1090 is an awesome chip IMHO, I'd think a HD6950 ot HD6970 would go well with it or from the NVidia side a GTX560 or GTX570.
 

Termie

Diamond Member
Aug 17, 2005
7,949
48
91
www.techbuyersguru.com
Your CPU is fine. Tomshardware.com did an article 5-6 months ago that basically showed that as long as you have a dual core CPU @3ghz, then you should only worry about GPU upgrades.

Ha, ha...hawtdawg and I disagree, but I won't get into it with him again! :)

I'll just post this article for the OP's consideration: http://techreport.com/articles.x/20486/4. This shows the maximum FPS that various CPUs can support at relatively low resolutions, tested on a GTX460 1GB. From it you'll see that your CPU can support at least 60fps in most games, so you are GPU-bound for all practical purposes.

There's no doubt you're very GPU-bound in BC2. An overclocked GTX460-768 can only push about 50fps in that game at your resolution.
 

Dice144

Senior member
Oct 22, 2010
654
1
81
There's no doubt you're very GPU-bound in BC2. An overclocked GTX460-768 can only push about 50fps in that game at your resolution.

Yeah when an explosion goes off I lag bad for a second and either get shot or get lucky and kill the attacker before I lag again. Using task manager shows less then 80% on all 6 cores. I overclocked my GPU to 830 but did not make alot of a difference over 720 stock. I should have spent the extra $30 and got the 1 GB 460 when I was upgrading. If I go much higher then 850 it is not 100% stable using EVGA precision test.