cpu and gpu bottleneck

[jgravance]

I know that my athlon 1700 will be a bottleneck for newer video cards, but im just wondering, how much of a bottleneck would it be for a 6600gt or a 6800nu?

 

[OnEMoReTrY]

a BIG bottleneck, that hardly even meets the minimum req's for HL2, and the minimum card for that is like a geforce 2...

 

[mwmorph]

get yourself a geforce 3 or 4 ti and be happy with that.

 

[Concillian]

It is highly dependent on the game.

For example with Battlefield: Vietnam, I had to take my AthlonXP down to 1200 MHz before I saw FRAPS framerates decrease at all in a range that was below the refresh rate of my monitor, but BFV is one of the least CPU dependent games I know of. Other games will see a more significant difference.

You have to guess to some extent. But looking at pages like this (latest AT article I could find that included the AXP):
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2275&p=10

You can see some examples of a few games that show a significant decrease in performance with the AXP. From the framerate information you can gather how close it is to 'acceptable' performance. For example in a game like BFV, where an AXP 3200+ is scoring 170 FPS, you have a ways to go before it's actually going to limit your performance (because you will set video options that will have a lower average framerate, probably in the 30-60 FPS range). But in games like Doom3, where the AXP 3200+ is showing 58, you have less margin before the CPU becomes the bottleneck.

The thing to realize about the CPU bottleneck is that it will be there no matter what video card you have. The worst you can do with a new card is about the performance you are getting now with your current card but at higher resolution and/or video quality settings. This is because CPU demands generally do not increase much, if at all, with increasing resolution and/or video quality settings.

I see nothing wrong with upgrading your video card and rolling the dice on the CPU bottleneck. If it's not the bottleneck, you clearly gain. If the CPU is indeed the bottleneck you STILL get a visual quality improvement unless you are currently already gaming at the max monitor resolution, and you can upgrade your CPU platform at a later date. The only thing you can't guarantee with a good video card upgrade is that you will see a speed improvement. Visual quality/resolution improvement is a guarantee.

You can use your game to verify if your CPU is the primary factor by scaling the resolution down a notch and seeing if performance gets a significant improvement. If performance does not significantly improve, it is likely a CPU issue. If it does, your GPU is limiting in your current games and you can verify you will get a speed AND quality improvement with a GPU upgrade.

 

[Concillian]

This article has an illustration of how you can isolate whether CPU performance or GPU performance is your bottleneck. It also illustrates how CPU demands don't tend to scale with resolution:
http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&number=4&artpage=912&articID=231

Scroll all the way down and look at the UT 2004 results at 640x480 no AA/AF and 1280x1024 4xAA/8xAF.
DM-Rankin is clearly GPU limited at 1280x1024 but not at 640x480. The 1280x1024 show FPS in the 185 range, and adding 600 MHz to CPU speed makes no difference
when you lower the resolution to 640x480, the game is capable of running DM-Rankin at 250+ FPS and the 600 MHz on the CPU shows improvement. This is the case where your GPU is the bottlenecck and you see a performance improvement as you lower the resolution.

The other case is that you are CPU limited and a new video card would allow you to increase visual quality with no penalty. This is the case with the AS-Convoy map.
640x480 performance is with 2% of the performance at 1280x1024. They almost doubled the resolution but got zero significant change in FPS. This illustrates that an upgrade in video card will at least gain you increase in resolution and/or video quality over a slower card.

So at the very least a video card will get you the speed you currently have but at higher resolution and or with AA/AF enabled. I have given you the tools to determine if you will get a speed increase or not. That is something you need to test on the games you play to determine. With that information you should now be armed to make an intelligent buying decision rather than take advice from people who are making rather rash and subjective recommendations.

 

[andy nowotny]

at least A64 3000+ or Intel P4 3.0G can match 6800 series

 

[modedepe]

It's going to be a pretty big performance hit. If it's a thoroughbred B try overclocking it. Otherwise, I'd get a 9700.

 

[Dman877]

Crank that 1700 up to 2.3 ghz and it'll run with those cards fine.

 

[MonkeyWrench4000]

If your mobo supports a 1700+ you could probablly run a 2400+ (266FSB) which can be had for like $50 if you can still find it. maybe thats an option? quick and easy.

 

[jgravance]

i guess ill try unlocking it, it has locked multipliers so ill have to bridge the gaps and all, but right now im running with 333 fsb, and its running great, but a little warm (55C) at 1.83. anyone know where theres a good tutorial on how to unlock an athlon xp?