CPU bottleneck question

[Indus]

Will a C2D E6550 bottleneck a GTX 260 @ 1680 x 1050?

Case in point, I tried overclocking my video card and got 0 more fps. I'm wondering if my CPU is to blame or at that resolution there is no gains from the card. 136 FPS no oc, 136 full overclock.

However the reason I'm asking because in the game I play Aion.. I get massive lag at raids in fortresses and I get under 15 fps and under 30 if I make everyone invisible but me.

Is my cpu to blame?

If you need my exact rig specs for reference, look in my sig.

 

[error8]

*deleted

 

[cbn]

Will a C2D E6550 bottleneck a GTX 260 @ 1680 x 1050?

Case in point, I tried overclocking my video card and got 0 more fps. I'm wondering if my CPU is to blame or at that resolution there is no gains from the card. 136 FPS no oc, 136 full overclock.

However the reason I'm asking because in the game I play Aion.. I get massive lag at raids in fortresses and I get under 15 fps and under 30 if I make everyone invisible but me.

Is my cpu to blame?

If you need my exact rig specs for reference, look in my sig.

Without looking at the required specs of the game....

Do the same raids with your resolution turned down to 800x600/low detail settings/no AA or AF.

If you get the same slow downs you definitely know your problem lies elsewhere.

 

[Indus]

Without looking at the required specs of the game....

Do the same raids with your resolution turned down to 800x600/low detail settings/no AA or AF.

If you get the same slow downs you definitely know your problem lies elsewhere.

I can't play 800 x 600 but I did that in 1280 x 800 (lowest allowed), and its the same framerate.

You said problem lies elsewhere.. where?

 

[v8envy]

Not the video card. Which leaves I/O, memory or CPU.

If your CPU is overclocked then clock it at stock and see if your frame rates drop by the same %. If it's stock clocked, overclock it and look for performance improvements.

A quick and dirty test would be to run windowed with task manager up. If your CPU usage spikes to 100% on all cores as your frame rates drop -- there you go. If only one CPU spikes to 100% then you've identified single core performance as your bottleneck.

 

[Indus]

Not the video card. Which leaves I/O, memory or CPU.

If your CPU is overclocked then clock it at stock and see if your frame rates drop by the same %. If it's stock clocked, overclock it and look for performance improvements.

A quick and dirty test would be to run windowed with task manager up. If your CPU usage spikes to 100% on all cores as your frame rates drop -- there you go. If only one CPU spikes to 100% then you've identified single core performance as your bottleneck.

I have a g15 keyboard so I can monitor it, It generally stays at 65-75% usuage, the peak is 92% but never 100%.

And yes it is overclocked.. E6550 2.33 stock running @ 2.93

 

[ScorcherDarkly]

They did an interesting article at Tom's Hardware a few days ago about bottlenecks between a CPU and GPU, and used an E6300 and a GTX 260 as part of it. While using the GTX 260, they found moving from a E6300 to a C2D E8400 increased the number of times they met their stated fps goal from 10 times to 16 times, indicating a CPU bottleneck. Further moving up to a Q9550 and an i7 920 didn't produce any better results, indicating a GPU bottleneck. The parts are similar enough to yours that it may be analogous for you.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-balanced-platform,2469.html

 

[talonz]

They did an interesting article at Tom's Hardware a few days ago about bottlenecks between a CPU and GPU, and used an E6300 and a GTX 260 as part of it. While using the GTX 260, they found moving from a E6300 to a C2D E8400 increased the number of times they met their stated fps goal from 10 times to 16 times, indicating a CPU bottleneck. Further moving up to a Q9550 and an i7 920 didn't produce any better results, indicating a GPU bottleneck. The parts are similar enough to yours that it may be analogous for you.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-balanced-platform,2469.html

Ditto, the lesson to be taken away is cache!

 

[Indus]

They did an interesting article at Tom's Hardware a few days ago about bottlenecks between a CPU and GPU, and used an E6300 and a GTX 260 as part of it. While using the GTX 260, they found moving from a E6300 to a C2D E8400 increased the number of times they met their stated fps goal from 10 times to 16 times, indicating a CPU bottleneck. Further moving up to a Q9550 and an i7 920 didn't produce any better results, indicating a GPU bottleneck. The parts are similar enough to yours that it may be analogous for you.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-balanced-platform,2469.html

Ditto, the lesson to be taken away is cache!

You both maybe right except mine has a 4 MB cache not a 2. Its an E6550 conroe so 2nd generation and wolfdale is a 3rd with 6 mb cache. And since I'm talking about Aion.. not all games scale the same way. I mean crysis showed GPU bottleneck. The other games showed CPU bottleneck and they're FPS not mmorpgs. But a thing to notice is Aion is made on the CRYTEK engine and so is Crysis.

I can totally believe the 2MB cache not doing the job and creating a bottleneck yes but I feel 4 MB should be enough.

So I'm really confused.. CPU or GPU hehehe

And the worst part is sometimes I get 150 fps.. but I don't care about getting 150, I just don't want to get under 30 and at raids its lagging, stuttering which I hate.

So anyways any new suggestions or fixes?

 

[betasub]

A quick and dirty test would be to run windowed with task manager up. If your CPU usage spikes to 100% on all cores as your frame rates drop -- there you go. If only one CPU spikes to 100% then you've identified single core performance as your bottleneck.

I agree with the idea, but in the latter case doesn't OS load balancing cause Task Manager to report 100/cores? i.e. ~50% on both cores of a dual core.

Question for OP: network lag?

 

[Indus]

I agree with the idea, but in the latter case doesn't OS load balancing cause Task Manager to report 100/cores? i.e. ~50% on both cores of a dual core.

Question for OP: network lag?

Quite possible at the server, but that would affect framerate?