CPU bottleneck

[spittledip]

With an athlon 64 3800 with a tiny oc to 2600 (the chip was a sucky oc), should I avoid buying high end video cards due to bottlenecking? Would an 8800GTX be bottlenecked to a significant degree by this cpu? If so, what is the highest video card would not be bottlenecked? REsolution would be around 1280 by 1024 during gaming sessions.


thanks

 

[fire400]

yeah your CPU will hold it back

an E4300 clocked passed 3 GHz barely matches a stock x6800

i'd say get the 4mb E6350w/3rd party cooler and overclock it on an Asus 975 @ 200 USD with DDR800 XMS - if you want the 8800GTX

 

[RussianSensation]

I think even if the bottleneck was minimal, it's fair to say an 8800GTS 640 or even 320mb card is sufficient to play today's games smoothly at 1280x1024. 8800GTX is more suitable for 1600x1200, 1920x1200 and higher resolutions.

Therefore even if you had X6800 I would not recommend for you to get 8800GTX if you intended to play at 1280x1024 at most.

 

[spittledip]

Thanks for the responses

I need to clarify- I will only be getting a new GPU

How about an 8800GTS?

edit: oops, you recommended the GTS

 

[Captante]

While your CPU will hold an 8800GTX back somwhat, as stated the most important consideration is the resolution you game at ... if you had a large moniter & gamed at a minimum of 1680x1050 (or plan on upgrading to one in the near future) then it might be worth it.

Keep in mind that not only does the performance advantage of the GTX over the GTS on any system increase as resolution goes up, but the higher the resolution & detail settings go the less of a factor CPU speed is & at some point almost every system becomes GPU-limited ... for example at 1920x1200 the difference between the fastest C2D & say a 4800+ X2 becomes pretty small in most games.

 

[kmmatney]

While having a faster cpu will "help" in games, your 3800 shouldn't be too much of a bottleneck. I went from an Athlon 3400+ at 2.5 Ghz, to a my current E4400, and my games didn't improve that much, except Oblivion is a bit smoother. The video card will make a much larger impact than the cpu for most games. I think the 8800GTS would be a better match, though.

 

[undeclared]

Hmm, I would just upgrade to an X2 and the bottleneck will barely be noticeable anymore (assuming newer games can take advantage)

I don't really even think there is a huge bottleneck, but I suppose it exists on some level..

Just keep in mind this fact.. If you have a really good GPU, you'll probably be arguing with your friend about how he gets 200 fps and you get 100 (Worst case scenario), but the eye can only see visually 75 fps I believe..

As in - games will run great. Don't worry.