CPU Bottlenecked?

[baddogg19901990]

I recently bought a new CPU and video card. While playing counter strike:source with my friend he told me that he was getting better FPS on older hardware and running at a higher resolution, I was getting about 50-60FPS. Here is my system:

Athlon X2 4600 windsor
2gig ram 800MHz
Radeon HD 4870
abit KN9 SLI mobo

 

[Andrew1990]

Ok, I am going to follow up on this as I am the friend he is talking about. Basically my friend here just bought his 4870 and a new power supply. At first he had a X2 3800+ Socket AM2 processor, and it wasnt getting the performance he expected. I then gave him my old 4600+ and it didnt make a bit of difference. We tried basically replacing everything in the system part by part and nothing seemed to up his fps in CSS. We tried the video card in my system and it worked a lot better than his system. We checked any heat problems, tried my ram in his sytem and even checked the Hard Drive. Here is the rough fps our systems got,

His Erratic FPS 40-70 De_Dust 2

Athlon X2 4600 Windsor 512K X 2
1024mb X 2 Ultra PC6400 Cas5 Memory Dual Channel
Diamond HD 4870 Video Card
Abit KN9 SLI Motherboard
800 Watt PSU with 2 28v rails

My System 80-120fps De_Dust 2
Rig in my Sig


Now the same thing happens in the Stress Test as well. I know my CPU is a bit better but it shouldnt matter that much should it? I even set the multiplier lower to match the speed of the 4600 and it still did better. He is a bit disappointed after buying all these new parts and I dont blame him.


I was just wondering if this is a CPU bottleneck issue or something more serious?

 

[footballrunner800]

yes you are bottlenecked by your cpu. you might have vsync on so that gives you 60fps but still the 4870 is a very powerful card. Try to overclock that x2.

 

[Andrew1990]

We checked to make sure Vsync was off before we did anything. He is able to get 100fps if he looks directly at the ground. I understand that it is bottlenecked, but wouldnt going from a 2.0GHz X2 3800+ to a 2.4GHz X2 4600+ show a little bit of improvement?

 

[darren1394]

I would say this is a normal CPu bottleneck there. Mostly because the HL2 engine is THE most CPU limited engines out there.
The X2 6000+ has 1MB L2 cache per core vs 512kb per. which is probably the most significant reason for your varying results, not to mention the 3ghz vs 2.4ghz.
Also, when you underclock the 6000+ mke sure that RAM speed (MHz) and RAM timings (CAS) are also the same as the other machine.
Going from 3800 to 4600 wouldn't be too noticeable because both still have 512kb L2 cache per core while only increasing by 400mhz clockspeed.

 

[Andrew1990]

Ok, I really didnt want to do this but I will probably just throw my 6000 in there to test it. It is a pain in the but to switch CPUs for testing but it seems like the only viable option at this point. Thank you for your replies and help. I will report back with the findings.