Did a gpu bottleneck get lifted slightly, or is this typical for an overclocked cpu?

[MonkeyFaces]

I have a 3ghz p4 prescott 630 3ghz @ stock. When I overclocked it to 3.6, my 7900gt sli setup gained an average of 5-10 fps running 3dmark. Was I being bottlenecked by my cpu, or is 3dmark a cpu dependant application? Would it be realistic to expect 200% of this performance boost upgrading to a Conroe?
Note: 3.6ghz seems to be the balance where my system runs stable while being overclocked, so I cant overclock it more.

 

[Maximilian]

Nope.

 

[TheRyuu]

Originally posted by: MonkeyFaces
I have a 3ghz p4 prescott 630 3ghz @ stock. When I overclocked it to 3.6, my 7900gt sli setup gained an average of 5-10 fps running 3dmark. Was I being bottlenecked by my cpu, or is 3dmark a cpu dependant application? Would it be realistic to expect 200% of this performance boost upgrading to a Conroe?
Note: 3.6ghz seems to be the balance where my system runs stable while being overclocked, so I cant overclock it more.

No, at normal resolutions with AA/AF your already GPU limited. A Conroe CPU will most likely only raise your max FPS and only by a little, your avg/min would stay pretty much the same.

 

[moonboy403]

games dependency in cpu is pretty much overrated

any reasonable cpu(amd 64 about 2.2ghz) would get you maximum performance or close to it in games given that you run your games at a resolution at or above 1280x1024

a cheapy amd64 would not differ all that much from a conroe at such resolutions (maybe 2-5fps at max but look at the difference in computing power!)

 

[lopri]

Which 3DMark? 01 and 05 will show big improvement with faster CPUs.

 

[moonboy403]

i suppose 3dmark01 would show a bigger improvement

with each new 3dmark that came out, gpu is more depended upon (more gpu limited)

 

[MonkeyFaces]

It was 3dmark 06. With all of the replies, im pretty sure I was being slightly bottlenecked by my cpu.
With an upgrade being unpractical for now, when would it be reasonable to jump on the dual core bandwagon? I recall something about dual core not ever being necessary if GPUs hit a bottleneck first at higher resolutions. Is that true?

 

[moonboy403]

as i said, an amd cpu about 2.2 ghz is all you need for it to not bottleneck the gpu which in reality, isn't all that powerful

as for jumping on dual core bandwagon, i think now's the perfect time if you have that "upgrade bug" inside ya. Prices of amd dual core are VERY low and they're all pretty good overclockers, but that's only if you already own an 939 socket board and not wanting to buy a whole new system with conroe.

 

[akshayt]

1)You are CPU limited more than GPU limited. In short, you are largely CPU limited.

2)3D MARK 2005/06 is a CPU intensive app.

3)You will largely be benefited by Core 2 Duo in some cases and marginally in some others. But avg difference may be between 20-40% not 200%.

 

[moonboy403]

Originally posted by: akshayt
1)You are CPU limited more than GPU limited. In short, you are largely CPU limited.

2)3D MARK 2005/06 is a CPU intensive app.

3)You will largely be benefited by Core 2 Duo in some cases and marginally in some others. But avg difference may be between 20-40% not 200%.

1) i don't think so (depends on resolution)

2) kinda true (only dual core gets a boost since 3dmark is capable of taking advantage of multithreading)

3) holds true only when someone games at 1024x768 or below, virtually no difference above that resolution especially at 1600x1200

 

[akshayt]

1)No, dude. You won't be able to go too high with this CPU, min FPS may just dip too low.

2)Single core overclocking also makes a huge diff.

3)Play Oblivion, a FX 62 plays with 3 notch shadows at 1600X1200 with AA and AF while E6700 gets 5 notches.

 

[akshayt]

1)No, dude. You won't be able to go too high with this CPU, min FPS may just dip too low.

2)Single core overclocking also makes a huge diff.

3)Play Oblivion, a FX 62 plays with 3 notch shadows at 1600X1200 with AA and AF while E6700 gets 5 notches.

 

[TanisHalfElven]

Originally posted by: akshayt
1)No, dude. You won't be able to go too high with this CPU, min FPS may just dip too low.

2)Single core overclocking also makes a huge diff.

3)Play Oblivion, a FX 62 plays with 3 notch shadows at 1600X1200 with AA and AF while E6700 gets 5 notches.

wtf. you think oblivions shadows are cpu limited. ha. hahahaha. at 1600x1200. dude get a brain.

 

[akshayt]

This is not what I say.

This is what the reviews at HardOCP showed where they tested Core 2 Duo against FX 62 at high settings, and there came the diff between the 2. Go see for yourself.

 

[moonboy403]

only the city areas in oblivion is cpu dependent, hence the difference

and if you look at firingsquad, they showed that with a amd64 3500+(a cheapie cpu), it's dead even with the core 2 extreme EXCEPT for the city area

 

[t73]

You've disappoint me guys
Thought upgrading my 2.6c P4 to a 3.4 along w/Mems (512M to 2G) would be great for say 2-3y, but after reading this, well I don't know
Maybe I'll better off do some savings and buy a new rig next year, seems like a waste to upgrade...

 

[brikis98]

for gaming, my experience has been that the following order of upgrades gains you the most performance gain:

1. Video card (best bang for the buck)
2. RAM (assuming you have < 1GB)
3. CPU
4. HD and most other components (worst bang for the buck)

however, a new - especially dual core - CPU has great benefits outside of gaming, such as giving you a much more responsive computer that can multitask very effectively.

 

[moonboy403]

however, a new - especially dual core - CPU has great benefits outside of gaming, such as giving you a much more responsive computer that can multitask very effectively.

i totally agree

 

[HomeyFoos]

But isn't all of this severly limited by the OS's (XP) use of dual cores? I still have to manually set my affinity for some games to work properly. I.E. Madden online is completely lagged down and staggared unless I alt-tab out and set the affinity. I was having trouble and someone else w/ a dual-core got me straightened out. Only people with the AMD Optimizer and dual cores are having this trouble. So while I really like having 2 cores, the Software is WAY behind the hardware at this time and as such, the benefits to having dual cores can be rivaled by the inconvenience, no?

 

[brikis98]

i haven't noticed any game get slower from dual core and i never bother to set affinity... of course, that doesn't mean certain games won't have issues w/ multiple cores (esp games that are prob ports from consoles), but overall, it hasn't been an issue. in fact, you can tweak some games (HL 2, Oblivion, etc) to take advantage of dual core and run a bit faster.

 

[MonkeyFaces]

With core 2 duo, would an overall 40% performance increase by expected? I'm asking because I was talking about 200% of my 5-10fps bonus.

 

[TanisHalfElven]

in some games maybe. but only if you are playing at really really lowres.
other apps like encoding and stuff will be waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay faster.

 

[akshayt]

you won't get 40% diff at anything higher than 10X7, and I am not sure whether max settings or med or low on that res.