Going to buy an 8800GT 512mb. Will my CPU hold me back?

[ToneDeth]

I'm going to be using this comp mainly for gaming, but also for some media. I'm on a pretty tight budget. I already have a monitor, optical drive and keyboard/mouse peripherals. This is what I am leaning towards so far for my build:

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Brisbane 2.3GHz Socket AM2 65W Processor

MOBO: GIGABYTE GA-M61P-S3 AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 ATX or ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI MCP ATX

If I go Intel:

CPU: Intel Pentium E2200 Allendale 2.2GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor

MOBO: MSI P35 Neo2-FR LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard

And this is the case I just bought: Cooler Master Centurion 5

I just want to know that I am not limiting my card too greatly. Also if anybody can give me any recommendations for PSU and HDD that would be awesome. Any advice will be appreciated!

Edit: I am planning on doing a little overclocking.

 

[XBoxLPU]

I would go the Intel route with one of the new 45nm chips coming out soon

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2138864&enterthread=y

 

[Cheex]

Any Core2-based CPU @ ~3GHz (or higher) will be enough not to bottleneck your system.


PS: Welcome to the AnandTech Forums!!

 

[ja1484]

Most of the scaling benchies I've seen seem to show that the 8800GT doesn't really care what you have as long as it's multi-core and 2.5Ghz or higher.

 

[ToneDeth]

Thank ya! I'm expecting to find lots of useful (and probably some useless) info here. Love the site so far!

 

[heyheybooboo]

Topic: Going to buy an 8800GT 512mb. Will my CPU hold me back?

What resolution, games and settings?

I don't think it's going to matter a great deal either way unless you go to extremes on the above.

And if you are on a budget the e2160 would save you a few bucks on the Intel side. Some folks here are getting pretty good OCs with it.

 

[angry hampster]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo

And if you are on a budget the e2160 would save you a few bucks on the Intel side. Some folks here are getting pretty good OCs with it.

Agreed. I've seen lots of people getting 3GHz+ on stock cooling with a P35 board. I'd recommend that over the AMD setup you mentioned, OP.

 

[skillyho]

While the Intel route would be better, if you do go AMD that Brisbane should do 2.8-2.9 pretty easily with any luck and if you're at 1280x1024 you'd be covered...probably good up to 1680x1050 as well.

AMD needs your money anyway....

 

[Angerisagift]

If you don't mind spending a bit more, I've heard of people with e6750's that out peform some quads in gaming @ stock speeds, supposed to be a really good scaler too I think I heard of 3.6 and 3.8 stable on air

otherwise I've heard nothing but good things about the e2160's but only worthwhile if OC'ed, otherwise from the benchmarks I've seen at stock speeds not so great.

 

[ToneDeth]

Yeah I'm not going to be running at highest resolution, I just want to be able to run the most current games at a decent resolution. I'm not a hard-core gamer, but I like to play the occasional Bioshock and COD4 every once and a while.

 

[ToneDeth]

But will I be limited by the low cache and mulitiplier on the e2160? Although I guess I'm risking that on the others as well.

Plus, do overclocking these processors lessen the lifespan much? I've read several theories from different websites and no one seems to give a definitive answer.

 

[Angerisagift]

I'm not expert but in theory if you run voltages below a certain threshold and keep it cool you aren't wearing out the hardware much more than if you ran it at stock clocks and voltage, but I typically pay the premium for higher stock clock speeds myself, because I know it might be a few years before I can upgrade again so I like to make my chips last as long as is possible.

 

[BadBrad]

If your leaning twords AMD you might consider the 5000+ Black Edition that's just recently come down to 100 bucks delivered from the Egg. It has an unlocked multiplier and OCs to 3.2 gig on stock volts.

 

[sutahz]

http://www.pconline.com.cn/diy...ews/0704/993288_3.html
In the cpu/overclocking forum someone asked what the difference between a e2160 and e6750 both running at 3GHz was. Someone gave that link. As you can see the 3GHz A64 doesnt fare too bad at all. So ToneDeth, it seems to come down to what motherboard you like best &/or which combo will cost the least.

 

[WaTaGuMp]

Originally posted by: ToneDeth
But will I be limited by the low cache and mulitiplier on the e2160? Although I guess I'm risking that on the others as well.

Plus, do overclocking these processors lessen the lifespan much? I've read several theories from different websites and no one seems to give a definitive answer.

The reduced life span is due to increased voltage, its not really something to worry about now a days, the chips run nice and cool,you can OC well with voltage even at stock so its even less of a worry. Most CPU's are going to outlast the life span long before you decide to upgrade. Just get yourself a nice Intel chip and you will be more then happy.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

Originally posted by: skillyho
While the Intel route would be better, if you do go AMD that Brisbane should do 2.8-2.9 pretty easily with any luck and if you're at 1280x1024 you'd be covered...probably good up to 1680x1050 as well.

AMD needs your money anyway....

I got 2.8 on mine with 2.929 being the absolute limit with my Biostar board. 1.43Vcore though.

 

[ToneDeth]

Originally posted by: BadBrad
If your leaning twords AMD you might consider the 5000+ Black Edition that's just recently come down to 100 bucks delivered from the Egg. It has an unlocked multiplier and OCs to 3.2 gig on stock volts.

Funny you should mention it. I just bought that same exact processor from the Egg and comboed it with a 250g Seagate with 16mb cache for 130 out the door. It seemes like a good deal. Glad to know I made the right call!

 

[chizow]

Faster is better, more L2 matters. There's a bunch of benchmarks that show the 1MB Core2s are pretty cache crippled in games compared to the 2MB/4MB versions and there's also a few that show more MHz and cores does benefit. Crysis is one for instance in AT's Tri-SLI review where they saw scaling CPU performance up to ~3.8GHz? until the QX9650 started throttling down due to heat.

I've also seen performance benefits with faster/more cores when running FRAPs in Vista. FRAPs takes a ton of CPU cycles in Vista for some reason, with a C2D @ 3.1GHz I'd often see both cores pegged at 100%, resulting in choppy gameplay. With a C2Q @ 3.5GHz Core 1 is typically 80% with the other Cores spread between 30-50% utilization.

The Quad is kinda weird though, for most games it'll use 100% of Core 1 and small percentages of cores 2-4, but if I go into Processes and simply bring up Affinity settings, and just confirm, then go back into the game, the load balances out between all 4 cores. No noticeable impact on gameplay, but in some games, like The Witcher, I would see 100% utilization on Core 1 and 70-80% of Core 2 for a total of 80-85% CPU utlization.

So, in summary, I'd go for a CPU that overclocks well and as much actual CPU as your budget will allow. Currently there's no better deals imo than a Q6600 for $275. Quad Penryns are around the corner sure, but the higher FSB and lower multipliers are just going to eat into your OC'ing headroom and force you to get faster RAM.

 

[nullpointerus]

Originally posted by: chizow

So, in summary, I'd go for a CPU that overclocks well and as much actual CPU as your budget will allow. Currently there's no better deals imo than a Q6600 for $275. Quad Penryns are around the corner sure, but the higher FSB and lower multipliers are just going to eat into your OC'ing headroom and force you to get faster RAM.

What do you think of the Quad Phenom 9500 that's ~$190? and for overclocking?

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: nullpointerus

Originally posted by: chizow

So, in summary, I'd go for a CPU that overclocks well and as much actual CPU as your budget will allow. Currently there's no better deals imo than a Q6600 for $275. Quad Penryns are around the corner sure, but the higher FSB and lower multipliers are just going to eat into your OC'ing headroom and force you to get faster RAM.

What do you think of the Quad Phenom 9500 that's ~$190? and for overclocking?

Hmmm, well from the AT Phenom preview and the whole errata mess at higher clocks, I'm not sure how well it would OC. Honestly I'd only recommend it if you 1) had an AM2 board already and 2) it can hit 3GHz (with or without errata). Otherwise it'd probably still be better to use an X2 that could hit 3GHz, as I'm pretty sure they can. Quad is still only useful over Duo in certain instances, for me it was an improvement because all cores ran at a higher clockspeed (1x multi worth), I doubled my L2 cache, and I doubled my cores, probably in that priority in terms of performance benefit in general usage and gaming.

The main deciding factor imo is that the Intel Core2-based chips across the board (even the $60 ones) can hit 3GHz+ with relative ease and are generally faster than AMD chips clock for clock too. I think for most, even die-hard AMD fans, that kind of "guaranteed" performance is too much to ignore.