How bottlenecked will this be?

[BFG10K]

your results certainly dont reflect the differences many games really show when using different cpu speeds.

Actually yes, they do. I tested 16 games and I tested them properly, unlike you who tested one game, and didn’t even have a constant underclock.

my numbers seem right in line with what sites like pcgh get when they do a cpu benchmark for a game where yours do not.

What PCGH gets? Maybe at 1680x1050 with no AA. Change that to 1920x1200 with some AA and you’ll see something completely different.

I also play through different levels at the lower cpu speeds to see what real world difference are there. in games like Far Cry 2, Red Faction Guerrilla, RE5, Ghostbusters, Batman AA, Crysis and others show a very significant framerate drop. some of those games become noticeably sluggish at times and games like Ghostbusters, GTA 4 and Red Faction Guerrilla become almost unplayable during action.

Please, show me some benchmarks run at reasonable detail levels to back those claims. I’ve already provided Crysis and Far Cry 2 benchmarks that showed little movement from dropping down to 2 GHz, while dropping the GPU down showed a massive performance drop.

And when I say “reasonable”, I don’t mean 1680x1050 with no AA. That’s not reasonable for someone with a 4 GH i7.

sticking a 5850 with a cpu like a 5600 X2 is still a very big waste of what that video card can do.

Providing you run at high enough details, this is absolutely false. You still do not comprehend just how GPU limited modern games are at reasonable detail levels. You’ve been conditioned to believe that low resolution benchmarks without AA are somehow relevant to anything.

We’ve already seen Tom’s Hardware demonstrating similar flat-lining with GPUs, and Apoppin has run benchmarks with plenty of quad-core processors at different MHz speeds, and saw the same flat-lining.

Additionally, here’s an excellent review digit-life did that clearly demonstrates flat-lining past two cores in many games (including Far Cry 2 and Crysis):

http://ixbtlabs.com/articles3/video/quadcore-p1.html

The fact is, you haven’t produced any legitimate results to back your claims at done at reasonable detail levels, so you resort to showing us 1680x1050 without AA in the hopes that people won’t notice.

 

[toyota]

Actually yes, they do. I tested 16 games and I tested them properly, unlike you who tested one game, and didn’t even have a constant underclock.


What PCGH gets? Maybe at 1680x1050 with no AA. Change that to 1920x1200 with some AA and you’ll see something completely different.


Please, show me some benchmarks run at reasonable detail levels to back those claims. I’ve already provided Crysis and Far Cry 2 benchmarks that showed little movement from dropping down to 2 GHz, while dropping the GPU down showed a massive performance drop.

And when I say “reasonable”, I don’t mean 1680x1050 with no AA. That’s not reasonable for someone with a 4 GH i7.


Providing you run at high enough details, this is absolutely false. You still do not comprehend just how GPU limited modern games are at reasonable detail levels. You’ve been conditioned to believe that low resolution benchmarks without AA are somehow relevant to anything.

We’ve already seen Tom’s Hardware demonstrating similar flat-lining with GPUs, and Apoppin has run benchmarks with plenty of quad-core processors at different MHz speeds, and saw the same flat-lining.

Additionally, here’s an excellent review digit-life did that clearly demonstrates flat-lining past two cores in many games (including Far Cry 2 and Crysis):

http://ixbtlabs.com/articles3/video/quadcore-p1.html

The fact is, you haven’t produced any legitimate results to back your claims at done at reasonable detail levels, so you resort to showing us 1680x1050 without AA in the hopes that people won’t notice.

you can think whatever you want. I personally test all my games at 1920x1080 and a regardless of what you claim a cpu like his will bottleneck the crap out of a 5850 especially when it comes to minimum framerates. you can keep comparing a video card at different speeds where I was mainly focusing on how much actual performance would go to waste using cpu equivalent to his. considering just how much I lose even with a gtx260 then having a video card twice as fast would be a gigantic waste of its performance. but even using your type of benching in RE5, FEAR 2, Ghosbusters, Red Faction Guerrilla and some other games I get better performance an with my cpu at 3.16 and gpu at 465/971/1620 then I do with my cpu at 1.8(equal to his 5600 X2) and gpu at 666/1392/2200.

 

[decadentia84]

Well, appreciate all of the feedback and information in this thread, i'm sure its been a source of information for quite a few people...

Just an update, I ordered the following tonight

i5 750
Gigabyte P55-UD3R
G-Skill Ripjaws 4GB DDR3 1600
Coolermaster Hyper 212 HSF

So here's hoping for a good overclock and hopefully a cheaper 5850 in the near future.

 

[MrK6]

Excellent choices, you'll see a tremendous improvement .

 

[toyota]

Well, appreciate all of the feedback and information in this thread, i'm sure its been a source of information for quite a few people...

Just an update, I ordered the following tonight

i5 750
Gigabyte P55-UD3R
G-Skill Ripjaws 4GB DDR3 1600
Coolermaster Hyper 212 HSF

So here's hoping for a good overclock and hopefully a cheaper 5850 in the near future.

looks good and that will give you a very nice platform to upgrade gpus on for quite a while. thats the cpu and mobo I am thinking about going with myself. hopefully the higher end DX11 gpu situation will get better within a couple of months.

 

[decadentia84]

I understand this is primarily a GPU forum, but can anyone tell me if there would be a significant performance increase between stock i5 750 and say one clocked at 3.8ghz?

I'm guessing you'd see hopefully at least 25% increase?

Excited for my new parts to arrive :biggrin:

 

[lopri]

I understand this is primarily a GPU forum, but can anyone tell me if there would be a significant performance increase between stock i5 750 and say one clocked at 3.8ghz?

You'll see zero difference.

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3682&p=12

Edit: Sorry I didn't mean to be sarcastic towards your excitement. i7-750 is an excellent CPU and you use your computer not just for games, and as has been mentioned it'll serve you for a long time to come. But the reality is that CPU matters little compared to GPU when it comes to gaming.

 

[myocardia]

I understand this is primarily a GPU forum, but can anyone tell me if there would be a significant performance increase between stock i5 750 and say one clocked at 3.8ghz?

I'm guessing you'd see hopefully at least 25% increase?

With which card? With the 8800GT, you'll see zero improvement with anything other than Microsoft's FSX. With a 5850, you'll see a significant improvement in some games*, although it won't be anywhere near a 1:1 ratio with your CPU overclock.


*This also depends on whether or not you're the average 16 year old who thinks that 72x MSAA is nowhere near enough. If you are, you'll still see zero improvement in FPS.

 

[toyota]

You'll see zero difference.

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3682&p=12

Edit: Sorry I didn't mean to be sarcastic towards your excitement. i7-750 is an excellent CPU and you use your computer not just for games, and as has been mentioned it'll serve you for a long time to come. But the reality is that CPU matters little compared to GPU when it comes to gaming.

with a 5850 going from a 5600 X2 to an i5 it most certainly does matter a lot.

 

[lopri]

@Toyota: Maybe you shouldn't read so selectively when you quote someone's post.

I understand this is primarily a GPU forum, but can anyone tell me if there would be a significant performance increase between stock i5 750 and say one clocked at 3.8ghz?

 

[toyota]

@Toyota: Maybe you shouldn't read so selectively when you quote someone's post.

I read your post carefully and to me you looked to be making a blanket statement about cpus/gpus for gaming.

 

[lopri]

Reading minds, eh? Or maybe you're reading what you want to read. I originally answered the OP's question with a single sentence then realized that I might have sounded too cold on his new purchase so i edited my post.

Edit: Oh and X2 5600 was absolutely not on my mind when I posted the above.

 

[toyota]

Reading minds, eh? Or maybe you're reading what you want to read. I originally answered the OP's question with a single sentence then realized that I might have sounded too cold on his new purchase so i edited my post.

Edit: Oh and X2 5600 was absolutely not on my mind when I posted the above.

maybe you are having trouble reading my comments too. lol. I was saying that "to me it looked" like you were saying that. just because you "meant" something when you typed it doesnt mean someone else cant interpret it differently. I simply misunderstood your comment because the way it was written gave me a different impression than what you meant. are we good now?

 

[cbn]

Well, appreciate all of the feedback and information in this thread, i'm sure its been a source of information for quite a few people...

Just an update, I ordered the following tonight

i5 750
Gigabyte P55-UD3R
G-Skill Ripjaws 4GB DDR3 1600
Coolermaster Hyper 212 HSF

So here's hoping for a good overclock and hopefully a cheaper 5850 in the near future.

Are you planning on running Eyefinity with this? 1080p monitors are really dropping in price now (Fry's has the viewsonic 23" for $119 AR )

 

[WildW]

I know we don't love Tom's any more, but found an interesting review showing clear CPU bottlenecking of a lowly HD4650 by an Athlon X2 3800 (2GHz. . .the 5600 is what, 2.8?)

Particularly http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-4650-agp,2383-5.html

The review is partially focussed on examining limitations of AGP, but the PCIe version shows the same apparent bottlenecking (fps cap unaffected by resolution.) There are other potential issues at work here - DDR1 ram for instance, but the effect looks real enough.

 

[SRoode]

Well, appreciate all of the feedback and information in this thread, i'm sure its been a source of information for quite a few people...

Just an update, I ordered the following tonight

i5 750
Gigabyte P55-UD3R
G-Skill Ripjaws 4GB DDR3 1600
Coolermaster Hyper 212 HSF

So here's hoping for a good overclock and hopefully a cheaper 5850 in the near future.

In your original post you said you ordered the 5850. Did you cancel that order? If you did, I think you will see very little improvement in games at your stated resolution from what you had before (maybe 20% which will not be noticeable). If you are ALSO getting the 5850, you will see a HUGE improvement (more than double the frame rate).

I am speaking from experience. I have a Q6600 (at 3.2 GHz) and went from a 8800GT to the 5850. Most games doubled in frame rates at 1920x1200.

 

[evolucion8]

Good buy, I don't understand why people stated that your old Athlon X2 running at 2.80GHz was much slower than a 1.80GHz Core 2 Duo, that's whishful thinking. The K8 architecture is slower in a per clock basis compared to a Core 2 Duo, but we are talking about the K8, not a Pentium 4. Your old CPU at 2.80GHz can be competitive compared to a Core 2 Duo running at 2.13-2.2GHz with its full 2MB of cache. Unlike the Core 2 Architecture, cache makes little difference in the K8's in regards of performance thanks to it's integrated memory controller.

But hopefully, prices will fall and you should be able to get a HD 5850 which is a monumental leap from your current 8800GT, heck, even the HD 4890 is considerably faster than it.

 

[Arkaign]

Good buy, I don't understand why people stated that your old Athlon X2 running at 2.80GHz was much slower than a 1.80GHz Core 2 Duo, that's whishful thinking. The K8 architecture is slower in a per clock basis compared to a Core 2 Duo, but we are talking about the K8, not a Pentium 4. Your old CPU at 2.80GHz can be competitive compared to a Core 2 Duo running at 2.2-2.4GHz with its full 4MB of cache. Unlike the Core 2 Architecture, cache makes little difference in the K8's in regards of performance thanks to it's integrated memory controller.

But hopefully, prices will fall and you should be able to get a HD 5850 which is a monumental leap from your current 8800GT, heck, even the HD 4890 is considerably faster than it.

I don't think anyone said that a 2.8 X2 was 'much slower than a 1.8 C2D'.

What is true though, is that looking at the Anandtech review of the E6300 and E6400, is that the 2.13ghz E6400 w/2MB L2 on 1066FSB was a shade faster then the 2.6ghz X2, and just a hair slower than the 2.8ghz X2. The 4MB C2Ds (E6600 and above) just run away with it, let alone the newer ones with 6MB L2 / 1333FSB (Wolfdale E8xxx's)

Given that the E6300/6400 came out well over three years ago (and they weren't top of the line then, either), the even-older X2 Athlons are pretty worn out to be used for gaming with a new high-end video card.

 

[decadentia84]

In your original post you said you ordered the 5850. Did you cancel that order? If you did, I think you will see very little improvement in games at your stated resolution from what you had before (maybe 20% which will not be noticeable). If you are ALSO getting the 5850, you will see a HUGE improvement (more than double the frame rate).

I am speaking from experience. I have a Q6600 (at 3.2 GHz) and went from a 8800GT to the 5850. Most games doubled in frame rates at 1920x1200.

I did cancel it, i'll be ordering another one around xmas (or perhaps sooner). (I should have mentioned this if I haven't already, thus why Toyota thought I already had it, because I said I already ordered ) The brand I ordered (Gigabyte) from ncix had been back logged the last month or so. They have Sapphires available now, so if I can't wait to see if prices drop I will order one.

I saw a deal on the i5 750/ram/mobo so i grabbed it. I'm not incredibly worried about my current video card, it's only a matter of time. Sorry for the confusion

P.S Appreciate the help/comments from Toyota/BFG and everyone, lot of interesting information and helped me with my choices.

 

[decadentia84]

Are you planning on running Eyefinity with this? 1080p monitors are really dropping in price now (Fry's has the viewsonic 23" for $119 AR )

Wasn't planning on it, I have a Acer 24' right now. I was almost considering going to a 32' 1080P TV. Unsure about it though, I don't know how pixelated everything would look/if my eyes could take it. I haven't read a ton about Eyefinity yet, but i'm not a fan right off the bat of the gap between the monitors (the outside of your monitor). Aesthetics I know, just my first impression.

 

[AzN]

you can think whatever you want. I personally test all my games at 1920x1080 and a regardless of what you claim a cpu like his will bottleneck the crap out of a 5850 especially when it comes to minimum framerates. you can keep comparing a video card at different speeds where I was mainly focusing on how much actual performance would go to waste using cpu equivalent to his. considering just how much I lose even with a gtx260 then having a video card twice as fast would be a gigantic waste of its performance. but even using your type of benching in RE5, FEAR 2, Ghosbusters, Red Faction Guerrilla and some other games I get better performance an with my cpu at 3.16 and gpu at 465/971/1620 then I do with my cpu at 1.8(equal to his 5600 X2) and gpu at 666/1392/2200.

LOL. As much as I debate with BFG this is something I completely agree with. Couple games maybe like GTA4 and few bad console ports and the likes of MMO. Games are relatively incline to your GPU not CPU especially at higher resolutions.

GTX260 is definitely enough for 1920x1080 as I have one which might make you think CPU makes a bit of difference just like your 8600gt fiasco and crysis. Few frames here and there with faster CPU sure but not as much as GPU limited situations. You can pump all the CPU in a game like Crysis and it still won't make any difference unless you pump more GPU. Games tank when GPU aren't able like the OP's 8800gt at the requested resolution. It's just not enough. 2.0 ghz C2D might be on the slower side with all the modern CPU's out there but it really isn't slow enough for games especially at higher resolution where that bottleneck shifts to GPU not CPU.

 

[toyota]

LOL. As much as I debate with BFG this is something I completely agree with. Couple games maybe like GTA4 and few bad console ports and the likes of MMO. Games are relatively incline to your GPU not CPU especially at higher resolutions.

GTX260 is definitely enough for 1920x1080 as I have one which might make you think CPU makes a bit of difference just like your 8600gt fiasco and crysis. Few frames here and there with faster CPU sure but not as much as GPU limited situations. You can pump all the CPU in a game like Crysis and it still won't make any difference unless you pump more GPU. Games tank when GPU aren't able like the OP's 8800gt at the requested resolution. It's just not enough. 2.0 ghz C2D might be on the slower side with all the modern CPU's out there but it really isn't slow enough for games especially at higher resolution where that bottleneck shifts to GPU not CPU.

it does shift in those games that I listed. again my point is using a 5850 with a 5600 X2 is that a crap load of performance will be going down the drain and that is a fact.

 

[AzN]

it does shift in those games that I listed. again my point is using a 5850 with a 5600 X2 is that a crap load of performance will be going down the drain and that is a fact.

Yes few bad console ports that doesn't take advantage of modern GPU. It still doesn't make it a fact.

I don't know about down the drain but more performances could be had. Either way you are eliminating most of the GPU bottleneck that make games a lot more smoother than 8800gt @ 1920 and a i7 compared to 5850 and 2ghz core 2 duo.

 

[SRoode]

Having owned both an 8800GT and a 5850 (with a "slow" Q6600@3.2GHz), I can tell you 1st hand that the newer video card doubled my frames per second at 1920x1200 with most games. It's a fact because I have personally seen it.

 

[toyota]

Having owned both an 8800GT and a 5850 (with a "slow" Q6600@3.2GHz), I can tell you 1st hand that the newer video card doubled my frames per second at 1920x1200 with most games. It's a fact because I have personally seen it.

if you think his 5600 X2 is remotely as fast as your Q6600@3.2 even in games that dont use more than 2 cores then you are very mistaken. turn off two of your cores and lower your cpu to 2.0 and you will still equal or in most cases outperform a 2.8 5600 X2.