How to check whether my cpu is bottle necking my other component?

[hunkeelin]

my cpu is quite old a phenom II x4 945 3.0ghz no over clock

my gpu is 2x6970 crossfire.

mobo: ud3 990x

ram: Kingston 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) x4 (16 gb ram total)

ssd: ocz vertex III max iops

psu: 1000w gold series cooler master silence pro.

my monitor is just 1920 x 1080 samsung 27inch 1080p 60hz

i use this computer for gaming
list of games i want to max out
1) witcher 2
2) bf3
3) crysis 1 2 warhead
4) bad company
5) etc.. etc.. all those high end games


So the question is.
1)is my ram bottle necking anything in my system?
2) is my cpu bottle necking anything in my system?
3) any suggestions for upgrade? and if i upgrade it what performance gain i will be seeing/expecting?
4) what is the program that checks how much usage i am using on cpu and gpu?

 

[Puppies04]

Overclock your CPU > If frame rates don't improve much, that isn't your bottleneck

 

[Ieat]

Phenom II is definitely a bottleneck for Witcher 2.
http://static.techspot.com/articles-info/405/bench/CPU2.png

Probably less so for some of those other games. But I remember when Playing Dragon Age Origins even with a Phenom II x4 940 overclocked to 3.5ghz I would see slow down in certain spots even with a gtx 260. Switching to a i5 750 overclocked to 3.8ghz fixed it. If your going to upgrade I would say wait 2 months for ivy bridge and get the unlocked i5.

 

[hunkeelin]

Phenom II is definitely a bottleneck for Witcher 2.
http://static.techspot.com/articles-info/405/bench/CPU2.png

Probably less so for some of those other games. But I remember when Playing Dragon Age Origins even with a Phenom II x4 940 overclocked to 3.5ghz I would see slow down in certain spots even with a gtx 260. Switching to a i5 750 overclocked to 3.8ghz fixed it. If your going to upgrade I would say wait 2 months for ivy bridge and get the unlocked i5.

what do u mean the unlock i5?

and to be honest i am not really a fan of i5. money is not REALLY a big problem (ofcuz i'm not going for extreme edition). but i5 have been around for far too long. dont' u think?

 

[T_Yamamoto]

what do u mean the unlock i5?

and to be honest i am not really a fan of i5. money is not REALLY a big problem (ofcuz i'm not going for extreme edition). but i5 have been around for far too long. dont' u think?

i5 2500k = ~220 dollars
and its still by far the best bang for the buck cpu
extreme edition is pointless in gaming.
its not that old

 

[Ieat]

what do u mean the unlock i5?

and to be honest i am not really a fan of i5. money is not REALLY a big problem (ofcuz i'm not going for extreme edition). but i5 have been around for far too long. dont' u think?

i5 is the name Intel uses for their line of quad core processors without hyper-threading. An i5 750 from 2009 is not the same as the yet to be released i5 3570K coming out in April. Intel just recycles the i5 name as they do with Celeron, Pentium and i7. Unlocked is the version denoted by a K at the end and has the multipler unlocked for easy overclocking.

 

[hunkeelin]

What about i7? like the product line simliar to the 3930k for ivy bridge. worth it?
and what about my ram? my ram need to upgrade to 1600?

 

[Puppies04]

and to be honest i am not really a fan of i5. money is not REALLY a big problem (ofcuz i'm not going for extreme edition). but i5 have been around for far too long. dont' u think?

 

[Ieat]

What about i7? like the product line simliar to the 3930k for ivy bridge. worth it?
and what about my ram? my ram need to upgrade to 1600?

There is no release date for the hexacore ivy bridge parts. Which means they probably won't be coming for a while. Having more then 4 cores also has little to no effect in games right now. You could get an i7 3770k when it comes out but all it has is hyper-threading and 2mb more cache over the i5 3570k. It will do very little for gaming if anything and costs about 50% more. But if you have money to burn its up to you. Ram speed also has very little effect on games and with an unlocked multiplier faster ram isn't needed for higher overclocks.

 

[ThatsABigOne]

lol

 

[EskLuxor]

i got an i7 2600k @ microcenter for $230 plus a $50 discount on asrock extreme 4 gen 3 together for a total of $345. if u can yield that much of a discount i suggest going for it, everyone says wait for ivy bridge and that might be true in some respects. but, performance gains will prolly only be <20% at launch. then again im not totally informed on all the bells and whistles of the new platform. the new chipset will no doubt drive prices down a little, but if you can amass a discount such as getting an i7 2600k for basically the same price as an i5 2500k, i think the answer is pretty clear.