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How would my processor limit my vid capabilities?

gorcorps

gorcorps

aka Brandon
I have an athlon64 3000+ (s754) and was wondering what the limit on vid cards would be when my processor starts bottle necking the performance. I also have 1gig pc3200 ram. I'm not being very clear, but somebody might know what I mean.

I have radeon 9600 right now, and would like to know around which vid card I should upgrade to, that would give me the best performance with my rig. If I buy a $500+ card, would I see around the same performance as some of the $300 cards because of my system?
 
You would definitely have a bottleneck with the 3000+ on the super high end cards. If you overclocked that 3000+ to 3500-3700+ levels (should be easily attainable) then the bottleneck definitely diminishes.

Your 754 system is AGP so, spending 500 dollars on a video card now on the agp system isn't worth it (if you plan on upgrading in the next 6 months) to a PCI-ex AMD/Intel platform. If you are not upgrading soon, then I would get the X800XL for about 300 dollars (16 pipes) and overclock my 3000+ and enjoy.
 
I bottleneck hardcore at my CPU if I don't overclock it at all. I can keep stock at 2.0 and put my x800 at 555/555 and it won't do a thing for 3d mark, but as soon as I put it up to 2.2 or 2.35, I get immediate results.
 
Originally posted by: coomar
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/digest3d/index0502.html

see the difference between 2.2 and 1.8 gigz for different videocards
Click to expand...

As the review shows, in terms of average FPS, you are not really bottlenecked much at all on an A64 3000+ (1.8Ghz). There's basically no difference compared to a 3500+ (2.2GHz) for any AGP card on any game, except for HL2 at the highest resolutions. And note that this review is with AA/AF turned up, to really stress the cards. Of course, there could be a difference for minimum FPS (I wish more review sites would look at that).

Simply put, buy whatever graphics card meets your budget and gaming needs (the X800XL or 6800GT would be likely good choices).
 
It's hard to say because although a 500 dollar card will be more powerful. It may or maynot be a bottleneck depending on how many video features you enable.

Bottlenecks are weird. If you are able to scale down resolutions or turn off features and your framerates don't increase, then your CPU is a bottleneck. But if you CPU allows you to play at acceptable framerates, better for you, now you are able to turn on many image quality enhancing features that won't lower your framerates. You can only turn them on so far though, eventually you will see lower framerates.

With an A64 I really don't think you should worry about bottlenecks.
 
The only major cpu bottleneck I've seen so far is my 3000+ at stock playing Doom 3 ctf online. I've tried turning down graphics settings but it doesn't help. In big firefights fps will drop to <20.
 
G70 and R520 should be fine.

Definition of a true bottleneck in lamest terms - when some component in a system significantly dimishes performance. Does A64 3000+ significantly dimish performance with 6800Ultra/x850xt pe vs. A64 4000+ at 1600x1200? NO -- As has been linked above in Digit-Life article and can be found in others (Another Example). A64 3000+ will give 80 frames vs. 110 frames for A64. The performance wont be optimal, but I wouldnt call it a "bottleneck" the way the word should be used. A bottleneck would be P4 1.8ghz + 6800Ultra.

If one were to think of a bottleneck as the slowest computer part, then sure A64 3000+ is slower than A64 3500+/3700+, but it isn't a bottleneck in "real world" terms. In other words, having A64 3000+ or 4000+ wont allow one to turn on higher game settings or resolution in graphics intensive games because in those games 6800Ultra/x850xt will become bottlenecks.

In your case, your best bet is 6800GT Leadtek for $300 on newegg.com Overclock that to ultra speeds.
 
Thanx for all the info, it helped a lot. I started off buying my 9600 w/ a athlon xp 2000+, and the processor was destroying my gaming. I knew I could do better. Now with the A64, my 9600 has reached its full potential.

Just for clarification, because with the review doing s939 processors some of the stats got jumbled around. My s754 runs at 2gig stock, while the s939 runs at 1.8 gig stock. Don't know if this changes much for me. With my extreme budget (<$200), I have to really weigh my options. While I love ATI and am an ATI fanboy pretty much, Nvidia seems to have the best cards in this price range. I can get the 6800 256bit for under $200 and I don't think I can outdo that w/ ATI in that price range.
 
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