I have a 6870 and think I'm cpu bottlenecked: need advice

[Termie]

I'm sorry, I have E8400 and 460 1gb and I max out all the settings at 1920x1200.....AA/AF/VSync on and 8x

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I'm sure you max out all settings, but what's playable to you might not be playable for the rest of us.

Your FPS would be higher with a quad-core. Trust me on this one. I'm talking 25-50% higher FPS in BC2 and 25% higher FPS in Dirt 2. Systems in sig. The difference in BC2 is significant enough to make comparable settings on a comparable card unplayable.

And BC2 at 8xAA would be unplayable on a GTX460. You might not have that game, but you should!

 

[bryanW1995]

I worded it stupid. I can edit it but I meant that it was not much "faster" with the new card.

To everyone, would a Q9550 be sufficient or do I need to go higher?

I wouldn't bother upgrading that socket, it's dead anyway. you can get an entire new system that will run circles around that one for ~ $200 after you sell the old components.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

I'm sure you max out all settings, but what's playable to you might not be playable for the rest of us.

Your FPS would be higher with a quad-core. Trust me on this one. I'm talking 25-50% higher FPS in BC2 and 25% higher FPS in Dirt 2. Systems in sig. The difference in BC2 is significant enough to make comparable settings on a comparable card unplayable.

And BC2 at 8xAA would be unplayable on a GTX460. You might not have that game, but you should!

You guys are probably speaking a different language. (He was referring to different games in mind. He said "max out all settings" but he didn't include "in the games that I play").

 

[Vdubchaos]

I'm sure you max out all settings, but what's playable to you might not be playable for the rest of us.

Your FPS would be higher with a quad-core. Trust me on this one. I'm talking 25-50% higher FPS in BC2 and 25% higher FPS in Dirt 2. Systems in sig. The difference in BC2 is significant enough to make comparable settings on a comparable card unplayable.

And BC2 at 8xAA would be unplayable on a GTX460. You might not have that game, but you should!

I'm averaging above 30fps on BC2, I mostly play Heavy Metal 24/7 with 32 person server......on 8x AA and AF and VS turned on (1920x1200).

What are you talking about willis?

It's PLAYABLE, heck I kicked it up to 16x and it was still around 25-30 and playable, but it made very little difference.

At one point I had 32x AA or AF and all settings maxed out, but that dropped the rates/made it unplayable....but couldn't tell visual improvement.

 

[Termie]

I'm averaging above 30fps on BC2, I mostly play Heavy Metal 24/7 with 32 person server......on 8x AA and AF and VS turned on (1920x1200).

What are you talking about willis?

It's PLAYABLE, heck I kicked it up to 16x and it was still around 25-30 and playable, but it made very little difference.

At one point I had 32x AA or AF and all settings maxed out, but that dropped the rates/made it unplayable....but couldn't tell visual improvement.

To each his own. I'm at 60fps average, 1920/4xAA/16xAF and I find that just barely sufficient for competitive play.

By the way, you'd be at 40fps at 1920/8xAA and 45fps at 1920x4xAA if you weren't CPU-bottlenecked. That's why you aren't experiencing a major slowdown going from 4xAA to 8xAA.

Benchmarks on my e8400/GTX460 to prove that AA level and other graphics-only loads aren't having an effect:

1920x1200/1xAA/16xAF/HBAO off
Min Max Avg
24 62 35.767

1920x1200/4xAA/16xAF/HBAO on
Min Max Avg
26 60 37.383

P.S. I believe that pop-culture reference would more accurately be transcribed "What'choo talkin' 'bout Willis?"