Intel Q8200 bottlenecking gaming performance?

[hellfire88]

Hi Guys,

Quick question, I'm making a build for a friend and he already got an Intel Q8200 Quad-core CPU (I think its stock 2.33GHz, 4MB total L2 cache). He doesn't really overclock so will probably run it at stock speeds. He is going to get an ATI HD 4890 1GB or a nVidia GTX 275 896MB video card (along with 4GB DDR2 RAM, 300GB Velociraptor HDD, 600W PSU). The only thing he'll be using this desktop for playing World of Warcraft, Crysis, Team Fortress 2, and Call of Duty 4/W@W @ 1920x1200 res. He wants the rig to be able to play future games for like a year or so.

Question is, will the Q8200 bottleneck gaming performance with one of those video cards and a 300GB Velociraptor HDD? If so, would you recommend an Intel Q9550 or AMD Phenom II x4 940 CPU upgrade? Thanks.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

That cpu will not bottleneck those cards. Now the next generation of cards will probably be a different story. Why don't you do your friend a solid and overclock his cpu to about 3.0ghz?

 

[TurtleCrusher]

It wont bottleneck higher end cards much, if any at all.

The Q8200 is ridiculously easy to overclock btw. No real skill required.

 

[Gikaseixas]

Make sure he gest a solid aftermarket cpu fan, overclock it to 2.8/3.0

at those speeds the chances of being stable are high and he'll enjoy his games even more

 

[Axon]

Just FYI, I have virtually no overclocking skill and I was able to boost my E8500 to 4.037 ghz just by going into my BIOS and setting my FSB to 425. Games load substantially faster. Rig is in my signature.

The only game on that list that will be challenging at that resolution will be Crysis.

 

[happy medium]

Originally posted by: hellfire88
Hi Guys,

Quick question, I'm making a build for a friend and he already got an Intel Q8200 Quad-core CPU (I think its stock 2.33GHz, 4MB total L2 cache). He doesn't really overclock so will probably run it at stock speeds. He is going to get an ATI HD 4890 1GB or a nVidia GTX 275 896MB video card (along with 4GB DDR2 RAM, 300GB Velociraptor HDD, 600W PSU). The only thing he'll be using this desktop for playing World of Warcraft, Crysis, Team Fortress 2, and Call of Duty 4/W@W @ 1920x1200 res. He wants the rig to be able to play future games for like a year or so.
Question is, will the Q8200 bottleneck gaming performance with one of those video cards and a 300GB Velociraptor HDD? If so, would you recommend an Intel Q9550 or AMD Phenom II x4 940 CPU upgrade? Thanks.

The answer to your question is YES! That cpu @ stock will bottleneck those cards. And as for future games, unless he overclocks his cpu to 3.0 or more newer games will suffer also.

 

[Zenoth]

It will bottleneck, heck my E8400 at stock bottlenecks my GTX285 very substantially, but as soon as I OC it to a minimum of 3.6Ghz or up to 3.9Ghz (highest I've been able to) without OC'ing the GPU nor the RAM (I mean the DDR2 RAM) I get an average of 15 extra FPS in most of my games, almost 1,100 extra points in 3DMark06, a good 7 to 10 extra FPS in 3DMarkVantage. The games that benefits the most from OC'ing my CPU to alleviate the bottleneck are Source-based games (very CPU dependent) and GameBryo games (Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3) from my tests.

I would say yes, definitely, a 2.33Ghz CPU would certainly bottleneck a GPU like the 4890 1GB, to what extent exactly I don't know, but I myself know that my system at entire stock settings "steals" a good 20% of the "normal performance" I *should* have out of my GPU, and when you consider that you pay $400+ (CAN dollars) for a GPU alone you kind of don't like it when you're losing performance out of the window due to bottlenecking, so you kind of want to over-clock. I've left my system at stock for a very long time due to instability, but I've ruled that out recently, it's back to stable settings at 3.7Ghz (with RAM OC'ed, but GPU is still stock, I don't need to touch it at all, it's fast enough as long as there's no CPU bottleneck).

 

[hellfire88]

Thanks for all the replies! I will take your suggestions and try to overclock to say 2.8GHz. Hopefully his Biostar motherboard can handle it.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Originally posted by: hellfire88
Thanks for all the replies! I will take your suggestions and try to overclock to say 2.8GHz. Hopefully his Biostar motherboard can handle it.

So, how did it go?