Is my CPU a bottle neck?

[MonkeyWrench4000]

Is a P4 2.4ghz 533fsb a bottleneck for a 9800pro? (running at 8xagp, system mem running single channel) I am getting low FPS in large rooms/outdoors/multiple person fights in games such as doom3 and HL2. I can see frame rates as low as like 12fps.

I also have 1024mb pc2700.

Is this about normal for this system?

 

[MonkeyWrench4000]

I find it hard to believe no one has insight on this.

BUMP

 

[Hyperlite]

yeah, you probably have a slight CPU bottleneck with a 9800pro.

 

[MonkeyWrench4000]

Do you think its normal to drop into the teens (fps) in half life 2 with everything high, and 4xaa? I was under the impression that my system could handle a game so well coded like HL2

 

[Concillian]

I highly suspect that you do NOT have a CPU bottleneck causing framerates in the teens.

I would suggest figuring out which is the bottleneck, which is easy enough to do. Play through the parts that give you 12 FPS at lower res or with AA turned off and lower video options. If problem gets significantly better then you have a video card bottleneck. If problem stays the same you have a CPU bottleneck.

This works best if you can devise a repeatable situation so you can get very comparable numbers.

 

[Fenuxx]

Well, I would say that, for a 9800Pro, you should have roughly a 3GHz\3000+ CPU for optimal performance. I am guessing that your mobo is limited to a 533FSB, as thats what you're currently using. I would recommend THIS. Its a 3.06GHz P4, which is the fastest on a 533FSB. This should even out your framerates, and probably bump them over the teens in the worst situations. Thats always a good thing.

 

[fstime]

That cpu is fine for a 9800pro, no bottleneck, all the 9800p is a 9700 with higher clocks.

 

[Fenuxx]

5 bucks says his framerates improve with a faster CPU . I remember reading that the last generation of high-end cards (GeForce 59x0, Radeon 9800Pro\XT) needed at least a 3GHz\3000+ CPU in order to perform at their full potential. This is what I am saying. Even the current-gen GPU's aren't fully performing to their potential even with FX-55's and P4EE's. This is because the GPU's are faster than the CPU's can feed the cards data. Its strange, but true.

 

[crapito]

Originally posted by: MonkeyWrench4000
I find it hard to believe no one has insight on this.

BUMP

you waited all of 1 hour 17 minutes before bumping your own thread asking for help with a snotty remark towards the rest of us?

 

[Munky]

It depends. If you're playing at 1600*1200 resolution + AA/AF, then the 9800 might just be reaching it's limits here. On the other hand, I played HL2 on my 2.5ghz AXp + 9800, with 4xAA/8xAf, everything max, at 1024 resolution, and I never had any framerate issues. (Well, actually I oc'd the 9800 too, but even before it played fine).

 

[hans030390]

Originally posted by: geforcetony
5 bucks says his framerates improve with a faster CPU . I remember reading that the last generation of high-end cards (GeForce 59x0, Radeon 9800Pro\XT) needed at least a 3GHz\3000+ CPU in order to perform at their full potential. This is what I am saying. Even the current-gen GPU's aren't fully performing to their potential even with FX-55's and P4EE's. This is because the GPU's are faster than the CPU's can feed the cards data. Its strange, but true.

yeah...the framerate would improve...that's a no brainer... :

I have a 6600gt on a...well its below...and there is no bottleneck...i get the framerates I should be getting.

and about your problem, you aren't having a bottleneck. I've seen a Celeron 2ghz do better then that (with less ram and pc2100, and a 6600gt, more powerful than a 9800). There is something else wrong.

 

[OvErHeAtInG]

Hmmm, the 2.4 / 533 CPUs were mostly good overclockers... *grins evilly* bump up to 600FSB, that'll put you at what, 2.8?
Question, though, since I have a similar setup. Might the bottleneck on this be the single-channel PC2700? This would seem to me more likely.

 

[OvErHeAtInG]

Originally posted by: hans030390

Originally posted by: geforcetony
5 bucks says his framerates improve with a faster CPU . I remember reading that the last generation of high-end cards (GeForce 59x0, Radeon 9800Pro\XT) needed at least a 3GHz\3000+ CPU in order to perform at their full potential. This is what I am saying. Even the current-gen GPU's aren't fully performing to their potential even with FX-55's and P4EE's. This is because the GPU's are faster than the CPU's can feed the cards data. Its strange, but true.

yeah...the framerate would improve...that's a no brainer... :

I have a 6600gt on a...well its below...and there is no bottleneck...i get the framerates I should be getting.

and about your problem, you aren't having a bottleneck. I've seen a Celeron 2ghz do better then that (with less ram and pc2100, and a 6600gt, more powerful than a 9800). There is something else wrong.

Hans, is that single-channel or dual-channel RAM?

 

[Sentinel]

could it be the RAM or the fact that you have 4xaa turned on?

 

[moretoys]

If it was me, I would start by double checking the settings in the bios for anything stupid, then uninstall the drivers & reinstall them. Messed up drivers can do bad things to framerates & I have had problems in the past with my aiw 9700 pro if I forgot to uninstall previous drivers prior to updating them.
Oh, and does the 9800 work ok with fast writes? Some of their older products didn't.

 

[Sentential]

Originally posted by: BouZouki
That cpu is fine for a 9800pro, no bottleneck, all the 9800p is a 9700 with higher clocks.

What? how the hell can you say that when He is running PC2700? Thats a horrible CPU bottleneck.

 

[emilyek]

My guess is that for a CPU intensive game, the 9800pro becomes a real bottleneck at about 3.6G.

Overclocking my 2.8e to 3.4 shows a pretty nice performance boost in every game I've played that I can think of.

In 3dm2001 (very cpu intensive) going from 3.2-3.4 gives me about 2k points.

A 2.4G processor is not making the most of your 9800pro.

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: Sentential

Originally posted by: BouZouki
That cpu is fine for a 9800pro, no bottleneck, all the 9800p is a 9700 with higher clocks.

What? how the hell can you say that when He is running PC2700? Thats a horrible CPU bottleneck.

Actually I think that would be a memory bottleneck.

There is a simple solution to verify the bottleneck. Turn down the video settings and see if there is a noticeable change. He didn't mention his res, for all we know he could be trying to run 1600x1200 4xAA 8xAF, and at that point the 9800 would be the primary bottleneck.

CPU bottlenecks stay relatively the same regardless of resolution, so that means, in those cases, a 2.4GHz P4 would be unable to sustain better than FPS in the teens even at low resolutions? Somehow I just doubt that is the case.

I'm hoping the OP tries out a lower res / video settings for a day or two and reports back to us what he found.

 

[MonkeyWrench4000]

I turned off 4xaa, and there was absolutely no performance difference that i could notice (using fraps).

My memory is running single channel, i have a stick of 512mb pc3200, and 2 sticks of 256mb pc2700 (i got the 512 stick later, and it cost the same as the pc2700).

This is my first Pentium system, I used to only use amd. I tried pulling the 2 256mb sticks, to see if i could run pc3200, but it would only run at 333mhz. The mainboard sets this automatically, unlike my previous boards that i could adjust myself.

Im guessing a 533fsb p4 runs with pc2700 and no faster? How do I get Dual channel?

I could get a 3.0ghz p4 w/ht on newegg, at 800fsb, and get another stick of 512mb pc3200, to bump up my whole FSB and of course another 600mhz....but, is this even worth spending the $220?? Perhaps it would be better to wait and grab an athlon 64 in a year.

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: Concillian
CPU bottlenecks stay relatively the same regardless of resolution, so that means, in those cases, a 2.4GHz P4 would be unable to sustain better than FPS in the teens even at low resolutions? Somehow I just doubt that is the case.

W00t! I was wrong.

I love being wrong when it is with hard numbers and I can learn something. Thank you OP.

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: MonkeyWrench4000
Im guessing a 533fsb p4 runs with pc2700 and no faster? How do I get Dual channel?

Your motherboard has to support it. What is your motherboard and what chipset does it use?

You only need another $30 on top of that $220 to move to A64...
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/ViewProducts...LE2&DNAME=Motherboard+Bundles%2D+By+MB
choose the VNF-250 and add either a 2800+ or a 3000+
add a stick of 512MB for about $50 and you have your A64 MB+ CPU and 1GB RAM.
Not S939, but I'd rather get a S754 3000+ than a 3.0GHz P4 and be stuck with an old motherboard that sounds like it has few options. Then you can sell your MB + CPU + 512MB as a package to someone who only needs a basic computer to recoup some of your outlay.

 

[BFG10K]

It depends on the game; in HL2 it's more the CPU being the bottleneck but in Doom 3 the 9800 Pro is the limitation.

 

[OvErHeAtInG]

What's puzzling is your framerates are inconsistent, no? If they drop dramatically in big outdoor areas, that usually indicates the vidcard bogging down. But it could be a combination of the two; i.e.:
IF you're running 1280*1024 or higher AND 4Xaa, that'll exceed the capabilities of the 9800pro to maintain smooth frames. In fact you could be exceeding the 128 onboard RAM, which would force aperture access. It's using singel-channel PC2700, that could present a SERIOUS bottleneck for graphics usage.

If you turn down to 1024*768 with NO AA or AF, and STILL get inconsistent framerates, then I think there's something wrong in BIOS, something wrong with your RAM, or even something wrong with the vidcard. I've heard you can use ATItool to test the card's stability.

 

[RussianSensation]

Both your CPU and your Videocard are bottlenecks. However, given Doom 3 is highly graphics intensive, GPU is the greater bottleneck. For Doom 3 in particular, 6600GT would give you a nice boost. However, I do no see a point of just getting a new videocard for 1 game. You could either a) overclock the current cpu to 3ghz b) get a new videocard, c) or both a & b.

But honestly, the only way to really understand is to look at benchmarks (or do tests yourself). So here:

If you have a 2.4GHz Pentium 4, is it worth it to upgrade to a 3.4GHz P4 in order to get greater performance in Doom 3?

As you can see from the graphs below, P4 3.2ghz with 9800Pro gives exact same framerate as P4 2.4ghz with 6800Ultra. BUT, the latter system is running at 1280x1024 High Quality vs. 800x600 Medium Quality with 9800Pro.

Looking back at 1280x1024 High Quality graph, we see the performance improvement from 2.4ghz to 3.2ghz is only 13%.

I should mention this is a 2.4C with 800FSB CPU tested. However, as someone mentioned above 2.4s tend to overclock fairly well. Even if you get 2.8ghz out of this machine, your best bet for gaming is always the videocard. For most bang for the buck, get something like x800xl or 6800GT ($300 at www.outpost.com by PNY), or save some $$ and get Venice S939 cpus and maybe new generation of cards? Depends how much you want to spend and how long you want to wait. (note1: try to sell the 9800Pro to help you finance the new videocard purchase; note2: you could keep the PC2700 ram for an A64 system since the performance drop isnt significant. Then again PC3200 1 gig is only $100 nowdays).

Also, Half-Life 2 Performance Preview: The Graphics Hardware Squeezer
You can see that ATI cards perform much better for HL2. Therefore, 6800Ultra would benefit here but not as much as the X800XL. Unfortunately, if you do upgrade the videocard, you'll have to decide which games are more important for you.

 

[MonkeyWrench4000]

Concillian, you say I should be running dual channel?

Its an 865 series mobo, im not sure who manufactured it.

I am very unfamiliar with dual channel, and how to achive it, does my ram have to be in a ceriten slot on the mobo? As i said b4, i have a 512mb pc3200 stick, that when i run alone will only run up to pc2700 (the mobo auto detects this, and i cant adjust it) and i have two 256mb pc2700 sticks.

I thought i heard somewhere that you have to put two matching sticks in a certain two spots to run them dual, or is that totally wrong?

If i could get the one pc3200 stick to run at pc3200, i would ditch the other two pc2700 sticks and buy another 512mb pc3200 stick, and try to get the two to run pc3200 and dual.