Is my Phenom bottlenecking my 295?

[garritynet]

How much of a bottleneck is a PhII 940 @ 4.0g a bottleneck for a GTX 295 with a 1900*1200 monitor? How about at 3.8g?

 

[aatf510]

Originally posted by: garritynet
How much of a bottleneck is a PhII 940 @ 4.0g a bottleneck for a GTX 295 with a 1900*1200 monitor? How about at 3.8g?

I doubt it.
CPU doesn't get "much" faster than PhII @ 4.0GHz anyway...

 

[Insomniator]

Yeah what kind of question is that...

kids hear a buzzword and are all freaked out

 

[Arkaign]

You need a liquid helium cooled i7 with 48GB of memory. Go and buy now, help our economy!

 

[toyota]

well in general the Phenom 2 doesnt do all that great with with mutli gpu setups compared to the i7. at 4.0 and with a gtx295 though there shouldnt be much of an issue if any. 3 gtx285 in tri sli or a 2 gtx295 for quad sli would certainly show some weakness from the Phenom 2 though.

 

[garritynet]

I had heard that the 295 was bottle necked regardless of CPU from a friend so I thought I would verify it here. I have also read that the I7 scales very well with multiple cards but nothing about the Phenom.

Yeah what kind of question is that...

kids hear a buzzword and are all freaked out

No need to be a jerk.

 

[garritynet]

Originally posted by: toyota
well in general the Phenom 2 doesnt do all that great with with mutli gpu setups compared to the i7. at 4.0 and with a gtx295 though there shouldnt be much of an issue if any. 3 gtx285 in tri sli or a 2 gtx295 for quad sli would certainly show some weakness from the Phenom 2 though.

Thanks. This is what I was looking for.

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: garritynet

Originally posted by: toyota
well in general the Phenom 2 doesnt do all that great with with mutli gpu setups compared to the i7. at 4.0 and with a gtx295 though there shouldnt be much of an issue if any. 3 gtx285 in tri sli or a 2 gtx295 for quad sli would certainly show some weakness from the Phenom 2 though.

Thanks. This is what I was looking for.

yeah the i7 architecture really shines with tri sli or a better. http://hardocp.com/article.htm...w1LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: garritynet
How much of a bottleneck is a PhII 940 @ 4.0g a bottleneck for a GTX 295 with a 1900*1200 monitor? How about at 3.8g?

Not before you saw a worthwhile benefit over a single GPU solution. It should still scale with faster CPUs though, as some of the links show with i7.

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: garritynet
I had heard that the 295 was bottle necked regardless of CPU from a friend so I thought I would verify it here. I have also read that the I7 scales very well with multiple cards but nothing about the Phenom.

You heard right. You get rid of GPU limitations in most situations so a faster CPU would net you bigger gains than a setup that is GPU limited.

4ghz phenom isn't slow. You still be pumping more than 100fps in most situations anyway. Don't worry about CPU limitations. It's blown out of proportion by people who need to pump 200fps in low resolutions without AA.

 

[betasub]

But I heard Bottleneck is teh suck!!!1!

O noes I hav Bottleneck FTL

 

[garritynet]

Originally posted by: betasub
But I heard Bottleneck is teh suck!!!1!

O noes I hav Bottleneck FTL

Whats your problem? Why can't you contribute like Azn, Chizwow and Toyota?

 

[betasub]

What kind of "bottleneck" are you so worried about? You haven't even specified an app or game - what usage pattern is giving you limited performance? Some part of your system is always going to be performance-limiting, so there is always a "bottleneck".

For the lack of info in your question it appeared that you didn't understand what you were asking, just that you had "heard" your CPU was a "bottleneck" and that must be teh suck.

 

[Gikaseixas]

you would see minimal gains with a i7 @ 4.0 or a Yorkie @ 4.0

The scenario would change in favor of the i7 if you decided to go Tri SLI but since that's not your case don't worry, you have a fast system already.

 

[garritynet]

Originally posted by: betasub
What kind of "bottleneck" are you so worried about? You haven't even specified an app or game - what usage pattern is giving you limited performance? Some part of your system is always going to be performance-limiting, so there is always a "bottleneck".

For the lack of info in your question it appeared that you didn't understand what you were asking, just that you had "heard" your CPU was a "bottleneck" and that must be teh suck.

Everyone else is able to answer my question intelligently and without attitude using the information I provided. You are the only one who has a problem with the fact that I curious about something I heard and thus asked a question on an internet forum. I understand the concept of a bottleneck. What I had heard was that the 295 was inherently bottlenecked and so I wanted to know

A. if that was indeed the case
and
B. if going I7 would help

Would I build an I7 just for some fps gains? No. But I am about to start a build for a friend for free and I would have no problem giving said friend my current 940/Mb/Ram and buying the new stuff for myself. Dose any of this help you answer my question? No. Because the answer is simple as has been illustrated several times by other posters.

you would see minimal gains with a i7 @ 4.0 or a Yorkie @ 4.0 The scenario would change in favor of the i7 if you decided to go Tri SLI but since that's not your case don't worry, you have a fast system already.

Thanks. I didn't think so but I am not very familiar with the architecture of the newer processors/chipsets. I didn't know if there was something about the PhII design that held it back and there are no reviews that don't use the I7.

Edit: No reviews of the 295 that don't use an I7.

 

[Schmide]

Don't take this the wrong way, but I think the use of bottleneck is semantically poor for this type of computing relationship. I know it's the common term, but I think it's a skewed version of it. The CPU may be the limiting factor in terms of maximum FPS; however, it is the video card that would limit the system at the point of minimum FPS. The only time a CPU would truly limit the video card in this relationship is, if it attempted to compute some particle system which by good reason no modern game attempts to do. In bottle necked system one component continuously prevents another component from ever reaching saturation.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Originally posted by: toyota
well in general the Phenom 2 doesnt do all that great with with mutli gpu setups compared to the i7. at 4.0 and with a gtx295 though there shouldnt be much of an issue if any. 3 gtx285 in tri sli or a 2 gtx295 for quad sli would certainly show some weakness from the Phenom 2 though.

According to the AT comparrison PhII was quite competitive. i7 was the best overall, but PhII was very competitive.

 

[garritynet]

Originally posted by: Schmide
Don't take this the wrong way, but I think the use of bottleneck is semantically poor for this type of computing relationship. I know it's the common term, but I think it's a skewed version of it. The CPU may be the limiting factor in terms of maximum FPS; however, it is the video card that would limit the system at the point of minimum FPS. The only time a CPU would truly limit the video card in this relationship is, if it attempted to compute some particle system which by good reason no modern game attempts to do. In bottle necked system one component continuously prevents another component from ever reaching saturation.

Thank you. Thats very interesting.

 

[josh6079]

Originally posted by: Arkaign
You need a liquid helium cooled i7 with 48GB of memory. Go and buy now, help our economy!

I chuckled. A lot.

 

[TidusZ]

With yorkfield @ 4.25 a gtx 280 was bottlenecking me hardcore. With the 295, it feels like a much more even match. Not to mention frames in crysis warhead went way up and make 1920x1200 high settings/no aa silky smooth generally rather than just playable. Games such as Supcom still approach -1 game speed in a 2v2 against 2 cheated ai's with 700 units. Can't expect much better until I get one of those helium coolers.

 

[TidusZ]

With yorkfield @ 4.25 a gtx 280 was bottlenecking me hardcore. With the 295, it feels like a much more even match.

 

[alcoholbob]

4.0 is pretty nutty though, it shouldn't be a bottleneck for most games.

I think minimum framerate will keep scaling with CPU frequency though, although this is true of any video card so its not directly linked to GPU bottlenecking.

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: Schmide
Don't take this the wrong way, but I think the use of bottleneck is semantically poor for this type of computing relationship. I know it's the common term, but I think it's a skewed version of it. The CPU may be the limiting factor in terms of maximum FPS; however, it is the video card that would limit the system at the point of minimum FPS. The only time a CPU would truly limit the video card in this relationship is, if it attempted to compute some particle system which by good reason no modern game attempts to do. In bottle necked system one component continuously prevents another component from ever reaching saturation.

sorry but a cpu can and does effect minimum framerates. also you really have things backwards as a faster video card can indeed increase max framerate(to a certain point) even if the cpu is the limiting part of the system.

for example if you had a 2.6 P4 and 8600gt and then replaced it with a 9600gt your min framerate would still be same in many games but your max framerate would go up especially at higher res.

 

[Schmide]

Originally posted by: toyota

Originally posted by: Schmide
Don't take this the wrong way, but I think the use of bottleneck is semantically poor for this type of computing relationship. I know it's the common term, but I think it's a skewed version of it. The CPU may be the limiting factor in terms of maximum FPS; however, it is the video card that would limit the system at the point of minimum FPS. The only time a CPU would truly limit the video card in this relationship is, if it attempted to compute some particle system which by good reason no modern game attempts to do. In bottle necked system one component continuously prevents another component from ever reaching saturation.

sorry but a cpu can and does effect minimum framerates. also you really have things backwards as a faster video card can indeed increase max framerate(to a certain point) even if the cpu is the limiting part of the system.

for example if you had a 2.6 P4 and 8600gt and then replaced it with a 9600gt your min framerate would still be same in many games but your max framerate would go up especially at higher res.

Re-explaining the relationship to make sure you understand what I'm getting at, the computations of a CPU during a rendering operation are for the most part static with little variance in terms of the amount of work done. Certainly variance factors such as collision detection and physics can saturate the CPU to the point of bottleneck; however, this is usually capped at the lowest common denominator CPU. I.e. the minimal CPU requirements to run the game.

It is common practice when benchmarking ones rendering system to disable calls to the GPU, to figure out what the CPU is capable of, thus removing the GPU as the limiting factor in the rendering process. When this is done the CPU runs far above the possible frame rate when the GPU is active, thus reaching the point of saturation. In this case the frame rate of the CPU far exceeds that of the GPU.

Conversely, playing back a pre-recorded set of graphics primitives can limit the footprint of a CPU's effect on the GPU and one can near the saturation rate for the GPU.

There are certainly more limiting factors that can effect a rendering system, netcode, texture buffering, etc and at any one time any of these factors can become a bottleneck for the system. The point I was making is, the GPU has the most variance in terms of options and computational ability and thusly will cause biggest differential in the rendering process.

 

[alcoholbob]

Originally posted by: Schmide
Stuff

Depends on the game of course, although in my experience, whether its an RPG (long view distance/cutscenes) or shooter, typically CPU is limiting the minimum framerate.

PCGH has the Crysis review with the GTX280 where the average fps remained at 17 during a timedemo run on an E8600. They ran the cpu from 2.4GHz to 3.6GHz and the minimum framerate varied from from 6 to 12 fps.

That said this is a pretty worthless example since its unplayable either way. Perhaps a better example, typically with RPG cutscenes where the screen is generating far view distance and 100,000s of polygons the CPU becomes a serious bottleneck.

When Dragon Age Origins comes out I would imagine you'd do well OC'ing your cpu through the roof.