Is there an obvious bottleneck in this system?

[sirius1982]

Evening all.

Long time reader, first time poster here.

As much as I'd love to spend a fortune on my pc, there are too many things that come before my hobby in the queue for my dosh. Therefore I like to get as much performance as possible for little cost.

Up until very recently I was running an athlon 2 x2 250 with a radeon 5670 (512 meg gddr5 version)

I managed to pick up a hardly-used athlon 2 x3 450 for £30 on ebay, and subsequently sold the x2 for £35

Now running the x3 at stock and 5670 at stock and was wondering if there was an obvious bottleneck between these 2, as they seem fairly evenly matched to me.

In my slightly ageing motherboard I have 4GB ddr2, but have read that there isn't much a performance boost to be had going from ddr 2 to 3.

To give an idea of the performance I'm getting, I can run f1 2011 at 1920 x 1080, medium to high settings, averaging around 40 fps, which I am very happy with.

I'd like to ask what I should be looking for next, perhaps an SSD. I'd rather not upgrade to a power-hog of a video card, as electricity prices here in the UK are going through the roof at the moment.

Any replies much appreciated.

Kind Regards
Sirius

 

[lehtv]

The CPU should handle a faster GPU. An SSD would set you back $100. In my opinion that money would be better spent on a new GPU if gaming is a priority. A 7000 series mid range card should be quite a bit faster than a 5670 without consuming significantly more power, potentially a 7750 or 7770 for example.

 

[Ken g6]

I'd call the 5670 a bottleneck. But as long as you're happy now, wait for the 28nm cards coming out next year.

Also, have you tried unlocking the 4th core of your x3? DDR2 is fine, so if your board can't, I wouldn't bother getting a new board. (Unless you can manage a deal like you did with the processors!)

 

[Blain]

The bottleneck in just about any system is the spinning platter HD.

 

[mfenn]

The bottleneck depends on what you're doing.

Gaming? The GPU most definitely.
Normal desktop stuff? The HDD.