One response quickie re: 9700 pro and my CPU

[MrMiyagi]

I was going to get a 9700 pro in a couple days but I was wondering if I'm going to be bottlenecked by my CPU. It's a P4 1.80A. Maybe this isn't even a relevant question, I don't know

Thanks

 

[4fingerwu1]

Here is a great link comparing all video cards with different processor speeds
Ok I dont know how to make a link
so cut and paste
http://www17.tomshardware.com/graphic/20021218/index.html
Please tell me how to make a link
Ricardo

 

[NelsonMuntz]

Linked for the lazy:
http://www17.tomshardware.com/graphic/20021218/index.html
To set up a link, click on the http button at the top of the reply window and put the address in and then put in a description and you are good to go.

 

[chizow]

Yep, Tom's has a good comparison for GPU and CPU scaling. The R9700pro scales very well with faster CPUs, so yes, it will be a bottleneck to some degree in terms of max resolution and max framerate. On the other hand, it should perform much better than your previous card at the same resolution, and you'll also be able to crank up bandwidth/GPU intensive settings like AA and AF with less penalty (b/c you are running lower resolutions b/c of the CPU bottleneck). When I say low, I'm talking 1024 at the minium.

4finger- to link hit the macro at the top, it'll bring up two pop-up boxes. Cut and paste your link in the first one and hit enter. Type the text you want to appear in the second pop-up box and hit enter. You can also type the syntax in your text box, but its easier to just use the macros at the top.

Chiz

 

[Malladine]

Good link to Tom's. As you can see though, they test using Athlon 1ghz and Athlon XP 2700+ so, the 1.8ghz pentium will not be too much of a bottleneck. Definately not enough to warrant avoiding the pro.

To prove my conviction, my future system is going to contain a radeon 9700 gold and an athlon xp 1700+

 

[Wiktor]

Yes and a lot depends on a particular game as well. If it's UT2003 then I think you will be bottlenecked at max 60fps for avarage fps but still that's not bad and you can play at higher res and probebly AA. In Unreal2 the improvement may be greater but still the cpu will limit you quite a lot. I think it's worth it to buy a Radeon 9700 Pro (or maybe 9500 Pro?), if you have a 300+ W PSU go for it.

 

[chizow]

CPU Scaling from Tom's in Q3A.
Q3-engine games like RTCW, SoF2, JK2 etc. all are very CPU dependent, so this isn't really a surprise.

CPU Scaling from AT in UT2K3
As you can see, UT2K3 stresses both the CPU and GPU heavily, but the 9700pro doesn't flatline like the GF4 and older cards.

Chiz

 

[lung]

As well, the 1.8 should overclock to at least 2.4 to 2.8 very easily. That would help reduce any bottlenecking.. I am currently running a 1.6A at 2.4 with my 9700 Pro and I am quite happy with it.