Upgrade-itis....Looking for some advice

[dmbelina]

Well, I've got some cash to blow and I'm looking to upgrade my vid card....but, I'm not sure whether my CPU will be a bottleneck. Here's my current rig:

CPU: P4 533 bus 2.26b @ 2.7
Mobo: Abit BD7-II Raid
Gfx Card: Visiontek Ti4400 GeForce 4
Memory: 512MB Corsair PC3000
Storage: 2x Maxtor D740x in Raid 0

Would my cpu be a bottle neck if upgrading to the latest and greatest vid card? I'm also looking to purchase a nice gaming LCD display in the future as well, if this has any impact on which Gfx card to go with.

 

[ZobarStyl]

Yes and No. For things like Far Cry at the absolute highest settings your CPU will bottleneck. But for most everything else it's fine. Small bottleneck, yes, but not much. Hell I'm still on an 1800+ and I don't think for much of what I do that the 6800NU (hoping to get) will be too held back by it...course I run dual 19"s so the card is much more the bottleneck at this point. Don't bother with an Ultra/XT level card though, look at the pro and the GT, they would go nice with that rig. And neither card is any more LCD-friendly than the other.

 

[Concillian]

Some games yes, but for most games, your CPU will not be limiting you at all. For most games, the video card is most important at the res/settings people run at. A 2.7 P4 is not on the edge, but I wouldn't call it slow either. You'll certainly see a big benefit upgrading from the Ti 4400 if you're playing any recent games.

When looking at the benchmarks for CPUs and such, it's important to note the resolutions they're running at. Many reviews use resolutions and/or settings that are lower than what normal people would use so that CPU differences show up clearer. Almost all games, once you crank up the resolution are video card limited.