What's My Bottleneck

[hondaf17]

I'm curious as to what you all think the bottleneck for gaming is. My comp. is in my sig but here it is:

Athlox 64 X2 4200+ (stock speeds)
512 MB ATI Radeon X1800XT
2 GB RAM
WD Cavaiar Black

Two things:
1) What's my current bottleneck?
2) I will soon be upgrading to 23'' 1920x1080 monitor (from 17'' CRT), so what, if anything, would need to be done to play on that substantially higher resolution.

Games will be ARMA II and COD: Modern Warfare 2.

Please move this to the "PC Gaming" forum if appropriate, but I thought it's more of a general hardware question.

TYIA,

 

[JAG87]

Your GPU is a major bottleneck. Upgrade to a 4850/70 if you like ATI, or GTX260 if you like nvidia.

Your money is not wasted, once you upgrade your platform that card will serve you well.

For now though, if you want eye candy you need a new GPU, especially at that new resolution.

 

[brblx]

if you have to pick one thing to upgrade (and have a pcie slot), get a new gpu.

cpu's going to be a major limiter, as well, though. even if you have an AM2 proc, the bighest upgrade you can do there is a 6000 x2, so you'd probably want to upgrade your mobo. you could have an am2+ compatible mobo, though (or a s939...). post the model.

the 'cheap' solution would be a good overclock on that 4200 and maybe a 4850 or 4830.

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: brblx
the 'cheap' solution would be a good overclock on that 4200 and maybe a 4850 or 4830.

this

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Originally posted by: betasub

Originally posted by: brblx
the 'cheap' solution would be a good overclock on that 4200 and maybe a 4850 or 4830.

this

+1

 

[hondaf17]

Great, thanks guys.

I have a socket 939 mobo so I've got like one of the fatest chips available for that mobo.

Now I need to learn how to OC!

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

You'll need faster ram. PC3200 IIRC will only allow 200mhz so 200mhz x the multiplier will = CPU frequency You are limited by the DDR400/200mhz; If you had DDR 500/250mhz would be your max clock that you can use to multiply the cpu multiplier.

If you had a DDR2 machine, you'd be able to find fast ram for dirt cheap.