Which is the bottleneck? 7850 or i7 920?

[SickBeast]

OP your system is balanced. Perhaps both are a bottleneck if you want more performance. Really I guess your CPU could support more GPU grunt so it could be argued that the 7850 is the bottleneck but personally I think what you have is good enough.

 

[2is]

It would depend on the game. In games like Crysis and Metro, the GPU will be the bottleneck, in BF3 MP, the CPU might be provided you haven't cranked the settings so high that the bottleneck is once again the GPU.

Just OC the CPU if you need more power. The PCIe 2.0 will not at all be a factor.

 

[AtenRa]

Both the CPU and the GPU can be the bottleneck. Depends on the game and settings.

For BF3 MP both the Core i7 920(default) and HD7850 are bottlenecks. And NO, a default 7850 is not playable in Ultra settings unless you turn off MSAA.

For BF3 MP you really dont want to dive bellow the 60fps mark.

 

[xp0c]

http://www.techspot.com/review/458-battlefield-3-performance/page7.html

 

[Gordon Freemen]

Both the CPU and the GPU can be the bottleneck. Depends on the game and settings.

For BF3 MP both the Core i7 920(default) and HD7850 are bottlenecks. And NO, a default 7850 is not playable in Ultra settings unless you turn off MSAA.

For BF3 MP you really dont want to dive bellow the 60fps mark.

"For BF3 MP you really dont want to dive bellow the 60fps mark." Most players do I would almost bet that most BF3 players are too lucky to be seeing 40fps peak in online play or offline being thats the most current Steam survey makes clear that most people are still using older and relatively slow cards.

 

[toyota]

http://www.techspot.com/review/458-battlefield-3-performance/page7.html

do you really think none of us here have not seen that? again that is single player.

 

[Gordon Freemen]

do you really think none of us here have not seen that? again that is single player.

Multiplayer plays largly the same as campain mode in BF3 it is an optimized engine and nobody has proved that it has worse performance online in any grate of tangible way.

 

[Shaolinmonkk]

I have the same question, I have a GTX 680 and my cpu is a i7 920 and I want to know if my cpu is bottlenecking my GTX 680?

im running at stock speeds with no overclock so might cpu might be the bottleneck, what do you guys think.

 

[toyota]

Multiplayer plays largly the same as campain mode in BF3 it is an optimized engine and nobody has proved that it has worse performance online in any grate of tangible way.

yeah you are right nobody has ever shown multi player to be more cpu dependent than single player...

 

[Don Karnage]

I have the same question, I have a GTX 680 and my cpu is a i7 920 and I want to know if my cpu is bottlenecking my GTX 680?

im running at stock speeds with no overclock so might cpu might be the bottleneck, what do you guys think.

If you're at 2.66Ghz then yes its a bottleneck

 

[toyota]

I have the same question, I have a GTX 680 and my cpu is a i7 920 and I want to know if my cpu is bottlenecking my GTX 680?

im running at stock speeds with no overclock so might cpu might be the bottleneck, what do you guys think.

yes but its going to come down the game, settings, and resolution being used. for many games it will not matter at all. however there will always be some games or at least certain spots in games that will need all the cpu power you can throw at it. for example my 2500k at 4.4 is 100% cpu limited in several areas of GTA 4.

 

[Ketchup]

I would like the OP to come back. What are we talking about here: theoretical bottleneck, or a game you are having issues with?

Without an answer to that question, I would say 'neither.'

 

[Gordon Freemen]

yes but its going to come down the game, settings, and resolution being used. for many games it will not matter at all. however there will always be some games or at least certain spots in games that will need all the cpu power you can throw at it. for example my 2500k at 4.4 is 100% cpu limited in several areas of GTA 4.

I would like you to explain to member "Shaolinmonkk" that bottlenecking in his case is purely on a per game basis and some games such as you stated GTA 4 are just poorly coded and not that it needs more CPU power it's just that the game engine is FLAWED therefore it will never run perfect on any hardware config and that if an OCed i5 2500K @ 4.4Ghz cant run it perfect nothing will.

 

[mlah384]

I'm running two 24" monitors at 1920x1080... I'm not referring to any game in particular, but I was curious if a game like BF3 would be limited by the i7 or the 7850... I'm running a vertex 3 SSD so I figured the HD wouldn't be an issue on a game... I also do video rendering, a lot of photoshop, after effects, etc., but I figured those are more CPU dependent than gpu... It would be cool to have a utility on anandtech where you could select all your hardware and it would tell you where you are weak (bottle necked)... Actually, that would be a cool sales tool for a company like newegg...

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I was testing the same thing but with Unreal Tournament III.

With my desktop and ingame features at a minimum @ 1080 GPU usage fluctuated between 60-90% and the game felt better than when i ran my GTX 480 even at the same maxed fps of 357.

When my desktop settings were on application controlled and the ingame settings were on default I still would be pushing 357fps but GPU usage would be pegged at 96% and the game felt sluggish.

 

[jacktesterson]

an i7 920 can still push any single graphics card available today just fine.