How badly will this CPU bottleneck these graphics cards?

[Monkey_Business]

What is the fastest GPU setup you can have without encountering any major bottlenecks with an AMD Phenom II X4 965BE? Is it absolutely imperative to have a Core i7 clocked @ 4.0 GHz to properly run the latest graphics cards, especially in SLI/CrossfireX?

My monitor only goes up to a 720p resolution. I heard that a bottleneck only appears at a certain resolution.

My current system is a C2Q Q9400 2.66 GHz @ 2.66 GHz, 6GB 800Mhz DDR2 RAM, and a Radeon HD 4850. (512 MB) I was considering building a Phenom II X4 965 desktop, with 6-8GB of DDR3 1333 MHz RAM, an ASUS Crosshair Formula III motherboard, and a Radeon HD 5870 graphics card.

Even if I have a bottleneck with my new PC, should I still see a huge performance increase across every graphical setting, compared to my old PC and HD 4850?

The HD 5870 is almost Three times faster than my HD 4850. Most games are GPU bound, rather than CPU bound. A bottleneck with a Phenom II X4 965 @ stock speeds won't pose a crippling hit to performance with an HD 5870?

 

[nt300]

Maybe in the past there was a problem with CPU's bottlenecking graphics, but today that's not much of a problem. Games like Left 4 Dead 1 & 2 along with a few others won't give you a performance advantage against Core i7 & PII's. It's all up to the video card. I think game developers got smarter designing these games. Just check out some benchies and you'll see for yourself.

Now if you want to talk about anything other than gaming, Core i7 mostly dominates. But for gaming AMD does a great job no the cheap

See for yourself, just a few fps here and there. Not much to spend your arm for.
http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=794&page=7

With Call of Duty: World at War we see an interesting result: at stock speeds, each system is running virtually identical both in single and dual card configurations. However, when overclocked, the Phenom II pulls ahead, and most signficantly at higher resolutions where the gaps widens. This is opposite from what we've seen in the tests so far.

H.A.W.X provides a different set of results yet again. At stock CPU speeds, the single card configuration yields almost identical results yet the Crossfire numbers clearly favour the i7 system. However, when overclocked, that gain is lost and the Phenom II catches up, resulting in virtually identical results.

Crysis: Warhead is particularly interesting, as the single card configuration results in essentially a tie both at stock and overclocked speeds. But when Crossfire is enabled, the Phenom II lags behind slightly by a couple frames per second.

X3: Terran Conflict shows us that the Phenom II system posts better results across the test spectrum, but particularly at stock speeds, both in single and dual GPU setups. Overclocking does help the i7 lessen the gap, in fact allowing it to barely take over at 1280 resolution but losing ground at the high resolution.

Phenom II system gaining considerable ground overall, with the lone exception being 3DMark Vantage. The Crossfire differences are now reduced, and in single GPU configuration, the Phenom II in fact overtakes the Core i7. This is very interesting because popular opinion in our experience has been that people have tended to believe that an overclocked Core i7 simply thrashes a Phenom II. The facts, though, do not support such claims.

AllI need to say is despite the i7 being faster overall, AMD did a good job in making Phenom II a good gamers CPU. Just read the quotes above, vertually no difference in gaming performance for both companies.

 

[erocker]

If possible overclock your current processor to around 3.4ghz. If that isn't possible a 965, 955 would be just fine. Playing games with higher resolutions, none of those processors will be much of a bottleneck with two 5870's.

 

[digibucc]

as nt said, that's in the past. the bottleneck in resolution is based on the gpu, nothing to do with the cpu. and it's not a bottleneck, rather if you get above 1200 vertical res you may want a second gpu to xfire/sli with - not that you need a certain cpu to be able to xfire/sli - jus tthat it makes little difference until you reach that higher resolution

 

[3volvedcombat]

clock for clock your q9450 is faster then any AMD Phenom II archetecture. If you can get your q9450 to 3.6-3.8ghz 24/7 on a nice motherboard, then you can essentually have a 4.0Ghz AMD Phenom II equivlant, thats if the q9450 with ddr3 is at 3.8-3.75Ghz

***EDIT*** You dont have a q9x50 anything.

I keep your motherboard, stick with ddr2, and get a q9550 at microcenter for 160 if its still there like that, right now i have the encoding power of a i7 940 at stock clocks .

Also if you dont overclock, you should, When gamers really buy big cards like that, they overclock the cpu also, because i belive even a Phenom II 965 will bottle neck a HD 5870 at 1650x #### resolution i belive. When you even get 2 cards you know overclocking the processor is a almost necessary task to creating the most level bottleneck free system possible.

And with a HD 5870 it would like something high clocked to keep it wanting more on a 1920x1080 screen, and its always a free performance boost if you overclock right .

 

[Monkey_Business]

clock for clock your q9450 is faster then any AMD Phenom II archetecture. If you can get your q9450 to 3.6-3.8ghz 24/7 on a nice motherboard, then you can essentually have a 4.0Ghz AMD Phenom II equivlant, thats if the q9450 with ddr3 is at 3.8-3.75Ghz

***EDIT*** You dont have a q9x50 anything.

I keep your motherboard, stick with ddr2, and get a q9550 at microcenter for 160 if its still there like that, right now i have the encoding power of a i7 940 at stock clocks .

I have a Q9400, not a Q9450. My current G33 motherboard has overclocking in BIOS permanently disabled by the manufacturer.

When comparing a Q9400 and a Phenom II 965 both at stock speeds, which One if faster?

 

[3volvedcombat]

I have a Q9400, not a Q9450. My current G33 motherboard has overclocking in BIOS permanently disabled by the manufacturer.

Id say you go Phenom II and the latest motherboard, even though i root for intel, my setup favored more from getting a q9550 and sticking with ddr2.

DDr3 isnt really that important for gaming and could potentually be slower then ddr2 thats high clocked and lower timed.

When it comes to ddr2 vs ddr3, its a ratio between clock speeds, and accesses memory timings, on some ddr3 kits they have low timings with high clocks, and some ddr3 kits have the worste timings in the world and are barly 200Mhz faster then ddr2.

I stick with ddr2 because i baught it when it was cheap and affordable, Now, ddr3 is cheaper and faster with newer chips and revisions.

Also any Q9x50 (the 50 being the big part) Means it has 12mb of l2 cache and its faster clock per clock then a Phenom II. And right when i baught my q9550 at microcenter for 169.99 and releaized how good of a clocker i got(at least knowing its a E0 stepping) it was worth the deal when i already had the best quad core overclocking motherboard .

Also just a quick note* i looked on newegg and gigabyte has a new LGA 775 motherboard for the same price as a ep45-ud3p motherboard, and it has support for ddr3 and USB. 3.0 on the back. I might be moveing to that motherboard for a slight upgrade and hopeing it does 471-470 FSB 24/7 stable for me

 

[aCid888*]

clock for clock your q9450 is faster then any AMD Phenom II archetecture.

Wrong.

S775 Quad vs PII and the PII is faster clock-for-clock in most things.

How do I know this? First hand experience (Q9550/945ES) and a whole lot of other peoples results from benchmarks to real life.



@OP:

I'd think about a bigger resolution monitor before I thought about getting more graphical power.

 

[newtekie1]

Wrong.

S775 Quad vs PII and the PII is faster clock-for-clock in most things.

How do I know this? First hand experience (Q9550/945ES) and a whole lot of other peoples results from benchmarks to real life.



@OP:

I'd think about a bigger resolution monitor before I thought about getting more graphical power.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=80&p2=49&c=1

What is that? 4 test out of 30+?

Or if you prefer: http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/...compare,1396.html?prod[2619]=on&prod[2608]=on

2 out of 28...

Sorry, but clock for clock a Q9450 would be faster than any PII. Of course, that isn't to say a stock Q9450 would be faster than a stock 955, because the 955 has a higher clock speed.

 

[3volvedcombat]

Wrong.

S775 Quad vs PII and the PII is faster clock-for-clock in most things.

How do I know this? First hand experience (Q9550/945ES) and a whole lot of other peoples results from benchmarks to real life.



@OP:

I'd think about a bigger resolution monitor before I thought about getting more graphical power.

Im talking about the 12mb cache cored quads that beat Phenom II's 200Mhz more highely clocked in all the reviews, and in games? Lol?

Go ahead and check every q9550 yorkfield vs deneb review my freind . Im not sure your right XD.......

 

[Monkey_Business]

Im talking about the 12mb cache cored quads that beat Phenom II's 200Mhz more highely clocked in all the reviews, and in games? Lol?

The Q9450 still runs at a stock 2.66 GHz, the Phenom II X4 965 is clocked 734 MHz faster.

 

[3volvedcombat]

The Q9450 still runs at a stock 2.66 GHz, the Phenom II X4 965 is clocked 734 MHz faster.

yehh, you dont overclock so. because a Phenom II 955 is the same to a 965 to a overclocker,

 

[Wile E]

Just buy a better motherboard and OC your current CPU. That's a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a whole new setup.

 

[Lionheart]

didnt take long for a flamewar!

 

[newtekie1]

didnt take long for a flamewar!

A discussion is not a flameware.

 

[3volvedcombat]

didnt take long for a flamewar!

But he realises its about to turn into that, Idk i have strong doubts of my 10 hours of googling leaning towards the faster clock for clock processor T_T.... But hey getting a newsetup could be worth it in your case.

a g33 motherboard is just something HP would reject...

Why?
Because HP uses the g31 LOLolOLolOLolOLoLOl and its locked zomg!1!!!!!!

 

[Monkey_Business]

Overclocking is dangerous, if it is not done with surgical precision, and you don't know what you're doing, it can easily kill or severely damage your CPU, as well as other components. As well as instantly void any warranty you may have had with your computer. You can't take anyone off the street, give them Ten minutes on overclocking, and then have them perform it correctly.

There isn't any way of knowing EXACTLY what voltage is appropriate for your desired clock speed. If it is too high or too low by a tiny increment, your system can become unstable, constantly crash, even not boot up into the OS or even the BIOS for that matter, etc....

You have to slowly increase the clock speed of your CPU in tiny increments, usually 200 MHz at a time, and then test it for stability for hours. If you perform a large overclock at once, such as 1.0 GHz, it will instantly kill your CPU.

 

[nt300]

Just buy a better motherboard and OC your current CPU. That's a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a whole new setup.

I have to agree, its the cheaper way and will gain you the best performance per $.

 

[Wile E]

Overclocking is dangerous, if it is not done with surgical precision, and you don't know what you're doing, it can easily kill or severely damage your CPU, as well as other components. As well as instantly void any warranty you may have had with your computer. You can't take anyone off the street, give them Ten minutes on overclocking, and then have them perform it correctly.

There isn't any way of knowing EXACTLY what voltage is appropriate for your desired clock speed. If it is too high or too low by a tiny increment, your system can become unstable, constantly crash, even not boot up into the OS or even the BIOS for that matter, etc....

You have to slowly increase the clock speed of your CPU in tiny increments, usually 200 MHz at a time, and then test it for stability for hours. If you perform a large overclock at once, such as 1.0 GHz, it will instantly kill your CPU.

A 1 GHz OC all at once will not kill your CPU. Who in the world told you that? As long as you don't go above an overall safe voltage (1.4V for Yorkfield), and you keep the temps within spec, you will not kill your cpu. If you OC too much at once, the worst you'll get is instability.

The instant I got this CPU, I set it to 4GHz w/1.35v in one step. Did not pass go, did not collect $200. It did not explode. It wasn't stable, so I had to raise the voltage to get it stable, but that was a 1GHz oc, right out of the box.

Get a new P45 mobo and a good air cooler, set the cpu voltage to 1.3V, raise the fsb to 400Mhz, set your ram the way it's supposed to be set, and I'm willing to bet it will be perfectly stable at a nice round 3.2GHz. Then try to increase clocks little by little until it won't boot into windows, lower the fsb by a few mhz, and stability test. OR leave the fsb at 400, and slowly lower the cpu voltage until it doesn't boot, then raise it a couple notches and stability test.

With a Yorkfield and a good P45 mobo, a mild OC to 3.2-3.6GHz is absolutely a 10 minute affair.

And warranty, smarranty. What they don't know won't hurt them. lol.

 

[nt300]

Intel CPU's always has been easier to overclock than AMD CPU's due to the complexity of the AMD CPU but this time around the nehalem cores are complex too and still Intel acheives great OCing speeds.

 

[Monkey_Business]

Intel CPU's always has been easier to overclock than AMD CPU's due to the complexity of the AMD CPU but this time around the nehalem cores are complex too and still Intel acheives great OCing speeds.

How is your Phenom II working out for you? It say's that you have One in your signature. Do you have a Radeon HD 5xxx series GPU also?

 

[segalaw19800]

just keep the cpu & gpu cool and overclock them to hell