Core 2 Quad - bottleneck for GTX 480?

[Luckystar]

Hey hey peeps,

I really want to upgrade my Graphics card to a shiney new gtx 480.

Now, I heard that the Intel Core 2 Quad is a bottleneck for the said GFX card.

What is bottlenecking, technically mind? (as i never experienced bottlenecking)

Also, how much of a bottleneck would i experience.

Lucky

 

[fishnbanjo]

A bottleneck is simply like what it sounds like it is. Picture a funnel with the video feed coming from the 480 as the pail of water being poured into you CPU output being the bottom of the funnel, i.e. the GPU (480) is pushing tons of data stream at a time FPS but the CPU can only negotiate the output that it can which is smaller amounts of that stream so the FPS is pinched. How much you feel the pinch is variable if you have a low version if the CPU it won't perform as well as an Extreme version but the i5 and i7 cpu's will outperform them in many ways, the i3 may or may not depending on your current CPU.

 

[MiMA]

Bottleneck means that (in your case) your CPU would be too slow and you wouldn't be able to use your gfx card 100%. For example, with c2q and gtx 480 you can have 20 fps in Crysis (extra high settings), but if you have an i7 cpu you can have like 30 fps on same settings. Note: this is just an example, results can be different.

 

[Fumz]

Also, how much of a bottleneck would i experience.

Lucky

CPU Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83Ghz - Oc'd to 3.40Ghz + 1.27v

You'll be just fine. I would not concern myself with terms; terms that are, in your case, meaningless.

 

[JonM33]

Hey hey peeps,

I really want to upgrade my Graphics card to a shiney new gtx 480.

Now, I heard that the Intel Core 2 Quad is a bottleneck for the said GFX card.

What is bottlenecking, technically mind? (as i never experienced bottlenecking)

Also, how much of a bottleneck would i experience.

Lucky

No, your Core 2 Quad is not going to severely limit a GTX 480. There are very few games that even take advantage of that many cores.

Here's a prime example to show you how well your CPU performs in games: AMD's Six-Core Phenom II X6 1090T & 1055T Reviewed - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

They purposely lower graphics settings so the CPU becomes more of a "bottleneck". Once you maximize the graphics settings and run high anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering the CPU isn't even a concern anymore.

In no way is a Core 2 Quad @ 3.4GHz going to be limiting any of today's games. If you got a Core i7 you would be wasting your money and see no performance difference.

 

[Everlong]

You'll be fine with your 9550. I'm running my 9550 at 3.4GHz and every game runs as I'd expect it to.

 

[chev65]

The larger effect of bottle necking occurs as you go to tri SLI and above. In those cases you would be bottle necking the GPU quite a bit, this shows up in Vantage and other game bench marks. Even in these cases you might not notice any difference in actual game play.

But for a single card with an overclocked quad core you aren't going to see or measure much difference at all between an i7 and an overclocked quad core. With your Q9550 at 3.4Ghz with a GTX480 you will be flying through games.

 

[Davidxtux]

Agreed with above poster. You will see little to no bottlenecking. As I run tri sli I went with 6 core proccessor.

 

[Luckystar]

So from what you have all said, i will be fine.

Bear in mind though, i play things like Crysis, GTA IV + EFLC and Grid (They seem to be the heaviest games i play).

And from what Chev65 said, i should be fine with two way sli?

Lucky

 

[Bootz]

To be honest, i would think your q9550 would limit the performance of gtx 480. At the most the q9550 is barely enough to run games like crysis on very high setting with consistant 40+fps, esspecially if you game at high resolutions. I could be wrong but my 6000+ dual core at 3.2 with my 8800gts only get around 30fps on high settings at 1680x1050 and drops below that during high action.

Just my opinion, but i do not own a q9550 or a gtx480.

 

[Luckystar]

To be honest, i would think your q9550 would limit the performance of gtx 480. At the most the q9550 is barely enough to run games like crysis on very high setting with consistant 40+fps, esspecially if you game at high resolutions. I could be wrong but my 6000+ dual core at 3.2 with my 8800gts only get around 30fps on high settings at 1680x1050 and drops below that during high action.

Just my opinion, but i do not own a q9550 or a gtx480.

Well I can tell you that with Crysis on enthuasiast settings, with my GTX 275 and Q9550 runs fantastic, think i get an average of 30fps which is fine to me.

Put it this way, GTA IV is just as heavy in my opinion and again i get average of 30 to 40 fps.


Oh and also, all my games run on a res of 1920x1200.

Well, I will be purchasing the card, once i have enough money together (400 to 500 squids is a tad pricey). I will run some games and probably 3D Mark Vantage as well as my other Graphics stress tests and i will then publish my results on here.

Give me a month... roughly.

Lucky

 

[Bootz]

I guess in my opinion if you go with the gtx 480 , might as well get an I7 to go with it or i would think you are not getting the most out of the video card and coulda saved money with something not so spendy.

Again just my 2 cents

 

[Luckystar]

I guess in my opinion if you go with the gtx 480 , might as well get an I7 to go with it or i would think you are not getting the most out of the video card and coulda saved money with something not so spendy.

Again just my 2 cents

I would upgrade to a i7, but in order to do that, i would need to upgrade my Motherboard as well and in the end i would be spending a good £1000 or more. I would be saving for sometime.

I will risk and just buy the card for now and see how i get on.

Either way, i will have better through-put than what i have now.

Lucky

 

[Gata]

With the normal clock speeds, I would have to say that it would be a bottleck.
However, after increasing clock speeds, I would say it wouldn't be as much of a bottleneck as it was earlier.

The term bottlenecking works something like this:
In games (or any other application), there are two components that play two major roles: The CPU and the GPU. They work pretty much independently of each other. A GPU is used for pretty much all of the pixel-pushing for the resolution and all of the special graphics effects. The CPU is also used for various calculations that help make the gameplay actually go. It all depends on the application. For a lot of rendering/physics calculations, or just a lot of stuff going on in the game, (such as in Microsoft Flight Simulator), then the CPU might be a bottleneck. For stuff like crysis (w/ high settings), the GPU then would wind up being a bottleneck.

But in your case, it would most likely not be.

 

[Fumz]

The term "bottleneck" gets tossed around too often, imho, and it may prevent someone from getting really neat stuff that would work out just fine.

A bottleneck is either theoretical or practical.

All systems have a theoretical bottleneck. You can think of it as, "a chain is only as strong as its weakest link". In the case of the OP, the cpu is the weakest link; however, that won't create a bottleneck, because it's only a bottleneck in theory. In practice, he will be just fine.

You can mitigate a cpu bottleneck by making the card work harder. Tragically, , all the OP would have to do is pump up the eye candy. With nvidia being able to render a ridiculous 32xAA, he won't ever experience a true practical bottleneck... of the type that would force him to buy a new cpu.

 

[RST101]

As fumz has said you will be absolutely fine with that set up and I suppose it'll only be a matter of time before you add a newer cpu/mobo.

 

[JonM33]

Agreed with above poster. You will see little to no bottlenecking. As I run tri sli I went with 6 core proccessor.

Tri-SLI with GTX 480 would be bottlenecked, not Tri-SLI with GTS 250. That is a low end graphics card.

It's clock speed that bottlenecks the CPU with Tri-SLI, not the number of cores. No game will use more than 4 cores. With gaming, that Phenom II X6 is actually WORSE than a Core 2 Quad: AMD's Six-Core Phenom II X6 1090T & 1055T Reviewed - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News