XFX 9800 GT Wont overclock (Again, perhaps its my CPU)

[TekBubs]

Yes yes, yet another problem with my new card...It wont overclock!!! Well....yes, it will however I was playing fallout 3 (Everything maxed, shadows off, HDR and AA set to 8x 1680 resolution) and I was getting a solid 42 FPS in front of Megaton, where that little robot is and when I tried overclocking it, it stayed the same. My default clocks are 1800 Memory, 600 GPU, 1500 Shaders, and it will only let me overclock to about 950 memory (950x2 = 1900, because of the GDDR3) and 1800 shaders. (And people that have the same card as me can overclock up to 1000-1100mhz on the memory..I cant, my game will crash :l)

I have tried 3 programs, RivaTuner, nTune and ATI tool, none of which worked (nTune worked on my fan though, I can hear it) So this only leads me to believe that my CPU, once again, is bottle necking my card. I started an older topic for that and its still somewhere on the first page I think.

Another thing, lowering my resolution or anti aliasing does NOT improve my FPS at ALL, it just makes the game look like pewp (HDR has about a 20 FPS influence on it though ^^)

Any ideas? (PS: Would SLI'ing this card be worth it, and do you think it will be able to play games 2 years down the road?)

My three biggest concerns are:

CPU: e2200 Pentiuam Dual CPU @ stock speed (2.2 ghz)
RAM: 3GB of some sort of ram...anyways
OS: Vista 32 bit home premium

 

[Baez]

It could also be that your video card is at it's peak clock.

But you already know the solution to checking if it's your CPU bottlenecking. I told you in your other thread.

 

[chesirecat1701]

"mileage may vary" that's a saying your probably going to have to come to terms with

some cards just don't clock as good as others, same for CPU's and RAM.

It's a fact of nature,

if your CPU is clocked at 2.2GHz there is no doubt in my mind that it isn't a bottleneck,
with ~$60-$70 cpu upgrade you'd be flying smooth (unless that Pentium isn't a LGA 775)

i wouldn't spend the money for a new card to SLI being as you'll more than likely need to get a new PSU and then will have to upgrade the CPU anyways,

if you are using a LGA 775 mobo grab an E5200 and have fun
Newegg.com - Intel Pentium E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz 2MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops

if not you most likely have a LGA 478 and if so then grab a better Pentium 4

Newegg.com - Intel Pentium 4 3.0 Prescott 3.0GHz 1MB L2 Cache Socket 478 89W Single-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops

it's like $5 more than the E5200, although I must warn you that it is hot so I'd grab a decent cooler if you can
EDIT: my idiot mistake, I didn't read your specs you gave duhh yeh just get an E5200



then save your money and build a whole new comp later on down the line

 

[TekBubs]

RAWR its a dell inspiron 518 so I cant change the CPU without changing the mobo and I cant change the mobo because its dell so I have to buy a new case all together...And I cant overclock my CPU because, once again, DELL

 

[chesirecat1701]

hmmm?

you can't fit a mATX in there?

I did a friend's Dell and didn't have an issue with a mATX

I'm pretty sure it was an Inspiron of some sort

but it sounds like you in a pickle my friend

but I'd put my money on the CPU

if you can deal with it a little while longer you could save enough for a decent case and upgrade but then again I'm not too sure what you wanna do

 

[TekBubs]

Its no big deal im averaging 40-120 fps on cod4 and 40-80 on fallout 3, I can live with it for now...oblivion however...20-50 FPS :l