GTS250

[spikoman69]

I am thinking of buying the pny gts250 newegg has for black friday, would my cpu bottleneck it too much? Specs are in the sig, and im getting about 10k in 3dmark06 with it right now, and i saw people were getting around 15k with the gts250, so would i get atleast, 12, 13?

 

[TheOtis]

Hmmm. If your Athlon X2 was @ stock speeds, that'd be a yes. But it is overclocked, so I'd think it might bottleneck it a tad bit.

 

[spikoman69]

okay, so realistically, im gunna get alot of improvement in games to an extent? a decent improvement?

 

[TheOtis]

I'd say you'll get a nice little jump over an 8800GS 384MB. But playing at 1440x900 I'm not too sure how much of an improvement you'll get considering it's on the lower end of the resolution spectrum. You've got a few things holding you back. Your CPU is going to hold back a newer video card and your monitor resolution is going to keep the game more CPU bound and less GPU dependent. So you're looking at a bottleneck whatever route you take. I'd imagine you'll see an improvement on some level, but I doubt it'll be much compared to having a balanced rig.

 

[spikoman69]

Your saying that at my resolution, the cpu bottleneck starts bringing performence down alot?

 

[TheOtis]

Yes sir.The video card obviously matters the most when gaming. However, at lower resolutions, the CPU does more work than at higher resolutions. So your X2 4000+, no matter how overclocked it is, is going to hinder performance at your monitors resolution, regardless of the video card.

 

[spikoman69]

How is it that the cpu does LESS work at a higher resolution?

 

[patonb]

Its not less work really... its less work compared to the video card.

So on a scale of 1 to 10, right now, your cpu is running at say 6/10 and the gpu is running 4/10

Getting a bigger monitor, higher res, the gpu will have to run harder so it'll bump up to 8/10 with the cpu still at 6/10.
New cpu will get the info to the gpu faster, so it'll run at say 4/10 with the gpu upping cause the game runs nicer to 8/10 again
New gpu will allow the data to get to your screen faster and better, so say 4/10, but the cpu is gonna struggle to spit the info to your gpu so it'll up to 8/10

As you see, you open a pipe that one of the old peices struggles to use..

Its abit confusing, but hopedfully i helped abit.

 

[Ste]

It all depends on what games your concerned with, some games are more cpu intensive then others.

Like other said because of the low resolution your playing on I don't think there will a bottleneck anywhere.

Im sure you will be pleased with the increased frame rates.

 

[spikoman69]

So, with that video card and my current setup, i will see wonderous improvements in the 2 games that im barely struggling to play right, crysis and far cry 2?