Lowest cpu that wouldnt bottleneck 8800gtx? 8800gts?

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 9:00 pm

Just curious if there has been any experimenting on how fast your cpu has to be to get the full effects out of a 8800gtx? or even 8800gts.

TedMC · Post by **TedMC** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 1:16 am

GamingGod wrote:Just curious if there has been any experimenting on how fast your cpu has to be to get the full effects out of a 8800gtx? or even 8800gts.

Hello there GG,
I saw a review somewhere that showed conclusively that the only current cpu capable of keeping up with the 8800 is C2Extreme 6800. When they put in a slower ( like C2D6700) cpu the frames/gpu marks went down. The conclusion drawn was "the slower the cpu runs,the slower the 8800 runs". So at this juncture in time there is no known cpu that is "faster" than the 8800 gtx. If I get some time to do some googling tomorrow morning ,I will try to post that url.

rei · Post by **rei** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 2:39 am

as in the other thread, if you are 'poor' save your money and don't waste it on 8800gts.

get a 7900gt, 7950gt, or 1900xt or 1950xt and an athlon64 x2 4600-5000 or C2D 6300, 6400, 6600.

rei · Post by **rei** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 2:44 am

ie instead of getting a $400 video card and a $100 cpu, get a $200 cpu and $300 video card.

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 12:58 pm

It depends on the resolution and quality settings used with a specific game. If you play Oblivion at 1920x1200 with all settings maxed, HDR, 16x AA and 16 AF, then probably the 8800 GTX would be more of a bottleneck - I mean that the performance difference between a C2D 6600 (that you can easily overclock to at least 6800's clock) and 6800 would be small.

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 2:08 pm

When they say bottlenecking the videocard, are they saying it slows down the max frame rates or the minimum frame rates or both? I really dont care if it runs over 60fps. I just want a computer that will run the new games at 1600x1200 with everything turned up and a pretty steady 40-60fps.
Its just that the 8800 series seems like a pretty big jump up from the 1950xt and I was hoping that I could make do with a slower processor and put more money into the gpu where I would need it most.

rei · Post by **rei** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 3:15 pm

all that premium you spend on the 8800 will be wasted as by the time you can afford a CPU that allows it to run at full speed, newer versions (die shrinks etc with improved efficiency) of the card or successors to it will be out, running faster (and much cheaper) than you could ever hope to.

so it makes little sense to blow all your money on the 8800.

get a $150-200 CPU and a $200-350 video card.

mbetea · Post by **mbetea** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 7:52 pm

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see any current generation cpu being a bottleneck for the 8800 cards at resolutions above 1024x768 or 1280x1024. And really if you're getting an 8800 card to run at those resolutions save your money. Now the fastest cpu certainly won't hurt. But too many people have fallen under some impression that you must have the top of the line cpu or you're just wasting your money.

If anyone is referring to a certain review from a certain site that begins with toms and ends in hardware. Pay more attention to their results and you'll see their conclusion makes absolutely no sense.

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 3:57 pm

the reason I am questioning this is because first off, they choose two fast processors to compare. Why didnt they throw in a third even slower processor to compare with the new cards and see the result.
When looking a oblivion outdoors the slower amd system scored
AMD w/8800gts
16/20/27/32/41 in the given resolutions with the gts. the intel core duo
Core 2 Duo w/gts
16/25/28/34/40 at said resolutions.
These results are pretty darn close, in fact they could simply be sampling error. How do I know that dropping in a 3200+ is going to return signifcant slower fps when you really need it, (outdoors in oblivion). I know it may slow you down from 250 to only 125 fps in some games at low resolutions with everything turned down, but I dont care about that.
I want to play at 1600x1200 with everything turned up and keep playable rates. Does anyone actually have a 8800 series with a slower cpu that they could compare to toms results?

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 4:13 pm

In Oblivion, upgrading from Winnie 3200 to C2D E6600 gave me ~25% extra frame rates, on my 7900 GTX. I used the performance increase to up the resolution to 1600x900 (19" CRT), since I can't have both HDR and AA. IMO an X2 4600 or better wouldn't be a bottleneck for a 8800 GTS, in games that use both CPU cores.

The I · Post by **The I** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 4:54 pm

GamingGod wrote:the reason I am questioning this is because first off, they choose two fast processors to compare. Why didnt they throw in a third even slower processor to compare with the new cards and see the result.
When looking a oblivion outdoors the slower amd system scored
AMD w/8800gts
16/20/27/32/41 in the given resolutions with the gts. the intel core duo
Core 2 Duo w/gts
16/25/28/34/40 at said resolutions.
These results are pretty darn close, in fact they could simply be sampling error. How do I know that dropping in a 3200+ is going to return signifcant slower fps when you really need it, (outdoors in oblivion). I know it may slow you down from 250 to only 125 fps in some games at low resolutions with everything turned down, but I dont care about that.
I want to play at 1600x1200 with everything turned up and keep playable rates. Does anyone actually have a 8800 series with a slower cpu that they could compare to toms results?

I think you're definitely going to be bottlenecked at some point with an 3200+ - probably already now because of the lack of single-thread performance but definitely when games start becoming multi treaded.

Get a C2D and get as much GFX as you can afford after that. That platform will keep being competitive for a long time (until quads start to matter (or AMD comes up with something really fantastic with the K8L), since dual-core barely matters yet I would give that 2, call me pessimistic). Even an 8800 will be obsolete in a year, an OC'ed C2D will give you abundant CPU-power for gaming for a long time to come.

At least that was my philosophy when I build my rig, can't say I'm unsatisfied.

dabl · Post by **dabl** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 7:12 am

Would an 8800 be overkill from a 7950 GT in terms of gaming performance for 1280x720 (max) resolution?

From the reviews it seemed that the significant fps performance gains would be seen at this resolution even though most people seem to focus on performance at higher resolutions.

I'm interested in building a gaming capable htpc. I'd been interested in and played games in the past, mostly first person shooters, but haven't gamed in a long while.

I have a 720p DLP TV so I use 1280x720 resolution from my PC on that screen. My current PC isn't up to gaming so I haven't tried anything recently. This begs another question, would there be higher (16:9) resolutions I might want to run games at on this screen?

I was considering a passive 7950 GT videocard but am interested in the 8800 GTS cards for both current and future (Directx 10) games.
The difference in cost is about $100 which isn't an issue to me, but I was liking the idea of a fanless card ...

Thanks for any comments.

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 10:12 am

For 1280x720 the 7950 GT would be fine. But you can't have HDR and AA, and I bet you want at least 4x AA at that resolution.
If the difference between the 7950 GT and the 8800 GTS is ONLY 100$ then by all means get the 8800 GTS. At 1280x720 it will be future proof, even with 16xQ CSAA.

aegan · Post by **aegan** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 6:04 pm

but what if you OCd a 6300 to at least 3ghz? would that still be not enough to run the 8800gts?

born2code · Post by **born2code** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 12:34 am

GamingGod wrote:When they say bottlenecking the videocard, are they saying it slows down the max frame rates or the minimum frame rates or both? I really dont care if it runs over 60 fps.

Good luck getting Oblivion to run at 60 fps on any video card...

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 7:53 am

currently, there isnt a cpu that doesnt crimp the 8800gtx. i dont care what anyone says, it will happen.

but...

who cares? eh? one shouldnt unless one is wealthy and well, they should just sli the suckers and use two zalman res2 radiators to cool the system for like a 4000 dollar solution to the question. how about the quad gpu that the 8800's have right now? get that 620 psu from corsair and let 'er rip lol

you could buy a real live hit man for this money and watch him shoot people in the face instead of worrying about synthetic shooters on your pc.

Lowest cpu that wouldnt bottleneck 8800gtx? 8800gts?

Lowest cpu that wouldnt bottleneck 8800gtx? 8800gts?

Re: Lowest cpu that wouldnt bottleneck 8800gtx? 8800gts?