new build wondering about bottleneck

[polobunny]

Originally Posted by Capper

I'd spend $30-40 and get a better Cooler....that would be a good investment and would get you a decent OC.

+1
OC'ing on the stock heatsink is just not my kind of thing. There's very good coolers in the $30 and up price range. =)

[Elysium]

Originally Posted by Capper

I'd spend $30-40 and get a better Cooler....that would be a good investment and would get you a decent OC.

That would be the best path, but if you absolutely have to stick with the stock cooler, try to get as far as you can with stock volts. NOT recommended pushing the volts with the stock cooler.

[Boy'nBlack]

Originally Posted by RangerXLT8

It can OC to 3.2 and there will be no bottleneck to be found. The HDD is the bottleneck of any PC.

If there's no bottle neck in that, then why do you get better gaming from better CPU's? Same everything, but an E8400, it's better. So again...why the firm plant in "no bottleneck". Just theory??????

Rich has a great point in the controllers being more than mentioned. I get greater than 74G raptor speeds all around through a great Southbridge and decent drive.

And volts should NOT be played with. It's far too common to screw around with 3 settings in a sea of adjustments, get too deep, and just force CPU's to work off of voltage. The voltage is the whip. You can Overclock with feathers.

Do I have to strap on an OEM cooler over here to show OEM coolers aren't bad!? This "stuff" you buy is all just tools to make it easy. I've seldom seen thermals as being the limiter on a 65 or 45nm overclock. If it'll overclock at 100C, it'll do it at 70C. Perhaps that's the greatest downfall of overclocking? The lack of attempts through knowledge of what the other settings do? Really...cooling doesn't slow you down, and the settings you ignore do. If you can get an E8400 to 4ghz with water, I can get there with the OEM cooler. Doing so with a mATX board for the last 6 months, so I must be on drugs. Either that, or thinking buying parts don't solve problems that don't exist. The Pentium4 is dead guys. Has been for a while. Slow down on thinking heat is actually holding people back. Think parts, and the random picking of them....plug and play is fictional.

[polobunny]

Originally Posted by Boy'nBlack

If there's no bottle neck in that, then why do you get better gaming from better CPU's? Same everything, but an E8400, it's better. So again...why the firm plant in "no bottleneck". Just theory??????

Rich has a great point in the controllers being more than mentioned. I get greater than 74G raptor speeds all around through a great Southbridge and decent drive.

And volts should NOT be played with. It's far too common to screw around with 3 settings in a sea of adjustments, get too deep, and just force CPU's to work off of voltage. The voltage is the whip. You can Overclock with feathers.

I guess "isn't a major bottleneck in your system" would be more appropriate.

Do you run Crysis in 1080p at Ultra? No, not likely. Do you consider you have a big bottleneck in your system because of that?

[Boy'nBlack]

1080P? 1050 is close enough, and "Ultra" is fake. My bottleneck is AA and the ATI's ability to not do it. Is that the hardware fault or specific coding for a game?

But I'll run 1080P all day with a card. Pick one. 1080P is cool in TV world, basic for computers. 1080is the vertical resolution ya know? 1680x1050 fine for that, or do I port it to the Plasma to be really 1080p? Opps, I'm 30 pixels off.

Crysis doesn't have ultra for today. It's FarCry2, and has the ability to extend to tomorrow based on guessed code. They've bet hard money on the Braves winning the World Series in 2010. That's been their intent all along, so everyone has that same problem, and can't be fixed. Unless that bet is right and have a time machine.

The CPU is the bottleneck in the post questioned. He'll get better by available hardware. No need for the Duke Nukem Forever benches....

This is an E6420, $180 at the egg, and can firmly hold my ground that it's a bottleneck. Same price can get you a crap load more, can it not? What's a 2.4Ghz quad go for? 3Ghz dual? Not sure how to gloss this over as NOT being the cpu. Cool it to -400 Kelven, it'll be worse for ware.

[Capper]

eh, I think the issue at hand is that some people tend to upgrade incrementally, while others just buy a whole new system.

Those that buy a whole new system don't typically have to worry about issues like bottlenecks.......while those that upgrade one part at a time may have one or more parts that are so old that it creates problems for the whole system.

In this case, there is no "bottleneck, that processor is just fine, and you'd get even better performance with a slight OC. In all actuality, you could run a system for up to 2 years in my opinion without HAVING to upgrade. Now thats not to say that you'll have a top notch gaming rig for that long, on the contrary, you can OC to a point, but then after awhile have to make some concessions (maybe dropping settings for the video card, turning off some eye candy, killing processes, etc).

I just cleaned up and upgraded an older AMD 3400+ s939 setup for one of my Wife's friends....I had a copy of Vista and tried it out, it got a 3.5 on the vista performance test....not fantastic, but honestly good enough for someone who doesn't have hundreds to spend on a new system.......she can still browse the web, send emails, do homework, burn music and images, and play some light games.

[polobunny]

Originally Posted by Boy'nBlack

1080P? 1050 is close enough, and "Ultra" is fake. My bottleneck is AA and the ATI's ability to not do it. Is that the hardware fault or specific coding for a game?

But I'll run 1080P all day with a card. Pick one. 1080P is cool in TV world, basic for computers. 1080is the vertical resolution ya know? 1680x1050 fine for that, or do I port it to the Plasma to be really 1080p? Opps, I'm 30 pixels off.

Crysis doesn't have ultra for today. It's FarCry2, and has the ability to extend to tomorrow based on guessed code. They've bet hard money on the Braves winning the World Series in 2010. That's been their intent all along, so everyone has that same problem, and can't be fixed. Unless that bet is right and have a time machine.

The CPU is the bottleneck in the post questioned. He'll get better by available hardware. No need for the Duke Nukem Forever benches....

This is an E6420, $180 at the egg, and can firmly hold my ground that it's a bottleneck. Same price can get you a crap load more, can it not? What's a 2.4Ghz quad go for? 3Ghz dual? Not sure how to gloss this over as NOT being the cpu. Cool it to -400 Kelven, it'll be worse for ware.

1080 is the vertical resolution + progressive scan, you're not learning me anything, and frankly that's just aside the point.
You're trying to win lord knows what by blurting out a bunch of pointless information here.
This is an E6420, that the person already has. Worth spending to get a new CPU so close to Nehalem? For you, maybe. For him and the rest of the "normal" world, not likely.
Bottleneck in the system, depends again. Depends on your needs, what the machine is built for. That's how you should "gloss this over as NOT being the CPU".

Edit: Besides, no need to go with a condescending attitude. ;)

[Boy'nBlack]

Thanks Capper, you stated what I couldn't in clear terms. Intended or not! Obviously, this is a graphical only topic, or at least gaming only mindset. Might be wrong...but...

I tried for the longest time to just be a user...when in Rome, ya know? I played halflife2, twice, on a Rambus powered Ti4200 graphical slumper. It was the middleman and the average user machine...and the game was great with not graphical reality. It was laughable, so I finally had to cave in and start talking from the elitist stand point. It wasn't any better, and nothing got good until the 6800Ultra got onto the PCIe bus...I finally got to see the glimpse of DX9. It's gotten better each revision, and better yet with the latest cards. Little things that you don't miss, they're there.

While I agree fully that full on builders don't see these jumps, I also agree they don't miss them. I like playing on a Ti4200 to know what happens on each and every GPU since then. Those things are in the garage overhead now, boxed and labeled. But that was the Far Cry machine too...something to use as a baseline for years to come. Crysis is SUPPOSE to be tough. It's going to be tough again for the next cards. The gamble is that the new cards should do the old ways over and over again. With this mindset (and shown in the nVidia periodical included in certain mags), ATI nor Intel can never win because they don't follow the old ways. See where I'm going here?

To say a person has a bottleneck from Crysis is an understatement. It's coded for one side. To be pretty, it must run on card X. Not Y or Z, just X. This is the exact same problem Glide had in how the better coding wasn't in another format. How's that working now? HL1 was a Glide monster. You got more frames from a TNT, but you got the picture with Glide. Nothing has changed, and that's since 1998. It's all about the frames in that camp, and if you don't compare in frames, the reader is flat out bored. How's Ray Tracing going to handle Crysis? Bottlenecked by only having 4 cores and 2 video cards. Like the love of creative, the proprietary code in EAX, and that sound must be crap if it can't do EAX5 in hardware. Well, can X-Fi do EAX5? No. It's disabled and left for 3rd party to enable (no squashed). Yet every better card is held back because it's not EAX5 able in hardware. Rubbish.

It's very easy from my viewpoint to say Crysis is NOT a benchmark, nor are many games. More so when talking about a computer build that is suppose to do more than that. The simple look at this is a complete "yes", in that the CPU is the bottleneck in games. The GPU mentioned leaves so much for the CPU to do, and there it lies. While the card is pumping frames, half are dropped in visual quailty, and based a winner because it draws said frames so quickly. I'm a Van Gogh because I can draw a stick figure me with one ear 20 times a minute?

Really, this is all about knowing what's going on behind the benches...and it scares me that it's all based on frames per second. That killed the superior 3DFX, and they're taking the angle again. FPS is far too heavily weighed as making the card, and yet the 3870 lives on outside of the trend. Wonder why? Because it's more than capable, has what it takes to make pretty pictures today and tomorrow, and we know we can't possibly see more than 35 FPS.

So does Crysis stutter when puttin in ungawdly requests? Yes. It's not the CPU's fault, nor the GPU's fault. It's coded with the gamble that nothing changes. There's no bottleneck if leaned all on the GPU. That's a false though...games are still bound by the CPU. Or I wouldn't post higher scores with one card than X2's are at stock. Aren't the X2's posting about 12.5K too?
ORB - Compare
CPU bound.

Bottleneck is not based on liking a core or not. It's based on what's holding you back...And that for sure, is. Doubt it, move up and see it get better. Change nothing...just the CPU. I've seen it, now you guys.

[Added]Polo, you think computers don't do Progressive scan? That's Entertainment room stuff. We've done Progressive for a very long time. The last DVD burner you bought...was it progressive scan? Doesn't need to be...not our issue on this side. I can game on a 46" plasma and not care less about progressive scan from a media player. It's bit for bit. I can produce 60Hz images at those resolutions from my video card. That's effectively better than 1080p, minus those 30 pixels. HD is a big thing in the living room, old hat for computers. The last battle we have is decoding the signal due to DRM and HDCP. Want HD 1080? Cool...got it on a 22" screen right now. Am I going to play crysis at that? Hell no!

He didn't ask for an upgrade, yet whether he had a bottleneck and he does. Is there an upgrade? Yes. You state Nehalem, fine...one year from now, he can have your upgrade that is oh so close. I stated he over payed today. There's no arguement besides not liking how I come off...blunt. Is there a bottle neck, everyone with a sense says yes. You want to argue that there is no bottle neck, and that's your ideal. I can take that, but it's incorrect. Again, logic states he can get an E8400 and be better with his payload. What is that?

Bottleneck...

[simple_inhibition]

woah! bnb's fabled wall of text! ill have to read it after pt.

both of you have very valid points for each side of the discussion. just keep things cordial

[polobunny]

Originally Posted by Boy'nBlack

Thanks Capper, you stated what I couldn't in clear terms. Intended or not! Obviously, this is a graphical only topic, or at least gaming only mindset. Might be wrong...but...

I tried for the longest time to just be a user...when in Rome, ya know? I played halflife2, twice, on a Rambus powered Ti4200 graphical slumper. It was the middleman and the average user machine...and the game was great with not graphical reality. It was laughable, so I finally had to cave in and start talking from the elitist stand point. It wasn't any better, and nothing got good until the 6800Ultra got onto the PCIe bus...I finally got to see the glimpse of DX9. It's gotten better each revision, and better yet with the latest cards. Little things that you don't miss, they're there.

While I agree fully that full on builders don't see these jumps, I also agree they don't miss them. I like playing on a Ti4200 to know what happens on each and every GPU since then. Those things are in the garage overhead now, boxed and labeled. But that was the Far Cry machine too...something to use as a baseline for years to come. Crysis is SUPPOSE to be tough. It's going to be tough again for the next cards. The gamble is that the new cards should do the old ways over and over again. With this mindset (and shown in the nVidia periodical included in certain mags), ATI nor Intel can never win because they don't follow the old ways. See where I'm going here?

To say a person has a bottleneck from Crysis is an understatement. It's coded for one side. To be pretty, it must run on card X. Not Y or Z, just X. This is the exact same problem Glide had in how the better coding wasn't in another format. How's that working now? HL1 was a Glide monster. You got more frames from a TNT, but you got the picture with Glide. Nothing has changed, and that's since 1998. It's all about the frames in that camp, and if you don't compare in frames, the reader is flat out bored. How's Ray Tracing going to handle Crysis? Bottlenecked by only having 4 cores and 2 video cards. Like the love of creative, the proprietary code in EAX, and that sound must be crap if it can't do EAX5 in hardware. Well, can X-Fi do EAX5? No. It's disabled and left for 3rd party to enable (no squashed). Yet every better card is held back because it's not EAX5 able in hardware. Rubbish.

It's very easy from my viewpoint to say Crysis is NOT a benchmark, nor are many games. More so when talking about a computer build that is suppose to do more than that. The simple look at this is a complete "yes", in that the CPU is the bottleneck in games. The GPU mentioned leaves so much for the CPU to do, and there it lies. While the card is pumping frames, half are dropped in visual quailty, and based a winner because it draws said frames so quickly. I'm a Van Gogh because I can draw a stick figure me with one ear 20 times a minute?

Really, this is all about knowing what's going on behind the benches...and it scares me that it's all based on frames per second. That killed the superior 3DFX, and they're taking the angle again. FPS is far too heavily weighed as making the card, and yet the 3870 lives on outside of the trend. Wonder why? Because it's more than capable, has what it takes to make pretty pictures today and tomorrow, and we know we can't possibly see more than 35 FPS.

So does Crysis stutter when puttin in ungawdly requests? Yes. It's not the CPU's fault, nor the GPU's fault. It's coded with the gamble that nothing changes. There's no bottleneck if leaned all on the GPU. That's a false though...games are still bound by the CPU. Or I wouldn't post higher scores with one card than X2's are at stock. Aren't the X2's posting about 12.5K too?
ORB - Compare
CPU bound.

Bottleneck is not based on liking a core or not. It's based on what's holding you back...And that for sure, is. Doubt it, move up and see it get better. Change nothing...just the CPU. I've seen it, now you guys.

[Added]Polo, you think computers don't do Progressive scan? That's Entertainment room stuff. We've done Progressive for a very long time. The last DVD burner you bought...was it progressive scan? Doesn't need to be...not our issue on this side. I can game on a 46" plasma and not care less about progressive scan from a media player. It's bit for bit. I can produce 60Hz images at those resolutions from my video card. That's effectively better than 1080p, minus those 30 pixels. HD is a big thing in the living room, old hat for computers. The last battle we have is decoding the signal due to DRM and HDCP. Want HD 1080? Cool...got it on a 22" screen right now. Am I going to play crysis at that? Hell no!

He didn't ask for an upgrade, yet whether he had a bottleneck and he does. Is there an upgrade? Yes. You state Nehalem, fine...one year from now, he can have your upgrade that is oh so close. I stated he over payed today. There's no arguement besides not liking how I come off...blunt. Is there a bottle neck, everyone with a sense says yes. You want to argue that there is no bottle neck, and that's your ideal. I can take that, but it's incorrect. Again, logic states he can get an E8400 and be better with his payload. What is that?

Bottleneck...

It's incorrect? What the heck are you smoking? How can you tell someone "ideal is incorrect"?
God almighty? It's an opinion, not so much a fact. I'm sure you can find a few CPU's lying on the side. Go ahead and do some real world benching.
Wait... you're only seeing a minimal drop in frames per second when changing for a slower CPU? Aww, that's too bad, looks like the CPU is only accounted for a very very tiny portion of those frames you see.

He already had the E6420, before buying the stuff in the first post. Unless you're blatantly ignoring that, no, he did not overpay the E6420 because you have no idea when he bought it. Furthermore, he's already thinking about upgrading to a Wolfdale in a month or so. There's a ton of alternatives to simply shelling out $200+ and trashing his E6420.

A 1080p signal usually implies a 1920x1080 resolution with progressive scan. 22" consumer computer monitors will usually do 1680x1050. To be able to display "1080p" natively you will need a WUXGA monitor, normally 24 inch range. Progressive scan matters by the way, you will always get a better picture from a progressive scan enabled hardware and signal than an interlaced signal.
But again, that's totally aside the point.

Originally Posted by simple_inhibition

woah! bnb's fabled wall of text! ill have to read it after pt.

both of you have very valid points for each side of the discussion. just keep things cordial

I'm always cordial buddy. ;)