Where's the bottleneck?

BWS1982

BWS1982

CAGiversary!
I have limited funds (none right now, but I will down the road soon) to upgrade things on my custom rig a little more, but I wanted to know what would yield the biggest increase in performance. Obviously all of these areas could see an upgrade and yield performance, but I want the biggest bang for the buck with that.

I can max out all of Skyrim's settings and get what appears to be about 30ish fps (I have yet to check, but it's good enough to play smoothly, until the mods come in) and Crysis runs fine on really, really high settings, etc.... so it's a decent PC for gaming, obviously, but it's more about the fact that as soon as things get busy with graphical mods in Skyrim, or things just get hectic in modern FPS's, etc... the rate dips sometimes. I realize this can happen on almost any PC if the right amount of demand is placed, but I know and you know I don't have something that will run the top games next year and beyond, at max settings. That's where I want to know what the weakest link is (are) for the money... Will a GPU upgrade yield a great leap, going from 1GB of RAM to 1.5, etc... or is the CPU that behind? Would a simple OC'ing give a huge boost?

I know I have a rig that's about top of the line from a couple years ago (mix and matched with components after some upgrades)... The areas I believe are the focus of performance are:

*RAM: (should be good, I have 12 GB, I doubt it's a bottleneck to focus on): Patriot Viper Xtreme 12GB (3 x 4GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)

*Mobo: ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 LGA 1366 Intel X58

*CPU: i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core ------(not OC'd...I haven't researched how so I'm not effing it up by "guessing" or playing around, perhaps it's likely simple, and maybe it's the best method to "upgrade" for NO $$, but it seems like a lot of research and I've had some medical problems so I haven't gotten around to "diving into" that...that's what I want to know, would it yield a huge difference??)

*GPU: EVGA SuperClocked GeForce GTX 560 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5


--I have an SB X-Fi card, 2 WD Black Caviar HDD's (one 2TB system drive and one 1TB for extra data), an 850W Antec Signature PSU, a CoolerMaster HAF932, and I have 3 optical drives (1 BDROM and 2x DVD burners, don't get into it, I like to be able to duplicate a disc with 2 of them and maybe play a game or watch a movie on the third, it's a multitasking thing and they're cheap)... I doubt these components are of concern.

Thanks for insights, even if the OC'ing is the most obvious "upgrade" and this is a stupid inquiry (I'm still curious if it'll be a huge leap IF I did that, and went from 2.67GHz to let's say, 3ish)
 
Your bottleneck is your CPU. But don't think just changing that will increase your FPS in your games. You have a mid-tier gaming GPU which means you can play the latest and greatest but not with everything at max (turn down some of those fancy AA stuff for better fps).

Stick it out with your rig, it still has a good 3-4 years left in it. Of everything a SSD would be an actual upgrade to your PC.
 
Bottleneck is NOT the CPU. Was great value for it's time and remains a very powerful quad-core processor. The thing holding you back is a so-so GPU. The 560 just doesn't have the power.
 
You can get an idea which it is by running something with GPU & CPU load meters in the background while gaming and alt-tabbing back out to it. If your GPU is pegged at around 100% that's your bottleneck and if any of your CPU cores are it's that.

I suspect with Skyrim you are bumping past the 1GB of VRAM on your video card and that's causing at least some of the drops. MSI Afterburner can show you both your GPU load and VRAM used. It can also show them in an OSD while you're gaming which is much more convenient that having to alt-tab back and forth.

You'll get a definite improvement by overclocking that CPU in situations that are CPU bound, which are more likely to come about if you upgrade the video card (and you're likely going to want to). The Geforce 660's are slated to come out in a month or so, if you can hold out until then it's worth seeing what they deliver and might drop prices on current hardware down a bit more. Get a good OC on the CPU and a new video card and you should be good for a good while longer.
 
i'm pretty sure it's the gpu that's the bottleneck for games.

SSD helps you load games faster but doesn't affect the framerate.
 
Sorry for the delay, thanks! That helps a lot, the insight!

Hm, the video card's actually the newest component in my rig, but I realized when I bought it it was a bargain GPU for what was out (I got it last year, in the fall)... I knew going in that it was just a "bridge" until something more monstrous was affordable. I got a great deal on it from Newegg for the horsepower. It replaced a GTX 260.

So, what do you guys think of getting a 600 series card later when I can, and OC'ing the CPU to 3ish GHz...??? I saw the 670 FTW is great power for the money, and it'll likely drop over the next few months, to maybe $300 or so?

Those two --a 600 series and OC'ing-- should spruce it up into 2013 quite well, right? Crysis 3, Fry Cry 3, and Doom 4, etc...
 
Bottleneck depends on the game you're playing. Typically, it's GPU, but thanks to consoles and console ports, some games are CPU bound. Like the Assassin's Creed series for example.

I have a GTX 480 overclocked 150 MHz over stock, so it's pretty decent. Ass's Creed II, I'd crank up completely and it'd still hover in the upper 40s or so on my 3.6 GHz Phenom II X4. Got an i5 2500k, OC'd to 4.5 Ghz, and it's 60 FPS plus, same GPU. Same with Brotherhood, so that series is definitely dependent on processor. Most games are GPU limited, this is just one example.

I'd tell you to just OC that i7 up to 3.6 GHz or so, which is doable with them, and just chill, save up and upgrade later. CPU is longer in the tooth than the rest, so I'd say do that first, probably just wait and do both CPU and GPU. BTW, Skyrim runs near constant 60 with everything on max and 8x AA for me.

Here's my setup for fun.

Intel Core i5 2500k @ 4.5 GHz
Cooler Master Hyper 212+ CPU cooler
Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3 motherboard
2x 4 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 RAM @ 1600 Mhz
EVGA GTX 480 GPU @ 850 Mhz w/Zalman VF3000F cooler
HT Omega Claro Halo soundcard with OPA2107p opamps
700w OCZ Modstream Pro PSU
750 GB WD Black HDD
1 TB Seagate HDD
1 TB Hitachi HDD
Antec 900 case
 
Install Fraps and find out what your frame rate really is in Skyrim. I'd love to see screenshots with your frame rate in the corner, as well as screenshots of the graphical settings.

Your system is more than capable of running the latest games on the highest settings. What resolution are you running at? Do you apply lots of AA you won't notice much anyway? Do you tick graphics options that don't add much but carry with them a huge drop in performance, like SSAO or HBAO?

"Bottlenecks" are becoming more difficult to find. Here's a good discussion on how the old rules of thumb don't mean much anymore. http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/12008/determining-if-a-game-is-cpu-or-gpu-limited
 
All points taken.

I have FRAPS already, but haven't bothered to use it with Skyrim yet. I only recently saw it chug as I put in enough mods that Skyrim choked up randomly. I think it's possibly a mod conflict or something, as the first 40-60 hours of Skyrim time was like butter, and then I dumped on the mods (up to 50ish turned on now). And yes, likely one or more of the mods for graphical excellence is giving me a negligible return in the visuals, and is therefore a hardware hog for little benefit. I tried not to duplicate any (Ie: only one for trees, only one for grass, one for static meshes, etc...)

I'll grab some screens with FPS in the corner, I know how to use FRAPS.

I'm likely not as hardware-educated as some of you. Enough to build and upgrade a computer, but not so much that I can have the insights that I'm seeing. To which...thanks.
 
If the mods are worth an upgrade to you, then go for it. I would probably test drive the mods once or twice, but they wouldn't encourage me to upgrade my hardware. It's entirely subjective though.
 
Well the mods alone haven't spurred it, I guess they were more of a harbinger of struggles with let's say, maxing out Far Cry 3 maybe. I just know that when I watch my rig hit a wall, it reminds me I don't have the best and soon may be running things at medium in the next 12 months. I get your point, though...I'd rather turn them down/off than spend money that I don't have right now (as I said, I'll have it later)...
 
I say wait. Turn down some graphical settings. What's the harm in video games looking like video games?

When you do eventually upgrade, the upgrade will be all the more impressive.
 
How do you figure out the bottleneck for the processor though? Right now I'm trying to upgrade a Dell 660s 2000-bk which has an Intel Pentium G630 (2.7ghz, 2 cores), but I don't know which low profile video card to buy. Even if low profile, it would rather be snug fit for this case. I probably need a new power supply for this thing as well (only has 220watts), but I can't find one that fits in this case. Also, first time working with slim case. Back to the original question, how can I figure out which video card is best for a certain processor?
 
i dont see how an i7 when so many people get i5s would hold the system back =p

i myself got an evga 295 card and now it's finally starting to struggle just a little bit.(not oc or anything like that) i dont do 1080p gaming any more more but ohh well, at least it's still miles ahead of a console.



I also have a live gamer HD So when i record, i dont have to worry about that taking resources. anyways think right now cooling is one of my biggest problems. i got a antec 1200 case and one of the front fans is gone so it's not really cooling some of my stuff as well as i'd like.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
bread's done
Back
Top