Tom's Hardware: CPU/GPU Bottlenecks

[GaiaHunter]

yes that is what I was saying. just because he doesnt notice that getting 35 fps where he could be getting 50 doesn't mean his Core 2 cpu is not limiting him. there are several games such as GTA 4, Prototype, Red Faction Guerrilla, Ghostbusters and few others where his 6970 would be barley getting over 50% of what it could with an i7/i5 quad and in some of those it would be noticeable.

But the problem is that solution is more expensive.

What would be the solution (lets exclude buying used parts and incredible sales for simplicity) that had a similar cost (to the 6950) and offered superior performance gains?

Look for example at these articles:

Gamers: Do You Need More Than An Athlon II X3?

X3 440 vs i7 920 - Sure the i7 920 is the fastest, although in many situation the much more expensive processor (and even more after adding the motherboard costs differences) isn't that much faster. The article ends with a i7 920 + 5850 losing to the X3 440 + 5870 CF at higher resolutions and winning at lower resolutions.

Toms crew end up deciding that its a great victory to the i7 920 since while it costs $200 more the 5870 CF costs $500 more than a 5850. That is true - of course a 5850 CF setup would only make the X3 440 $50 more expensive while not losing much performance, making it the best choice for 2560x1600.

PS.: Include minimums.

Is Intel's Core i3-530 Fast Enough For Performance Gaming?

This article feature an array of CPUs (i3-530, i7-870, X4 965 and X3 720) paired with a 5850. The most impressive is that the i7-870 stock doesn't show any superiority over the i3-530 stock, while the X4 965 (stock) comes on top beating the 4.1 GHz i3 530.

And clearly, the 5850 is the biggest bottleneck here.

Game-Off: Seven Sub-$150 Processors Compared

This one has a bunch of <$150 CPUs (Athlon II X2 260, X3 445, X4 640, Phenom II 940/945, Intel Pentium G6950, i3-530 and i3-540) paired with a GTX480.

This one shows that most of these processors, especially the quads and the X3, will offer a very decent gaming experience when coupled with a GPU that is 3x-6x more expensive then themselves.

Again minimums included.

Will one of the i3 or AMD X4s/X3s coupled with a GTX460/6850 match his dual+6950 (flashed to 6970)? I guess in the obvious cases of games that can use 4 cores it will, but otherwise, I'm not sure. And it will still cost more than his 6950...

 

[toyota]

you are working way too hard there. again my point to him was that he is not getting all that his card is capable of whether he "notices" it or not. and to also say that is some games it would be quite noticeable. nothing more, nothing less.

 

[GaiaHunter]

you are working way too hard there. again my point to him was that he is not getting all that his card is capable of whether he "notices" it or not. and to also say that is some games it would be quite noticeable. nothing more, nothing less.

I'm not trying to win an argument with you.

I just took your line to post and expand my opinion since it is related with the debate of CPU vs GPU, which generally ends in "the best move is to update to the least expensive CPU that will OC near the performance of the most expensive one and the least expensive GPU that will achieve good gameplay at chosen resolution" which is true but doesn't consider budget restrictions and how to obtain the highest possible performance increase now.

So don't feel as if I'm picking on you or trying to smash your position/opinion.

Peace.