Upgrade Dilemma - CPU vs GPU

[Amart]

Current Gaming System:

E4300 - 3.0 Ghz, 1.35v Thermalright Ultra 120
G.SKILL 4GB DDR2-800
Gigabyte 965P DS3 Rev 3.3 (F12)
Gigabyte GTX 460 1GB (800/1600/1900 OC on Stock)
PCP&C 610W
BenQ 24" 1920x1200 (scaling works well and I can run as low as 1440x900)
OS: Win XP 32bit

Problem #1 (obvious): Can only allocate 4GB memory total - less then 3GB with this GPU. I plan to upgrade to Windows7 regardless of the solution below.

Problem #2: I suspect this is affecting me, the symptoms seem to match - DPC Latency Issues: http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=508637&
mpage=1

Upgrading from ATI 4850 512mb - Performance gains were not as significant as expected from reviews. In some instances there was severe performance loss / degradation. I just found out about this DPC issue and suspect it continues even though I updated to latest drivers.

I know the upgrade choice looks bad but - I had a buyer for the 4850, problems with ATI CCC, and the 460GTX reviews promised a decent FPS upgrade - and I couldn't afford more (it was before the 6850 released).

Considering three options:

1. Optimizing my current system - if the DPC latency issue is resolved by current nVidia drivers.

2. Switch back to ATI for a comparable or slightly faster card. $150 + selling the GTX 460.
I read about CPU bottlenecking and the opinions of people on forums seem to differ from the factual reviews I managed to find. Most games still don't use more then 2 Cores, the performance difference is under 10%.
For example - BFBC2 - there was a major issue with Beta client being very CPU heavy - and the release/patches all mentioned optimization for Dual Core. Most posts I read still claim it requires Quad Core - yet the Tom's Hardware CPU Bottleneck tests show the gains are still very small:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/game-performance-bottleneck,2737-7.html

If I switch to a slightly faster ATI card in the $200-250 price range (including sale) the 775/DPC latency issue will be avoided and I should get 50+ FPS with tweaked settings.

3. Keep the 460GTX - upgrade to SB 2500k for about $500 (CPU/MB/Ram/HSF Kit) - this will bypass the DPC issues and should allow me to Record my gaming easier (a very desired feature). The cost for this option is 3x higher, and I have a problem justifying it - there seems to be a huge discrepancy between claims on forums and controlled tests.

Games I plan to play:
GuildWars 2
Battlefield 3 (currently semi-active in BFBC2, in part due to the performance issues)
MechWarrior Living Legends - a Crysis Wars mod. It seems very CPU/GPU intensive. I'm currently experiencing some crashing issues and sub-par performance.

Thoughts/Advice/Criticism welcome!

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

The CPU is holding you back. This isnt 2009 where dual cores reign supreme. If you get any quad core at this point you will see more FPS from that GTX 460. All new games support quad cores. If not all most major releases do.

 

[Amart]

They may not reign supreme, but how far behind are they? If it's a question of single-digit FPS difference at 1920x1200 like some of the reviews indicate - or 10-20 FPS like forum posts claim... which is unclear as people tend to upgrade the entire system / perform a clean OS install when going to Quad.

 

[bntran02]

Comparing CPU power alone with tom's hierarchal chart:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gaming-cpu,2951-5.html

And through some research I've concluded that each tier is about 25-30% performance difference. And the E4300 vs 2500K is 7 tiers apart. So to keep the math simple lets use 25%. So....1.25 ^ 7 = performance difference = 4.768.

To summarize, the 2500k is about 5 times faster than the E4300 without overclocking. This does not equal 5 times the frame rates but should improve your frames a very significant amount. I just recent upgraded from a 4850 to GTX 560 (560 is just a slightly higher clocked 460) and it is a world of a difference. The fact that you do not get a large bump in frames is just more evidence that your processor is holding everything back. Your GTX 460 is still a beast and should be able to play almost all games at max settings and 1920x1080 resolution.

 

[Amart]

Without overclocking? That statement is not applicable to this thread.

Is it the evidence, or am I one of the people affected by the 965P Intel DPC Latency issue with the 460GTX specifically?

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/x86-core-performance-comparison/3DMark11,2761.html

This is the performance comparison of One Core at 3.0Ghz.

E4300 is at 1.8Ghz stock - I'm running it at 3.0Ghz - so it's about equivalent to the Conroe in that chart for gaming. According to those charts the performance gained per core is ~15-20% - and most games will use the same number of cores. Yes, it's a huge upgrade, especially considering that SB will easily clock 4.0Ghz, performing 1.25x faster above it's per-clock advantage. 1.2 * 1.25 = 1.5 performance difference. That will help assuming that it's really CPU bound.

I'm leaning towards the SB option primarily because at 3+ years on some components I'm already past warranty. It's just annoying that the main issue might not be the mild CPU bottleneck, but the ugly lack of a driver fix for my current motherboard from nVidia. It's a tempting thought to switch back to ATI and cruise through another couple of years on this hardware and wait for the next real breakthrough.

 

[mfenn]

Have you tried running DPC latency checker to see if you indeed do have issues with DPC latency? Have you tried getting rid of your OC (or at least backing off) and testing the latency?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Interesting. I haven't checked my DPC latency recently. I also have a GTX460 1GB OC card installed, in my P35 motherboard with a Q9300 @ 3.0 (400 FSB).

I get occasional red bars, above 4000us. Is that an indication of the GTX460/775 DPC latency problem?

 

[mfenn]

Larry, very well could be. Knowing you, I'll bet that you are in a position to confirm it by swapping some cards around. It might help the OP to determine a resolution to his issue.

 

[DominionSeraph]

hmmmm...

 

[lsv]

hmmmm...

What are your specs? That's crazy low.

 

[DominionSeraph]

What are your specs? That's crazy low.

Dell Dimension E521.
Athlon 64 X2 5200+ (stock clocks), 2GB DDR2 800, 9600GT, WD800JD.

This is also kinda low:

 

[thescreensavers]

Not to thread jack but what does this mean exactly? This is from my laptop.


OP, are you a student(have an EDU email) you can get W7 for 30 bucks iirc

 

[Arachnotronic]

This is a no brainer -- Go with the 2500K.

 

[mfenn]

hmmmm...

Considering that the max recorded latency is 0 microseconds (impossible), I'd say that the tool is most likely not running correctly on your system.

 

[mfenn]

Not to thread jack but what does this mean exactly? This is from my laptop.


OP, are you a student(have an EDU email) you can get W7 for 30 bucks iirc

This means that some function calls are deferred up to 2000us (2ms) on your machine. That can have implications when it comes to things that need to be as real-time as possible like audio playback, video playback, and gaming.

 

[BoomerD]

Anand doesn't have the e4300 on the benchmark chart, so I had to choose the e4500 to compare to the i5-2500K:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/288?vs=65

HUGE difference in performance...MUCH more than you'll get by upgrading your video card.

 

[mfenn]

Anand doesn't have the e4300 on the benchmark chart, so I had to choose the e4500 to compare to the i5-2500K:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/288?vs=65

HUGE difference in performance...MUCH more than you'll get by upgrading your video card.

He's running a 3GHz.

 

[BoomerD]

He's running a 3GHz.

Wait...I thought the e4300 was 1.8GHz...Is the difference overclock?

http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=28024

 

[Amart]

Wait...I thought the e4300 was 1.8GHz...Is the difference overclock?

http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=28024

Yes. Anand's sample reached 3.4Ghz on air. 3.0Ghz stable 24/7 is not unusual for these - especially with a properly cooled northbridge and aftermarket HSF.
That required some work with my motherboard - replaced the thermal compound and added a small fan on the NB.

I used the the DPC Latency Checker and there were no red bars at all - all green and below 300μs like in the "correct" sample.

P.S. The Win7 deal is awesome - but I'm no longer a student.

 

[toyota]

an E4300 at 3.0 is still pretty poky to push a higher end gpu. its probably only about as fast as an E8500 lowered to 2.3 or so. a gtx460 would not even get but about half its potential reached in more cpu intensive games with a cpu like that. even in games that are not very cpu intensive, you still would probably only get about 75% at best of what a gtx460 could do.

 

[BoomerD]

Yes. Anand's sample reached 3.4Ghz on air. 3.0Ghz stable 24/7 is not unusual for these - especially with a properly cooled northbridge and aftermarket HSF.
That required some work with my motherboard - replaced the thermal compound and added a small fan on the NB.

I used the the DPC Latency Checker and there were no red bars at all - all green and below 300μs like in the "correct" sample.

P.S. The Win7 deal is awesome - but I'm no longer a student.

And people are pushing the i5-2500K to 4.5 and even 5.0 on air...it's simple enough...the i5-2500K is a far faster processor than the e4300...and making that upgrade with your current GPU will still be more "bang for the buck" than keeping the old processor and upgrading the GPU.

 

[mfenn]

I used the the DPC Latency Checker and there were no red bars at all - all green and below 300μs like in the "correct" sample.

Did you try leaving it running in the background while you were gaming? Be sure to look at the maximum latency text, as any red bars may have scrolled off the display.

And people are pushing the i5-2500K to 4.5 and even 5.0 on air...it's simple enough...the i5-2500K is a far faster processor than the e4300...and making that upgrade with your current GPU will still be more "bang for the buck" than keeping the old processor and upgrading the GPU.

True, as long as the OP has enough bucks for both. If he can only choose one, he should pick the GPU every day of the week.

 

[DominionSeraph]

1. Format/reinstall. If that fixes your problems and you're happy with the performance of your e4300/GTX 460 (which should be pretty decent), you just saved yourself a good chunk of cash.

2. If that doesn't work, get the i5 2500k.
Better a large upgrade in CPU than a small upgrade in GPU just to get you where you should've been originally.

 

[BoomerD]

Did you try leaving it running in the background while you were gaming? Be sure to look at the maximum latency text, as any red bars may have scrolled off the display.



True, as long as the OP has enough bucks for both. If he can only choose one, he should pick the GPU every day of the week.

He's already got a 1 Gb 460 GTX. While that's not the fastest video card available, I suspect that in MOST games, he's already more CPU limited than GPU limited.

IMO, upgrading the CPU, motherboard, and RAM while keeping his existing video card will be a MUCH bigger performance boost than keeping his 3 generation old CPU, board, and RAM, and upgrading his video card.

 

[Amart]

DPC Latency - tried it while gaming BFBC2 on various resolutions - it spiked to 1142us at one point. I then tried HD video and there was a spike of ~1900 at some point (missed it). The average was 300-400 and I didn't manage to see the high numbers except reading the Absolute. If this was an issue I assume it would have been much more obvious.

Going with the 2500K upgrade - decided not to waste more time investigating 3-4 year old components. Thanks for all the responses.