PC Bottlenecking.

Zian5377 · Mar 11, 2009, 09:33 PM

Ok peeps, I hope somebody an help me with a serious dilemma.

I built my buddy a PC about 4 months ago, it was mostly just for movies but he wanted to do a little gaming as well, I threw in a 3.4Ghz Pentium 4 with HT. 4 Gigs DDR2 800 and a 512mb Nvidia 8500 GT (All old parts of mine mind you) and well he was playing some Bioshock, and Fallout 3 and stuff and it ran decent at medium settings because that 8500 GT was SSSSSSuper overclocked like from 450mhz to 650mhz.

So everything was running fine then he got a hand me down from another friend a 512mb ATI x1950 pro so I swapped the cards out cuz the 1950 should smoke the 8500gt but now his frames in almost all games are exactly the same or even sometimes a few less, so my question is do you think that Pentium 4 is bottlenecking the GPU, and what do you think of possibly throwing in a AMD Phenom 9500 and what would be the performance difference?

Also please no "Ohh buy a new GPU that one sucks bla bla bla." It's not my PC and he doesn't have the cash for a new GPU the Phenom is just a CPU I have in a PC I scrapped a year back and would swap the Mobo+CPU with if it would fix the bottleneck.

CDsDontBurn · Mar 11, 2009, 10:14 PM

have you tried uninstalling the drivers of the 8500 card first? use drivercleaner pro (free, but no support), or get drivercleaner.net (supported, but it's $10) to remove all of the old drivers. afterwards install the latest ATI drivers if you haven't done that.

btw, i have an x1950pro 512MB AGP card in my system, and it totally smokes my old x800xt pe card away. and to my understanding, the NVIDIA 8500 and the x800xt pe are supposed to be similar in performance...granted that the x800 is still a little better though.

oh yea, you also want to check to see if the motherboard drivers are installed as well. if not, install them, or at least update them

Mac Daddy · Mar 11, 2009, 10:53 PM

I would go with CD's advise I also had an X1950 512 on my Prescott 478 system a few years ago and didn't really experience a bottleneck with it.

The 9600gt is a different story

Zian5377 · Mar 11, 2009, 11:03 PM

I did a complete Partition wipe on his system when I put the Vid Card in, I mean I went into the XP bootup CD and deleted the Partitions and then created new ones, would I still need to run a Driversweep? And I'll check out the Motherboard drivers, it's an Abit Ip-95 Mobo running Pci-E x16, also he is running the latest Catalyst drivers as well.

Also the CPU is a Socket 775 P4 not 478. Maybe the slowdown and I just thought of this could be from the Antec 350W PSU, it's running 14+10 Amps on the 12v rails and the GPU recommends 28 Amps and 550w which the 550 I know is just to be "safe". And it does have the 6 Pin power connector from the PSU

Mac Daddy · Mar 11, 2009, 11:19 PM

I would check those Mobo drivers a 775 P4 shouldn't have a bottleneck issue with an X1950 512 PCI-E.

I ran my X1950 on my Corsair HX-520 so not sure on the PSU but I would think it would cause a lockup or crash due to lack of power ... not a slowdown.

CDsDontBurn · Mar 12, 2009, 12:07 AM

what series p4 is it? is it a 5x0 or a 6x0 series p4? if it's a 5x0 series p4, then it's basically a re-fitted s478 p4 to the s775. aside from that, they are identical.

but, i'm starting to think that if you've done a clean OS install, and you've installed the display drivers, that you haven't installed the motherboard drivers yet. but, it could also be from the PSU as well. 350w is a bit low for that system w/that card regardless of the brand. i'd say to definately check out the drivers first, and if you continue to have issues, try another PSU in there if possible.

mine is running on a s478 p4 3.2Ghz, 2GB RAM, 520w OCZ PowerStream

Zian5377 · Mar 12, 2009, 12:41 AM

It's a 540j or 520j something of the sort so yes it is a 5x0 series and I checked for Mobo Drivers but none of them seemed to be actual mobo drivers most were for the LAN or the Onboard Video and things of the sort.

And yeah the PC has
Abit IP-95
Pentium 4 3.0ghz OC'd to 3.4ghz running HT
X1950 Pro 512mb
4 Gigs Patriot Ram DDR2 800 (running at 533 due to the Mobo)
2x 80 Gig WD IDE HD's
2x 160g Sata Seagate Barracuda HD's
HP 300i DVD Burner IDE
and a Soundblaster Live 24 bit Sound Card
along with 1 250mm Fan 1 140mm Blue LED and 2 80mm Blue LED Fans all powered on the Antec 350w PSU

Mac Daddy · Mar 12, 2009, 01:14 AM

What you want is the VIA HyperionPro driver
(Third down)

Universal abit > Motherboard, Digital Speakers, iDome, AirPace, Multimedia

On the PSU it may be too light as CD's mentioned I think I picked up a 520W for the X1950 ... it was 2 years ago so don't really remember.

Zian5377 · Mar 12, 2009, 04:45 AM

Ok, I'll get this to him in the morning. What exactly does it do? It's still downloading so I'll read the readme anyways but I'm just curious.

As for the PSU I recommended him toward a good quality 650w or something of the sort for future expansion. I'm leaning him toward a Corsair 650w for 80 bucks on Newegg after the MIR that you never get so he'll have some PCI-E plugs and plenty of Sata plugs, plus it is i7 certified incase he ever really upgrades.

Mac Daddy · Mar 12, 2009, 10:40 AM

The drivers are the the drivers for his VIA chipset. When I first picked up my X1950 I was getting really slow speeds as well (around 2k on 3dmark6). Updating the VIA drivers on that Asrock mobo fixed the issue.

On the PSU you really can't go wrong with Corsair ... best of luck and keep us posted

Zian5377 · Mar 12, 2009, 06:32 PM

Wow, ok I had him drop his PC off this morning.

I ran the Far Cry 2 Benchmark everthing Set to Medium with HDR and Bloom On at 1360x768

Before the Drivers he averaged 15fps on Ranch Small on a 3 loop run
Afterwards he was getting 24fps Average on the same bench

I haven't had a chance to try any other games but that right there is a nice increase for a Pentium 4 PC imo

Mac Daddy · Mar 12, 2009, 10:22 PM

It made a difference for me as well on my system using the X1950. It also helped my memory speeds these are all controlled by the Northbridge.

Sounding a lot better and cool on the PSU still something to consider it is an investment that lasts.

Zian5377 · Mar 13, 2009, 12:34 AM

Yeah definitely if he ever wants to move up to a C2D or more HDD's or anything he'll need a better PSU, but that Antec unit I had in my PC for 4yrs before I gave it to him and I run my PC 24/7 so Kudos to Antec for a quality build!

blibbax · Mar 13, 2009, 05:21 PM

If you have the phenom just sitting there than you masy as well give it to him, it will vertainly be a lot better than the P4.

Alternativley, you could get on a plane and give it to me.

I'm not bothered either way.

Zian5377 · Mar 16, 2009, 10:29 PM

Ok, PC is running fine now but he's ALREADY ready for an upgrade. . .

He just got his taxes in and pretty much wants to replace the vid card, he wanted to do two 4850's in Crossfire but I told him for about 20 bucks more he could just get a 4850x2 since it has twice as much memory for only 20 bucks more, and he just got a e6400 C2D which I helped him OC to 3.2ghz on Stock Cooling, still waiting on the PSU tho.

Anybody have any idea the performance gains he'll see in Crysis and things of the sort going from XP 32bit 4gig DDR2 800 (only running 3gigs in 32bit obviously) Pentium 4 3.4ghz and a x1950pro 512mb to Vista 64bit E6400 C2D 3.2ghz the same ram and a 4850x2? At 1360x768 that is.

blibbax · Mar 16, 2009, 11:31 PM

Why an E6600? There's not much point in pairing that with a 4870X2 IMO. Look at a GTX260 or similar.

CDsDontBurn · Mar 16, 2009, 11:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zian5377

Ok, PC is running fine now but he's ALREADY ready for an upgrade. . .

He just got his taxes in and pretty much wants to replace the vid card, he wanted to do two 4850's in Crossfire but I told him for about 20 bucks more he could just get a 4850x2 since it has twice as much memory for only 20 bucks more, and he just got a e6400 C2D which I helped him OC to 3.2ghz on Stock Cooling, still waiting on the PSU tho.

Anybody have any idea the performance gains he'll see in Crysis and things of the sort going from XP 32bit 4gig DDR2 800 (only running 3gigs in 32bit obviously) Pentium 4 3.4ghz and a x1950pro 512mb to Vista 64bit E6400 C2D 3.2ghz the same ram and a 4850x2? At 1360x768 that is.

that's an awesome boost in performance right there! i'm sure he's going to enjoy it!

but...why a 6x00 series CPU? coulda gotten at least an 8x00 series CPU

Mac Daddy · Mar 16, 2009, 11:53 PM

I agree a great boost in performance there for him and he will enjoy it. On the CPU I am also thinking along the same lines as blibbax and CD's a Wolfdale 8xxx series would work much better and not much more in terms of cost.

Tipstaff · Mar 17, 2009, 04:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CDsDontBurn

but...why a 6x00 series CPU? coulda gotten at least an 8x00 series CPU

The Abit IP95 board is a tricky beast though as it is supposed to only support 533mhz, 800mhz, and 1066mhz FSB CPUs. All the CPUs below the E8000 series works fine on that board as long as the bios is ver. 13, so you could go with an E7400 (2.8Ghz), E7300 (2.66Ghz), or E7200 (2.53Ghz) for about $130 US (yes, all 3 cost exactly the same price right now). With the E8000 series though, Abit says it's supposed to work, or at least supported by the board, but I've yet to see any updates by them to say that it has been tested to work.

CDsDontBurn · Mar 17, 2009, 06:39 AM

sorry, i wasn't aware of that Tipstaff.

but if it doesn't work, get a new board? lol, jk

anywho...why would the e7x00 CPUs be supported but not the e8x00 be? the e7x00s are newer, and therefore have a newer microcode to that of the e8x00 CPUs which would make me think that a BIOS flash would be required first before anything can be done with these newer CPUs.

Mac Daddy · Mar 17, 2009, 11:13 AM

I wasn't aware of that either with the Abit IP95 Tipstaff so even my E6550 (fsb=1333) wouldn't work properly on it. Tricky indeed !!

blibbax · Mar 17, 2009, 05:22 PM

Surely that board is capable of reaching 1333mhz on an overclock?

Anyhow, be sure he doesn't blow the bank on a 4870X2 without considering the all new bottlekneck he'll make.

Zian5377 · Mar 17, 2009, 06:32 PM

Haha, I didn't mention the new motherboard. Sorry he's upgrading to a ASUS Rampage Extreme X48 mobo. And as for the CPU it's a hand me down from his brother who just went to an i7, and I figured that that E6400 will be a bottleneck on his 4850x2 shoot it was a bottleneck on his brothers SLI 9600 GT's lol but his brother was running it stock at 2.1ghz a core, that's why I pushed it up to 3.2ghz a core to help it be less of a bottleneck.

Mac Daddy · Mar 18, 2009, 01:38 AM

OK well that makes sense. See how it performs and let us know

Tipstaff · Mar 20, 2009, 06:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mac Daddy

I wasn't aware of that either with the Abit IP95 Tipstaff so even my E6550 (fsb=1333) wouldn't work properly on it. Tricky indeed !!

Correct.

Quote:

Originally Posted by blibbax

Surely that board is capable of reaching 1333mhz on an overclock?

Anyhow, be sre he doesn't blow the bank on a 4870X2 without considering the all new bottlekneck he'll make.

Maybe, but you still need bios microcode that supports the CPU otherwise it may not work properly, let alone see the CPU.

blibbax · Mar 20, 2009, 06:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tipstaff

Maybe, but you still need bios microcode that supports the CPU otherwise it may not work properly, let alone see the CPU.

Ah sorry I assumed it was an Intel P965 or similar, not sure why. That's the chipset down from mine, and like mine, it won't support wolfdale and certainly won't reach 1333mhz fsb. A load of balls in fact, I got mine out of a refurb Celery machine.

Zian5377 · Mar 20, 2009, 11:04 PM

Parts should be here Monday, but I can't put them in until next Friday night. So I'll post some benchmarks up hopefully Friday Night or Saturday!

Even though his computer is now faster than mine I chipped in and he got

2x 4870 1gb's
1x Q9400 C2Q
1x Corsair 750w PSU
1x Asus Rampage Extreme

So now his computer is gonna be about 5x faster than mine...*sighs*
He gave me the C2D E6400 which I'll throw on my Skulltrail for LAN Parties
and the rest of the PC back except the 4 gigs of DDR2-800.

Forgot to mention he also found out his monitor actually does 1920x1080 which is why I told him to buy the 1gb versions instead so he has plenty of memory, plus they were the same price as the 512mb Sapphire ones?? 189-189

So he should be smoking now, I wish I got money back on my tax returns lol, maybe then I could replace this 8500 GT lol.

blibbax · Mar 20, 2009, 11:18 PM

That's a nice rig.

You have a Skulltrail lying around!? The e6400 won't fit it if you do.

Mac Daddy · Mar 21, 2009, 12:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zian5377

Parts should be here Monday, but I can't put them in until next Friday night. So I'll post some benchmarks up hopefully Friday Night or Saturday!

Even though his computer is now faster than mine I chipped in and he got

2x 4870 1gb's
1x Q9400 C2Q
1x Corsair 750w PSU
1x Asus Rampage Extreme

So now his computer is gonna be about 5x faster than mine...*sighs*
He gave me the C2D E6400 which I'll throw on my Skulltrail for LAN Parties
and the rest of the PC back except the 4 gigs of DDR2-800.

Forgot to mention he also found out his monitor actually does 1920x1080 which is why I told him to buy the 1gb versions instead so he has plenty of memory, plus they were the same price as the 512mb Sapphire ones?? 189-189

So he should be smoking now, I wish I got money back on my tax returns lol, maybe then I could replace this 8500 GT lol.

Sweet

CDsDontBurn · Mar 21, 2009, 12:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zian5377

Parts should be here Monday, but I can't put them in until next Friday night. So I'll post some benchmarks up hopefully Friday Night or Saturday!

Even though his computer is now faster than mine I chipped in and he got

2x 4870 1gb's
1x Q9400 C2Q
1x Corsair 750w PSU
1x Asus Rampage Extreme

So now his computer is gonna be about 5x faster than mine...*sighs*
He gave me the C2D E6400 which I'll throw on my Skulltrail for LAN Parties
and the rest of the PC back except the 4 gigs of DDR2-800.

Forgot to mention he also found out his monitor actually does 1920x1080 which is why I told him to buy the 1gb versions instead so he has plenty of memory, plus they were the same price as the 512mb Sapphire ones?? 189-189

So he should be smoking now, I wish I got money back on my tax returns lol, maybe then I could replace this 8500 GT lol.

that is awesomeness! but, why a q9400? why not a q9450? lol. i guess it shouldn't matter. it's still one helluva upgrade from his previous machine

Mar 11, 2009, 09:33 PM	#1
Zian5377 HardwareHeaven Lover Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Portland,Oregon U.S. Posts: 105 Rep Power: 25 System Specs	PC Bottlenecking. Ok peeps, I hope somebody an help me with a serious dilemma. I built my buddy a PC about 4 months ago, it was mostly just for movies but he wanted to do a little gaming as well, I threw in a 3.4Ghz Pentium 4 with HT. 4 Gigs DDR2 800 and a 512mb Nvidia 8500 GT (All old parts of mine mind you) and well he was playing some Bioshock, and Fallout 3 and stuff and it ran decent at medium settings because that 8500 GT was SSSSSSuper overclocked like from 450mhz to 650mhz. So everything was running fine then he got a hand me down from another friend a 512mb ATI x1950 pro so I swapped the cards out cuz the 1950 should smoke the 8500gt but now his frames in almost all games are exactly the same or even sometimes a few less, so my question is do you think that Pentium 4 is bottlenecking the GPU, and what do you think of possibly throwing in a AMD Phenom 9500 and what would be the performance difference? Also please no "Ohh buy a new GPU that one sucks bla bla bla." It's not my PC and he doesn't have the cash for a new GPU the Phenom is just a CPU I have in a PC I scrapped a year back and would swap the Mobo+CPU with if it would fix the bottleneck. __________________ _____________ "Good, Bad, I'm the one with the gun.." -Ash Gotta Love Wireless Internet!!

Mar 11, 2009, 10:14 PM	#2
CDsDontBurn Lurking DriverHeaven Join Date: May 2003 Location: Southern California Posts: 22,779 Rep Power: 235 System Specs	Re: PC Bottlenecking. have you tried uninstalling the drivers of the 8500 card first? use drivercleaner pro (free, but no support), or get drivercleaner.net (supported, but it's $10) to remove all of the old drivers. afterwards install the latest ATI drivers if you haven't done that. btw, i have an x1950pro 512MB AGP card in my system, and it totally smokes my old x800xt pe card away. and to my understanding, the NVIDIA 8500 and the x800xt pe are supposed to be similar in performance...granted that the x800 is still a little better though. oh yea, you also want to check to see if the motherboard drivers are installed as well. if not, install them, or at least update them __________________ Her First Day \| A year later

Mar 11, 2009, 10:53 PM	#3
Mac Daddy DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 7,950 Rep Power: 79 System Specs	Re: PC Bottlenecking. I would go with CD's advise I also had an X1950 512 on my Prescott 478 system a few years ago and didn't really experience a bottleneck with it. The 9600gt is a different story __________________ "My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." - Tim Allen

Mar 11, 2009, 11:03 PM	Thread Starter #4
Zian5377 HardwareHeaven Lover Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Portland,Oregon U.S. Posts: 105 Rep Power: 25 System Specs	Re: PC Bottlenecking. I did a complete Partition wipe on his system when I put the Vid Card in, I mean I went into the XP bootup CD and deleted the Partitions and then created new ones, would I still need to run a Driversweep? And I'll check out the Motherboard drivers, it's an Abit Ip-95 Mobo running Pci-E x16, also he is running the latest Catalyst drivers as well. Also the CPU is a Socket 775 P4 not 478. Maybe the slowdown and I just thought of this could be from the Antec 350W PSU, it's running 14+10 Amps on the 12v rails and the GPU recommends 28 Amps and 550w which the 550 I know is just to be "safe". And it does have the 6 Pin power connector from the PSU __________________ _____________ "Good, Bad, I'm the one with the gun.." -Ash Gotta Love Wireless Internet!!

Mar 11, 2009, 11:19 PM	#5
Mac Daddy DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 7,950 Rep Power: 79 System Specs	Re: PC Bottlenecking. I would check those Mobo drivers a 775 P4 shouldn't have a bottleneck issue with an X1950 512 PCI-E. I ran my X1950 on my Corsair HX-520 so not sure on the PSU but I would think it would cause a lockup or crash due to lack of power ... not a slowdown. __________________ "My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." - Tim Allen

Mar 12, 2009, 12:07 AM	#6
CDsDontBurn Lurking DriverHeaven Join Date: May 2003 Location: Southern California Posts: 22,779 Rep Power: 235 System Specs	Re: PC Bottlenecking. what series p4 is it? is it a 5x0 or a 6x0 series p4? if it's a 5x0 series p4, then it's basically a re-fitted s478 p4 to the s775. aside from that, they are identical. but, i'm starting to think that if you've done a clean OS install, and you've installed the display drivers, that you haven't installed the motherboard drivers yet. but, it could also be from the PSU as well. 350w is a bit low for that system w/that card regardless of the brand. i'd say to definately check out the drivers first, and if you continue to have issues, try another PSU in there if possible. mine is running on a s478 p4 3.2Ghz, 2GB RAM, 520w OCZ PowerStream __________________ Her First Day \| A year later

Mar 12, 2009, 12:41 AM	Thread Starter #7
Zian5377 HardwareHeaven Lover Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Portland,Oregon U.S. Posts: 105 Rep Power: 25 System Specs	Re: PC Bottlenecking. It's a 540j or 520j something of the sort so yes it is a 5x0 series and I checked for Mobo Drivers but none of them seemed to be actual mobo drivers most were for the LAN or the Onboard Video and things of the sort. And yeah the PC has Abit IP-95 Pentium 4 3.0ghz OC'd to 3.4ghz running HT X1950 Pro 512mb 4 Gigs Patriot Ram DDR2 800 (running at 533 due to the Mobo) 2x 80 Gig WD IDE HD's 2x 160g Sata Seagate Barracuda HD's HP 300i DVD Burner IDE and a Soundblaster Live 24 bit Sound Card along with 1 250mm Fan 1 140mm Blue LED and 2 80mm Blue LED Fans all powered on the Antec 350w PSU __________________ _____________ "Good, Bad, I'm the one with the gun.." -Ash Gotta Love Wireless Internet!!

Mar 12, 2009, 01:14 AM	#8
Mac Daddy DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 7,950 Rep Power: 79 System Specs	Re: PC Bottlenecking. What you want is the VIA HyperionPro driver (Third down) Universal abit > Motherboard, Digital Speakers, iDome, AirPace, Multimedia On the PSU it may be too light as CD's mentioned I think I picked up a 520W for the X1950 ... it was 2 years ago so don't really remember. __________________ "My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." - Tim Allen

Mar 12, 2009, 04:45 AM	Thread Starter #9
Zian5377 HardwareHeaven Lover Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Portland,Oregon U.S. Posts: 105 Rep Power: 25 System Specs	Re: PC Bottlenecking. Ok, I'll get this to him in the morning. What exactly does it do? It's still downloading so I'll read the readme anyways but I'm just curious. As for the PSU I recommended him toward a good quality 650w or something of the sort for future expansion. I'm leaning him toward a Corsair 650w for 80 bucks on Newegg after the MIR that you never get so he'll have some PCI-E plugs and plenty of Sata plugs, plus it is i7 certified incase he ever really upgrades. __________________ _____________ "Good, Bad, I'm the one with the gun.." -Ash Gotta Love Wireless Internet!!

Mar 12, 2009, 10:40 AM	#10
Mac Daddy DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 7,950 Rep Power: 79 System Specs	Re: PC Bottlenecking. The drivers are the the drivers for his VIA chipset. When I first picked up my X1950 I was getting really slow speeds as well (around 2k on 3dmark6). Updating the VIA drivers on that Asrock mobo fixed the issue. On the PSU you really can't go wrong with Corsair ... best of luck and keep us posted __________________ "My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." - Tim Allen

Mar 12, 2009, 06:32 PM	Thread Starter #11
Zian5377 HardwareHeaven Lover Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Portland,Oregon U.S. Posts: 105 Rep Power: 25 System Specs	Re: PC Bottlenecking. Wow, ok I had him drop his PC off this morning. I ran the Far Cry 2 Benchmark everthing Set to Medium with HDR and Bloom On at 1360x768 Before the Drivers he averaged 15fps on Ranch Small on a 3 loop run Afterwards he was getting 24fps Average on the same bench I haven't had a chance to try any other games but that right there is a nice increase for a Pentium 4 PC imo __________________ _____________ "Good, Bad, I'm the one with the gun.." -Ash Gotta Love Wireless Internet!!

Mar 12, 2009, 10:22 PM	#12
Mac Daddy DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 7,950 Rep Power: 79 System Specs	Re: PC Bottlenecking. It made a difference for me as well on my system using the X1950. It also helped my memory speeds these are all controlled by the Northbridge. Sounding a lot better and cool on the PSU still something to consider it is an investment that lasts. __________________ "My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." - Tim Allen

Mar 13, 2009, 12:34 AM	Thread Starter #13
Zian5377 HardwareHeaven Lover Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Portland,Oregon U.S. Posts: 105 Rep Power: 25 System Specs	Re: PC Bottlenecking. Yeah definitely if he ever wants to move up to a C2D or more HDD's or anything he'll need a better PSU, but that Antec unit I had in my PC for 4yrs before I gave it to him and I run my PC 24/7 so Kudos to Antec for a quality build! __________________ _____________ "Good, Bad, I'm the one with the gun.." -Ash Gotta Love Wireless Internet!!

Mar 13, 2009, 05:21 PM	#14
blibbax What does this do? Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Oxford, UK Posts: 4,230 Rep Power: 254 System Specs	Re: PC Bottlenecking. If you have the phenom just sitting there than you masy as well give it to him, it will vertainly be a lot better than the P4. Alternativley, you could get on a plane and give it to me. I'm not bothered either way. __________________ Donate the spare computing power of your PC to help to cure Alzheimer's, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease and cancer: Fold for HH!

Mar 16, 2009, 10:29 PM	Thread Starter #15
Zian5377 HardwareHeaven Lover Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Portland,Oregon U.S. Posts: 105 Rep Power: 25 System Specs	Re: PC Bottlenecking. Ok, PC is running fine now but he's ALREADY ready for an upgrade. . . He just got his taxes in and pretty much wants to replace the vid card, he wanted to do two 4850's in Crossfire but I told him for about 20 bucks more he could just get a 4850x2 since it has twice as much memory for only 20 bucks more, and he just got a e6400 C2D which I helped him OC to 3.2ghz on Stock Cooling, still waiting on the PSU tho. Anybody have any idea the performance gains he'll see in Crysis and things of the sort going from XP 32bit 4gig DDR2 800 (only running 3gigs in 32bit obviously) Pentium 4 3.4ghz and a x1950pro 512mb to Vista 64bit E6400 C2D 3.2ghz the same ram and a 4850x2? At 1360x768 that is. __________________ _____________ "Good, Bad, I'm the one with the gun.." -Ash Gotta Love Wireless Internet!!

Mar 16, 2009, 11:31 PM	#16
blibbax What does this do? Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Oxford, UK Posts: 4,230 Rep Power: 254 System Specs	Re: PC Bottlenecking. Why an E6600? There's not much point in pairing that with a 4870X2 IMO. Look at a GTX260 or similar. __________________ Donate the spare computing power of your PC to help to cure Alzheimer's, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease and cancer: Fold for HH!

Mar 16, 2009, 11:53 PM	#18
Mac Daddy DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 7,950 Rep Power: 79 System Specs	Re: PC Bottlenecking. I agree a great boost in performance there for him and he will enjoy it. On the CPU I am also thinking along the same lines as blibbax and CD's a Wolfdale 8xxx series would work much better and not much more in terms of cost. __________________ "My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." - Tim Allen

Mar 17, 2009, 06:39 AM	#20
CDsDontBurn Lurking DriverHeaven Join Date: May 2003 Location: Southern California Posts: 22,779 Rep Power: 235 System Specs	Re: PC Bottlenecking. sorry, i wasn't aware of that Tipstaff. but if it doesn't work, get a new board? lol, jk anywho...why would the e7x00 CPUs be supported but not the e8x00 be? the e7x00s are newer, and therefore have a newer microcode to that of the e8x00 CPUs which would make me think that a BIOS flash would be required first before anything can be done with these newer CPUs. __________________ Her First Day \| A year later

Mar 17, 2009, 11:13 AM	#21
Mac Daddy DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 7,950 Rep Power: 79 System Specs	Re: PC Bottlenecking. I wasn't aware of that either with the Abit IP95 Tipstaff so even my E6550 (fsb=1333) wouldn't work properly on it. Tricky indeed !! __________________ "My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." - Tim Allen

Mar 17, 2009, 05:22 PM	#22
blibbax What does this do? Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Oxford, UK Posts: 4,230 Rep Power: 254 System Specs	Re: PC Bottlenecking. Surely that board is capable of reaching 1333mhz on an overclock? Anyhow, be sure he doesn't blow the bank on a 4870X2 without considering the all new bottlekneck he'll make. __________________ Donate the spare computing power of your PC to help to cure Alzheimer's, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease and cancer: Fold for HH! Last edited by blibbax; Mar 20, 2009 at 06:49 PM.

Mar 17, 2009, 06:32 PM	Thread Starter #23
Zian5377 HardwareHeaven Lover Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Portland,Oregon U.S. Posts: 105 Rep Power: 25 System Specs	Re: PC Bottlenecking. Haha, I didn't mention the new motherboard. Sorry he's upgrading to a ASUS Rampage Extreme X48 mobo. And as for the CPU it's a hand me down from his brother who just went to an i7, and I figured that that E6400 will be a bottleneck on his 4850x2 shoot it was a bottleneck on his brothers SLI 9600 GT's lol but his brother was running it stock at 2.1ghz a core, that's why I pushed it up to 3.2ghz a core to help it be less of a bottleneck. __________________ _____________ "Good, Bad, I'm the one with the gun.." -Ash Gotta Love Wireless Internet!!

Mar 18, 2009, 01:38 AM	#24
Mac Daddy DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 7,950 Rep Power: 79 System Specs	Re: PC Bottlenecking. OK well that makes sense. See how it performs and let us know __________________ "My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." - Tim Allen

Mar 20, 2009, 11:04 PM	Thread Starter #27
Zian5377 HardwareHeaven Lover Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Portland,Oregon U.S. Posts: 105 Rep Power: 25 System Specs	Re: PC Bottlenecking. Parts should be here Monday, but I can't put them in until next Friday night. So I'll post some benchmarks up hopefully Friday Night or Saturday! Even though his computer is now faster than mine I chipped in and he got 2x 4870 1gb's 1x Q9400 C2Q 1x Corsair 750w PSU 1x Asus Rampage Extreme So now his computer is gonna be about 5x faster than mine...sighs He gave me the C2D E6400 which I'll throw on my Skulltrail for LAN Parties and the rest of the PC back except the 4 gigs of DDR2-800. Forgot to mention he also found out his monitor actually does 1920x1080 which is why I told him to buy the 1gb versions instead so he has plenty of memory, plus they were the same price as the 512mb Sapphire ones?? 189-189 So he should be smoking now, I wish I got money back on my tax returns lol, maybe then I could replace this 8500 GT lol. __________________ _____________ "Good, Bad, I'm the one with the gun.." -Ash Gotta Love Wireless Internet!!

Mar 20, 2009, 11:18 PM	#28
blibbax What does this do? Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Oxford, UK Posts: 4,230 Rep Power: 254 System Specs	Re: PC Bottlenecking. That's a nice rig. You have a Skulltrail lying around!? The e6400 won't fit it if you do. __________________ Donate the spare computing power of your PC to help to cure Alzheimer's, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease and cancer: Fold for HH!