AMD Phenom II x6 1090T will bottleneck what GPU setup?

bardacuda

Hi,

I just joined this forum to post this because I am trying to figure out what nVidia SLI setup will be bottlenecked by this CPU.

Here are my current system specs:

-MSI NF980-G65 mainboard
-AMD Athlon II x4 640 @ 3.25GHz
-EVGA GTS 450 FPB @ 930MHz core clock, 3964MHz memory clock
-Patriot Sector 5 Series 2x2GB DDR3-1800 CL8 DIMMS @ 1156 7-7-7-20 (don't ask)
-OCZ ModX-Stream Pro 700W PSU
-Western Digital Caviar Green 1.5TB SATA 3Gb/s 64MB

I just purchased this system recently but I'm already thinking about upgrading, however I do not intend to buy a new motherboard, and therefore will not be getting an Intel chip or an ATI video card so let me just start by saying that. Basically I am trying to figure out how I could squeeze the most performance out of this system using this board.
The best CPU currently available, that this board supports, is an AMD 1100T. But, for argument's sake, let's just say I get an AMD 1090T; because at $290 for 3.3GHz stock frequency vs $250 for 3.2GHz stock I don't see the value.

Let's assume conservatively that I overclock the 1090T to 3.8GHz. My monitor is capable of 1920x1080 @ 60Hz. This board supports 16x/16x/0x or 16x/8x/8x SLI. What's the best gpu setup I could put in this before the processor becomes a bottleneck at maximum graphics settings? Obviously it depends on the game too, but I'm wondering for an 'on average' basis.

I am thinking 2 GTX 470s is going to be it but really don't know. Could be 1 580, could be 3 470s, I'm really not sure. I have been searching and reading many forum posts and responses but can't seem to find exactly what I'm looking for. I can find that a single 470 is NOT bottlenecked, or that 3 580s are not bottlenecked on some crazy overclocked Intel system with high resolutions or multiple displays, or whatever, but that doesn't really help me.

I might consider upgrading the PSU to accomodate the power draw for 3 cards if I find that a 3-card setup would be of any benefit over a 2-way setup but, it all depends how much benefit and I'm inclined to think it would be not much if any but I could be wrong.

Thanks,
James

deltatux · 01-15-2011, 00:07 | posts: 18,785 | Location: Toronto, Canada

1 strong GPU is better than multiple weaker GPUs. I'd rather get 1 GTX580 over 3 470s.

deltatux

bardacuda · 01-15-2011, 00:12 | posts: 13

Are you saying a single 580 provides more performance than 3 470s with the setup I described? If so do you have any benchmark links you could post that would support that?

deltatux · 01-15-2011, 00:13 | posts: 18,785 | Location: Toronto, Canada

No, just the fact that multi-GPU setups tend to introduce way more headaches than just a single GPU.

deltatux

bardacuda · 01-15-2011, 00:16 | posts: 13

True, but if a single 580 would not be bottlenecked by that setup, my gpu then becomes a bottleneck. I am not squeezing the most performance out which is my goal.

deltatux · 01-15-2011, 00:17 | posts: 18,785 | Location: Toronto, Canada

Quote:

Originally Posted by bardacuda

True, but if a single 580 would not be bottlenecked by that setup, my gpu then becomes a bottleneck. I am not squeezing the most performance out which is my goal.

Compared to the Intel Core i5 2500K, the Phenom II 1100T is quite crappy in most things.

Just as long as you hit 60 fps, you'll be fine. If you're spending so much money, why not a complete system rebuild.

Sandy Bridge is out now and Bulldozer is out in Q2 2011.

deltatux

bardacuda · 01-15-2011, 00:49 | posts: 13

Because then I'd be spending even more money. Like I said, I just built this system recently, and I am only thinking of upgrading it atm, and not necessarily all that soon.
If I can buy a $250 processor and two $200 cards and get my 60fps in most games and I'm happy, why buy a $300 processor and a $200 motherboard and still need video cards on top of that? Then I'm going to want to spend even more on the video cards so it is not bottlenecking my new system and a new monitor too etc.

Sever · 01-15-2011, 01:16 | posts: 4,826 | Location: Land of the Great Downunder

well ive got a 1090t at 4ghz and a gtx580.

gtx580 is bottlenecked at 1680x1050 and lower in most games.

the only advantage our CPUs have lie in the extra cores.

however, the issue is that it takes all 6 of my cores at 4ghz to perform similarly to an i7 quad at 3.4ghz in most things.

this means that the overall performance per core/per clock of amd is weaker than intel's current offerings.

now if all games were able to use all cores, this wouldnt be much of an issue. however, when you factor in that most games still only use 2-4 cores, performance per core/per clock becomes important and is where our bottleneck really kicks in.

in games that are mainly GPU dependent, my setup keeps up with an i7 setup in framerates. however, in games that are CPU dependant like cod and wow, an i7 setup can perform up to 50% better (look around for the cod black ops benches with diff cpus and you'll see what i mean).

personally, i would suggest that you wait for amd bulldozer to come out and just upgrade mobo and cpu when it launches. bulldozer is set to have much better performance per core/per clock and would be a much more worthwhile upgrade.

chilly willy · 01-15-2011, 02:23 | posts: 424 | Location: chicago area

to be honest a single 6850,6870,5870,6950,6970,gtx460,gtx470,gtx580 whatever are all perfectly fine for great 1920x1200 performance in every game out right now. besides maybe metro 2033 but that game chugs cum in my opinion anyway so eh. a 1090t or similar pairs nicely with any single high powered gpu. you will only get major bottlenecked if u play at a low res like 1280x1024 or something. **** i have a 710 at stock and still max all the great looking games.

deltatux · 01-15-2011, 02:29 | posts: 18,785 | Location: Toronto, Canada

Just pop in a Phenom II 1090T and get a GTX570 and you should be good to go. No need to go overkill.

deltatux

seronx · *Last edited by seronx; 01-15-2011 at 02:57.*

Get a 1100T
Get a motherboard that has 4 PCI-e x16 slots that run at PCI-e x8 speed
Get four of these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150501
Get the most recent drivers from AMD
Download the AMD Crossfire application profiles
Then run all games in Scissor mode
Making the cpu only need to processes 4 1920x270p images(if a 1080p monitor 300 pixel height if 1200p)
^Very Efficent allowing you to get really high CFx AAs and FPS

http://www.guru3d.com/article/powerc...firex-review/8

Pill Monster · 01-15-2011, 03:40 | posts: 20,498 | Location: NZ

Oh dear....somebody said the B word again...

Mufflore · 01-15-2011, 03:55 | posts: 9,543 | Location: UK

Its an overused word but unfortunately that doesnt make the phenomenon go away

deltatux · 01-15-2011, 03:56 | posts: 18,785 | Location: Toronto, Canada

what "B" word? Bulldozer?

deltatux

Mufflore · 01-15-2011, 03:59 | posts: 9,543 | Location: UK

Bottleneck.

Damn I said it now.

seronx · 01-15-2011, 06:20 | posts: 259 | Location: Arizona

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mufflore

Bottleneck.

Damn I said it now.

The Unibottleneck

chilly willy · 01-15-2011, 09:55 | posts: 424 | Location: chicago area

ive found that unless it is really really bad like a pentium 3 with a 8800gt then it doesnt really hold u back too much. its always better to have a gpu thats too powerful and a cpu that could use an upgrade than a super duper cpu with a really bad gpu.

case in point...
i had a 4400 and an 8800gt game played fine.
overlocked 4400 to 3ghz and i got like 20% more fps
ocing got me thinking that i needed a better cpu. so i got a 710 and doubled my fps(serious).
minor overlock of 710 to 3ghz gave me avery little performance so i decided i might need a better gpu but i was going to hold off but the 8800gt died so i got a dirt cheap 4870 and got a ****load more performance. higher settings and higher fps.
my board sucks and i cant really overclock with it but i tested 3.2ghz with the 4870 and my fps only went up a tad.=gpu not fast enough
i got a 6870 when my 4870 starting freaking out and my fps went way way up. testing with cpu at 3.2ghz results in more fps gain now than before so i take it that means my current cpu is a bottleneck which bulldozer(if it rocks) or a 1090t(if bulldozer tanks) will fix.

sorry for the long post but hopefully it describes how little the problem really is

seronx · 01-15-2011, 20:02 | posts: 259 | Location: Arizona

Quote:

Originally Posted by chilly willy

ive found that unless it is really really bad like a pentium 3 with a 8800gt then it doesnt really hold u back too much. its always better to have a gpu thats too powerful and a cpu that could use an upgrade than a super duper cpu with a really bad gpu.

case in point...
i had a 4400 and an 8800gt game played fine.
overlocked 4400 to 3ghz and i got like 20% more fps
ocing got me thinking that i needed a better cpu. so i got a 710 and doubled my fps(serious).
minor overlock of 710 to 3ghz gave me avery little performance so i decided i might need a better gpu but i was going to hold off but the 8800gt died so i got a dirt cheap 4870 and got a ****load more performance. higher settings and higher fps.
my board sucks and i cant really overclock with it but i tested 3.2ghz with the 4870 and my fps only went up a tad.=gpu not fast enough
i got a 6870 when my 4870 starting freaking out and my fps went way way up. testing with cpu at 3.2ghz results in more fps gain now than before so i take it that means my current cpu is a bottleneck which bulldozer(if it rocks) or a 1090t(if bulldozer tanks) will fix.

sorry for the long post but hopefully it describes how little the problem really is

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103776
so you went to this^
to this v
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103648

That's a really minor upgrade xD

deltatux · 01-15-2011, 21:30 | posts: 18,785 | Location: Toronto, Canada

Well, it's actually a pretty good jump considering how slow the original K8 architecture is becoming. My brother's Athlon II is much faster than the Athlon X2 that's in my media centre when I do a comparison with both at the same clock rate.

deltatux

kanej2007 · 01-15-2011, 21:40 | posts: 5,701 | Location: Dubai, UAE / London, UK

To the op - just run your games at 1920X1080 or 1900x1200 and you will not get any bottleneck.

Should your monitor not support that resolution then get a new one, their cheap nowadays...

bardacuda · 01-16-2011, 00:11 | posts: 13

Thanks everybody for your input. Hopefully, game developers will start making all their new games take advantage of however many cores that the system it is running on may have in the near future, but I won't hold my breath.

chilly willy · 01-16-2011, 00:36 | posts: 424 | Location: chicago area

Quote:

Originally Posted by seronx

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103776
so you went to this^
to this v
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103648

That's a really minor upgrade xD

minor my ass all my benchmarks are near double with the 710 compared to the 4400. the old k8 arc as delta said is **** compared to the modern athlons. find some benchmarks for the older k8 cpus you will laugh compared to athlon II's slowest offering.

seronx · *Last edited by seronx; 01-16-2011 at 07:50.*

Quote:

Originally Posted by chilly willy

minor my ass all my benchmarks are near double with the 710 compared to the 4400. the old k8 arc as delta said is **** compared to the modern athlons. find some benchmarks for the older k8 cpus you will laugh compared to athlon II's slowest offering.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?...l+Core****00%2B

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?...enom+II+X3+710

1304

172.392638 percent increase
not double as 172.392638 percent is only "x 1.724"

1304 "x 1.724"(172.392638 percent) = 2248

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?...enom+II+X4+925
The cpu I would have recommended at the price it was released at it was cheaper than the X3 710 and faster as well

At a score of 3433

1304 x 2.633(more than double (263.266871 percent)) = 3433

The only problem is if you were time restrained

710 came out in February 9, 2009
925 came out in May 11, 2009
----

But to stay on TOPIC
to OP:
after reading your specs...the
bottleneck
I would believe is your hard drive which runs at 5400rpm

deltatux · *Last edited by deltatux; 01-16-2011 at 07:16.*

Even the fastest Athlon X2 out there based on K8 which is the Athlon X2 6400+ gets whopped by the Phenom II 710 in spades:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/84?vs=27

Let's say the extra core made a huge difference, even at the same core count and same speed the K10 beats the K8 by a long shot:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/120?vs=27

Let's say the cache is making a difference, the K10 is still beating the **** out of the K8:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/190?vs=27

So it's not a minor upgrade at all. Personally the only reason I still keep the 3600+ in the media centre is because you don't need a powerful CPU and I bought the CPU I could find at the time that was dual core. Got it for like $40 which ain't a bad deal at all (this was during the K8 and K10 transition phase during late 2008). If this one fails, I still got a 4200+ spare as my Phenom II 810 replaced it.

deltatux

Pill Monster · 01-16-2011, 07:17 | posts: 20,498 | Location: NZ

Quote:

Originally Posted by seronx

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?...l+Core****00%2B

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?...enom+II+X3+710

1304

172.392638 percent increase
not double as 172.392638 percent is only "x 1.723"

1304 x 1.723(172.392638 percent) = 2248

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?...enom+II+X4+925
The cpu I would have recommended at the price it was released at it was cheaper than the X3 710 and faster as well

At a score of 3433

1304 x 2.63266871(more than double (263.266871 percent)) = 3433

The only problem is if you were time restrained

710 came out in February 9, 2009
925 came out in May 11, 2009
----

But to stay on TOPIC
to OP:
after reading your specs...the
bottleneck
I would believe is your hard drive which runs at 5400rpm

You failed maths, I can tell.