Hey guys, been a while since I've visited Guru3D. Most of my gaming has migrated to the Xbox 360 (I know, shame on me!) But you guys are the best, and now I'm ready to dust off my PC and start playing with her again. I currently have: Q6600 @ 3.0 4GB DDR2 @ 800 8800 GTS @ 600/900/1200 My 3DMark Vantage Score is P6113 (GPU 4882, CPU 25078) Now, I know my GPU is the weak point in my system. My question to you is, can I just buy a RADEON HD 6950, unlock the shaders, and have a decent gaming system again? Or is my CPU really going to hold me back? I would also be willing to double up on RAM to 8GB to help smooth things over. Those two would run me roughly $450, which I'm totally willing to spend. I would really love to build a Sandy Bridge system, but if I don't have to spend the money, I'd rather not. Thanks, in advance!
No need for more ram, which resolution you need to fill?, a 6950 would be more cpu limited than say a 6850. On the other hand, having a quad means that properly coded multithreaded games suffer less from a limited cpu like ours. CPU bottleneck is overrated anyway, if you aren't benchmarking, buy a new vga and you'r set
You need to OC your Q6600 to 3.6 to get maximum performance form HD 6950. However if you play game at 1920 X 1080 or above the bottle-necking is minimum. I agree with Markgpl that CPU bottleneck is overrated. And if you game below 1920 X 1080 I also recommend a GTX 460 or HD 6850. The choice is yours.
Thanks guys. I'll be @ 1920x1080. I could look into a better heatsink for my Q6600. The big reason I want more RAM is, even after a clean boot, I'm down to just ~1GB free because I run a lot of background services (IIS/SQL) that soak it up. Thanks!
I ended up getting a Palit GTX 570 Sonic Platinum (so that kind of puts this thread in the wrong forum, but oh well) Here's the after, what a bump (CPU too): 8800 GTS: P6113 (GPU 4882, CPU 25078) GTX 570: P21902 (GPU 18797, CPU 43415)
you really need to upgrade your CPU or overclock it to at least 3.5 ghz ...right now its holding your gtx 570 back...you should get 22k GPU score normally with an overclocked i7 for example...if you buy a i7 2500k you would really bump that score nicely BTW disable Physx from GPU in control panel before you do vantage tests
I've tried to o/c further, but the cooler I have on it now can't keep it stable past 3GHz. I'm going to build an LGA 2011 system when they come out at the end of the year, and probably get another GTX 570 to go with this one. I know LGA 1155 is awesome, but this LGA 775 platform has been good to me for a long time and with the new video card, it's able to play everything without issue.
new system?? lol, you have to be kidding. I am the one who needs the new system when it comes to gaming!! Take a look to the left
Your rig is fine. Even at stock speeds. Upgrading your video card you will see a nice boost, even if the cpu holds it back. I would overclock it to 3.4ghz if you're comfy with that...but honestly the difference from overclocking (or upgrading your cpu) will not be that significant compared to a new video card. I say just upgrade the video card, and later overclock if you can.
