Anyway to test whether processor is bottlenecking your vid card?

Jitter · Oct 19, 2005, 03:36 AM

I have a P4 1.8 processor w/ a 9700pro all in wonder. I was thinking about upgrading the vid card (around $150), but I am not sure if it would be worth it at all. I was wondering wheter there was any way to test how much the processor is holding the card back if at all.

thanks

Kevin

Dyre Straits · Oct 19, 2005, 03:53 AM

Well, it's for certain that a 1.8 Ghz processor is fairly well outdated. Not only that, but, the PC2100 RAM is also an old technology by today's standards.

My first impression is that any newer card you put in will likely perform better, but, not at its full potential in this system.

What you should do is go to www.futuremark.com and do a COMPARE based on selections of various CPUs, and other components, to get a fair estimate of what's possible and where your system fits into the overall picture. Once you click on the link, just go to the ORB feature at the top of the page and go from there.

CDsDontBurn · Oct 19, 2005, 03:59 AM

well, the fact of the matter will remain true. a CPU can definatley bottleneck a G/VPU, and vice-versa. A faster gfx card will be waiting on the instructions being fed to it by the CPU, so a relativley slow CPU, will bring down the overall performance to a game because the gfx card is still waiting on instructions from the CPU.