Bottleneck

[Leftover]

Hey I'm considering an upgrade to the R 390x when it releases or the R9 290x depending on pricing. Now here is the thing, I'm running an AMD Phenom II x6 1090T overclocked to 3.6 Ghz and was wondering how big of a bottleneck that would be? Is it worth getting suck a good GPU without upgrading the CPU yet alone mobo and RAM as well?

[Coswar]

Hey I'm considering an upgrade to the R 390x when it releases or the R9 290x depending on pricing. Now here is the thing, I'm running an AMD Phenom II x6 1090T overclocked to 3.6 Ghz and was wondering how big of a bottleneck that would be? Is it worth getting suck a good GPU without upgrading the CPU yet alone mobo and RAM as well?

That is quite an old CPU these days, I think a full system upgrade is in order

[zlolslavez]

Why would you need to replace RAM when upgrading CPU. Say the R390X was, $699 (most likely more than that but I have no idea), an equal investment into a Z97 Board and an i7 (hell still have money to buy more ram for no reason) would be a much better investment. (I would probably pick up the best i5 at the time with a z97 board, and then save up for a r390x.

 

edit: Didn't know AM3 still had ddr2 support, still have money to buy DDR3 Ram.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($324.99 @ SuperBiiz) 

Motherboard: Asus MAXIMUS VII HERO ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($204.99 @ Amazon) 

Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($119.99 @ Amazon) 

Total: $649.97

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-22 20:17 EDT-0400

[NeverNotExhausted]

Can we all get over the term bottleneck, it's an inaccurate description for 99 percent of the cases out there.

 

But yes, you should see some benefit from a stronger GPU in your rig. But you would get more benefit from a new CPU. Have a look into selling your CPU and motherboard and upping it to a i5/i7

[Goldensapling]

I think it would be best to upgrade first. I'm not sure which socket the Phenom is, but it would probably require a new motherboard. I would suggest either an 8350 or an i5 if you plan on going high-end GPU with such a low end CPU.

[Leftover]

The thing is I am willing to wait for an upgrade to a DDR4 capable system that is affordable and preferably AMD powered yet i am still running an ATI 5670 which by this point i have overclocked the hell out of. And on the CPU i still have head room to go up to 4 ghz

[Guest]

Please note I have no information on the performance of the 390x so all of the below is purely speculation. 

 

Though I doubt the cpu will substantially bottleneck either card I do think that you are due for an upgrade when it come to the platform you are running on. That cpu is rather old and having a 390x/290x  running on it wouldnt make the most sense. 

[zlolslavez]

Please note I have no information on the performance of the 390x so all of the below is purely speculation. 

 

Though I doubt the cpu will substantially bottleneck either card I do think that you are due for an upgrade when it come to the platform you are running on. That cpu is rather old and having a 390x/290x  running on it wouldnt make the most sense. 

It's about as strong as a TITAN X, but speculated to be both worse and stronger.

 

Can we all get over the term bottleneck, it's an inaccurate description for 99 percent of the cases out there.

 

But yes, you should see some benefit from a stronger GPU in your rig. But you would get more benefit from a new CPU. Have a look into selling your CPU and motherboard and upping it to a i5/i7

I would consider this case somewhat correct usage. The OP is asking whether the OP'S current (gaming) experience will hit a point where his graphic's card(in this case, but can be anything in others) is being held back significantly by the processor(again, can be something else but is the  OP'S CPU in this case) to the point where improvement from upgrading is severely worse or completely unexsistant due to it. A computer is only as strong as it's weakest component. 

[Leftover]

 

Why would you need to replace RAM when upgrading CPU. Say the R390X was, $699 (most likely more than that but I have no idea), an equal investment into a Z97 Board and an i7 (hell still have money to buy more ram for no reason) would be a much better investment. (I would probably pick up the best i5 at the time with a z97 board, and then save up for a r390x.

 

edit: Didn't know AM3 still had ddr2 support, still have money to buy DDR3 Ram.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($324.99 @ SuperBiiz) 

Motherboard: Asus MAXIMUS VII HERO ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($204.99 @ Amazon) 

Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($119.99 @ Amazon) 

Total: $649.97

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-22 20:17 EDT-0400

 

Thanks a lot the thing is I'm still running an  ATI 5670 which i've of course had to overclock and really need an upgrade on that but i am running ddr3 memory right now

[Coswar]

The thing is I am willing to wait for an upgrade to a DDR4 capable system that is affordable and preferably AMD powered yet i am still running an ATI 5670 which by this point i have overclocked the hell out of. And on the CPU i still have head room to go up to 4 ghz

Get the card now then, and wait until DDR4 becomes cheaper in a year or so

[Guest]

It's about as strong as a TITAN X, but speculated to be both worse and stronger.

 

Key word speculation. I have no doubt it will be extremely powerful I just wanted to be clear that I was doing little more than speculation.

[NeverNotExhausted]

I would consider this case somewhat correct usage. The OP is asking whether the OP'S current (gaming) experience will hit a point where his graphic's card(in this case, but can be anything in others) is being held back significantly by the processor(again, can be something else but is the  OP'S CPU in this case) to the point where improvement from upgrading is severely worse or completely unexsistant due to it. A computer is only as strong as it's weakest component. 

 

Where a bottleneck is where you see no improvement gains at all despite upgrading other components. He will see some improvements going from a 290x to a 390x, but they wont be as great as updating CPU. Which was the entire point of my original post.

 

Before I got my athlon x4 I was using an A4-3400 that came with my motherboard, most of the people would call that APU a bottleneck, yet I still saw (somewhat marginal) Performance gains going from a 560ti to a 660ti. A bottleneck would only be the correct term if I saw zero performance gain despite getting a much more powerful GPU.

[Coswar]

Where a bottleneck is where you see no improvement gains at all despite upgrading other components. He will see some improvements going from a 290x to a 390x, but they wont be as great as updating CPU. Which was the entire point of my original post.

 

Before I got my athlon x4 I was using an A4-3400 that came with my motherboard, most of the people would call that APU a bottleneck, yet I still saw (somewhat marginal) Performance gains going from a 560ti to a 660ti. A bottleneck would only be the correct term if I saw zero performance gain despite getting a much more powerful GPU.

I think the point is that he won't be able to access the full potential of the 390x with his system, and therefore the 1090T is holding back (bottlenecking) his GPU

[NeverNotExhausted]

I think the point is that he won't be able to access the full potential of the 390x with his system, and therefore the 1090T is holding back (bottlenecking) his GPU

 

I know that's the point, I also made that exact point.

 

I'm just following up by stating that a 'bottleneck' isn't a diminishing amount of improvement on upgrades, it's a complete lack of improvement.

[Coswar]

I know that's the point, I also made that exact point.

 

I'm just following up by stating that a 'bottleneck' isn't a diminishing amount of improvement on upgrades, it's a complete lack of improvement.

I'm sorry, but according to who's dictionary? In my opinion it refers to any upgrade that is not as good as it should be.

[NeverNotExhausted]

I'm sorry, but according to who's dictionary? In my opinion it refers to any upgrade that is not as good as it should be.

 

Because a bottleneck literally means one component holding the entire system to it's performance level. If he still see's some benefit from a GPU upgrade then it's not an actual bottleneck. For sure it's not ideal and he isn't getting his moneys worth. But it still isn't a bottleneck.

 

This is a topic Linus has covered in the WAN show before aswell and peoples overuse of the term.

[Coswar]

Because a bottleneck literally means one component holding the entire system to it's performance level. If he still see's some benefit from a GPU upgrade then it's not an actual bottleneck. For sure it's not ideal and he isn't getting his moneys worth. But it still isn't a bottleneck.

 

This is a topic Linus has covered in the WAN show before aswell and peoples overuse of the term.

I'll concede to that

[Nena Trinity]

290X wont do to bad but in more CPU demanding games the FPS will be below 60 for sure. =)

 

How much? Well I guess somewhere from 30-50? =O

 

The 390X will be a clear issue if its stronger than 980...

[Guest Strangerbob]

an i5-4460 is the max you can possibly need for gaming with the cpu bottleneck below 1% (that last 1% will cost hundreads or a thousand $ more)

 

 

you can do the gpu first, especially if you are playing on higher than 1080p the cpu means less... but you`ll have to change the cpu anyway after