DescentBB

Hi all

I'm looking for inputs as to what might be a future bottleneck in my system.

Setup:

Asus P7P55D-E
Intel Core i7 860 2.8 running OC'ed at 3.37
CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 XMS 2GBx2
MSI 5850 1GB (OC'ed GPU clock 775mHz and Mem 1100gHz)
650W PSU

The above OC'ed settings is the most stable with no problems if I go higher some games work and others throw a massive tantrum

I run my setup @ 5292x1050 (eyefinity) and mostly all my games that I currently have runs on it pretty smooth and with good quality. So far the only game I've encountered that forced me to lower the settings was Crysis and only during the end battle on the carrier with all the smoke effects and I had to drop it to medium on some settings but the rest of the game was able to run at high settings. I know all my games aren't running at max settings but they do run rather mostly on high and the minimum medium setting which it pretty good quality and acceptable for me.

What I'm looking at is more towards new games and future titles. E.g. I'm looking at getting Crysis 2, Deus Ex Human Revolution, AC 3 and so forth and taking Crysis 1 as the benchmark I was just wondering will I be able to run these games at the same quality level as I did Crysis 1 and still have smooth game play?

At the moment I would prefer not to have to upgrade the motherboard and CPU unless it is really going to be a hampering as this is the 1156 socket which is really limiting my CPU options but at the time it was the best bang for bucks I could afford. This leaves me only with adding ram or the GPU.

On the GPU front, like I said I'm running eyefinity and nVidia is a bit of a killer for triple monitor gaming requiring 2 GPU's spiking the cost I can either go with adding a 5850 or replacing it with a newer but higher performance ATi card. I've read back when I did my research on the previous upgrade crossfire and eyefinity didn't go to well together and was wondering is this still a major issue? As far as I know crossfire like SLi isn't that much a performance booster as replacing the whole GPU but if I can find a 5850 and the performance is increased to semi future proof my setup say for anything in the next 6 months or maybe year at the third of the cost of maybe a new card it might be the better budget option. But smooth gameplay and good quality is my goal and if going with a new more expensive card will yield better results then so be is.

On a side note the 5850 should be exactly the same model and make? Reason I ask is I've check my normal supplier list of products and they have the MSI 5850 TWINFROZR II listed but not my normal 5850 and I have this suspicion I can't mix my normal MSI 5850 with that one or is it a matter of if the default clocks match it will work?

But again it's only if that is a viable option to consider going crossfire.

Anyways let me know what you all think and suggest because I'm not looking to break the bank on this but I'm not gonna be unnecessarily stingy about it either as past experience taught me that holding out to long on a GPU upgrade just hurts your in forcing a full system upgrade to see any gain in performance than what a single component upgrade will yield now.

The bottleneck is Crysis.

fliptw wrote:The bottleneck is Crysis.

x2

Haha probably true too as it was the first and I think only game that required me to OC my pc to get smooth gaming at that quality settings the bonus thou is the other games didn't moan about the boost

But in all seriousness I know that game is a killer on the PC but would my rig stand up to the challenge of newer titles that is out now or in the near future? I think the newest titles in my collection are AC2, Dirt 2 and Singularity and they all play pretty smooth with loads of eyecandy At the moment I'm waiting on Dirt 3, Bulletstorm and Dead Space 2 to arrive which I ordered yesterday so maybe I should check how they do on the rig and call it then whether an upgrade is required at this time or not Like the saying goes why fix something that's not broken?

Don't skimp on the PSU. If you decide to ever add another GPU, you'll be hobbled. I've got an 850W Corsair and it's marginal for installing 2 one year old GPU's if I'd wanted to add another. And if you like to OC, make sure you've got good COOLING for it!

Ya, that 650 watt PSU is going to choke on a crossfire or SLI rig, for higher end cards in dual configurations you want an 850-1100 watt PSU depending on which cards. Keep in mind that your 650w PSU might be a little anemic when it comes to next generation video cards which may demand >300 watts on their own after you add in what your overclocked CPU is pulling and other power expensive stuff like your system memory. I'd certainly start aiming more towards 800-900 watts in an overclocked system. However I still maintain that Crossfire and SLI are lousy marketing gimmicks and should not be taken seriously by anyone in their right mind. I'd say wait till you actually run into a game (not Crysis) that performs poorly before you go shopping around for a new card.

And I expect it will still be quite some time before there are a lot of games that perform as badly as the original Crysis, newer games often look better than Crysis while still performing much faster. The fact that Crysis still runs so poorly on modern systems is basically the result of just how poorly engineered and sloppy its engine is.

As for a GPU upgrade, I think AMD has some new ones just around the bend that should hopefully provide a solid performance improvement over the 5850. Right now none of the 6000 series are really that much better than the 5000 series, so upgrading is pretty much pointless unless you can print money. Nvidia still holds the most powerful single card solution but they are still stuck with only being able to drive 2 displays per card so that would be no good for your setup.

definitive upgrade on that PSU

right now i have a single card ( Nvidia GTX460 FTW from eVGA ) but i still have a 1000w PSU

as for the bottleneck... i have to agree with everyone, that card is going to be your botleneck

while im thinking about it, have you tried BF3 yet?

Ace, the actual consensus is the game is the bottleneck, else why would the thread be about a 4-year old game?

Uhmm yes if these new titles I've ordered arrive and they work with now hassle I might opt to get a decent PSU instead, say 900W+, as it was one of the components I had to compromise on to fit the budget by getting what would give me enough power with just a little bit of flexibility on my previous upgrade. This way I might take out some of the sting of a future upgrade and like Krom mentioned the new GPU's of the next gen might require as much as 300W on their own that would make this PSU fall sort in the long run and if I can skip the 6000 series I'm all for it as you said their performance is rather wanting in comparison to the increase we had from the 4000 to the 5000 series I think.

I also tend to agree with you Krom regarding Crossfire and SLi as you would expect by the mere logic of running two cards you should get double the performance but I have yet to see a case where this is true for Crossfire and SLi. I single GPU upgrade usually yield way better results and is always a first consideration for me versus going CF/SLi, much simpler and less headaches, it was just for the mere fact that the 6000 series increase in performance didn't impress me much I was considering the "cheapmans" gimmick of CF

fliptw wrote:Ace, the actual consensus is the game is the bottleneck, else why would the thread be about a 4-year old game?

sorry didnt see that post......

*Me smacks head*