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Originally Posted by Penicilyn You have a Porsche being used in a parking lot mate. That slow CPU is really holding back that 4870X2. |
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Originally Posted by Vlasov_581 i've seen some Q6600s in for-sale section go for $130-140ish......heck there is a E8400 for $125 now |
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Originally Posted by mechtech yep the CPU is bottlenecking for sure. You really need a dual core at 4.2+ or a q9550 at 3.8+ to really let the 4870x2 open up. Especially because you're running at 1680x1050, the GPU isn't doing that much work. |
Originally Posted by ZTR1760 the Q6600s i dont have personal experience with but 3.6ghz seems to be a reasonable oc on air for them. |
Originally Posted by Murlocke Higher resolution = GPU does most of the work. 1680x1050 and 1920x1200 will have no (or almost no) bottleneck on any dual core or quad core past 3ghz with this card. The GPU does almost all the work at these resolutions. If your running a resolution under 1680x1050 then it probably is a bottleneck, but if your not then I highly doubt it. He's got stock CPU cooling, and the only way people get 3.6GHz on the Q6600 is with one of the best air coolers (Ultra-120 Extreme with 2 good fans) and a good VID. Most new Q6600s have a 1.300VID or so.. which most likely won't get 3.6ghz on air, sadly. I'd say with a good air cooler.. 3.4GHz is reasonable for a Q6600... I don't experience any bottleneck at 3.4GHz with this card. |
Originally Posted by bosoxdanc You seem to know your stuff sir. What would you recommend? |
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Originally Posted by bosoxdanc You seem to know your stuff sir. What would you recommend? |
Originally Posted by mechtech you're going to need an after market heatsink regardless. The high end ones aren't really necessary, this one is almost as good and 1/2 the price (and comes with a nice fan) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835186134 If all you're doing is gaming, you don't need a Q6600. The e8400 is a great choice. Clock for clock it's about 10-15% faster than your CPU, and it should hit 4.0 Ghz at least. |
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Originally Posted by Murlocke I'd recommend getting a aftermarket cooler thats for sure. The one I use (see sig) is VERY cheap for how well it performs.. I'd grab some artic silver 5 as well.
You might just be one of the thousands of people having driver issues with this card. The new Catalyst 8.11s came out today.. I'd try those. Just make sure you uninstall the old drivers, restart, then reinstall the new drivers. Make sure your not forcing vsync/af/aa in the control panel as well because that can drastically reduce temps. I'd also go into "overdrive" (also in ATI control panel) and enable manual fan speed and set it to either 40% or 45%. Without doing this your card will idle at about 70-80C which could cause throttling. I idle at 49C after I manually set the fan speed. Are you running vista? Make sure you have all the updates.. and check the task manager to make sure you don't have 50+ processes running. I could see a possible bottleneck if you have background programs hogging your CPU cycles. If you have a ton of processes you can check http://www.blackviper.com/ for some vista service tweaks. (It drastically reduces stutter for me.. and improves my frames by about 5FPS) Just make sure you know what your doing and dont disable stuff you shouldn't. 
If you buy a Q6600, you will definitely need a aftermarket cooler to get a good OC... 3.2GHz on it should be pretty easy to get... but I really wouldn't expect much of a gain over your 3GHz dual core. Vista is also known for getting slow after awhile.. If you havn't reformatted for 6+ months i'd recommend doing that to.. Which will rule out if its software related. Also, What is your 3DMark Vantage and 3DMark 06 scores? |
