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[Chaos]

Well this isnt a question.. just the results of some research I have been doing into graphics cards

A bottleneck is when the rest of the computer (CPU and RAM) arent fast enough to keep up with your graphics full speed so it doesnt work at full speed
EG= If I have 1 4870 in use, and a dual core processor @ 2.0Ghz and some generic 667 ram, then the fastest it will be able to work at would be around 60% meaning that yoou dont feel the full force of your card
GPUs may be clocked a lot lower than CPUs the GPU internal architechture is a lot different so they are impossible to compare
This is why I OC my CPU and RAM
I have 2 4870 cards in XF and a 2.66 Quad CPU... At stock speeds my GFX bottleneck at about 90% meaning OCing them wont do anything for performance... I found that to not bottleneck a single card I need 3.00Ghz Dual CPU... so that would mean that I need 3.00Ghz quad for 2 cards right?
Wrong! lolz
i need at least 3.2Ghz to be able to use the cards 100% and to Overclock the GPUs I need more still
Not gonna go much farther to explain but in the end i got a 10% OC outa my cards stable and 15% OC unstable... with my CPU @3.8 and ram @1600

OCing is fun:D

[Hzza]

Is this English? I got as far as "A bottleneck is when the........." before going crosseyed.

[Chaos]

haha
sorry
im an oc nerd now

[DeadlyAvenger]

Interesting ramblings

how did you work all those figures out? or, more to the point - how could someone not so much of an "oc nerd" work out where his/her bottleneck is?

[Chaos]

run crysis... see what fps you get...
oc your cpu and ram... see how much it increases in relation to your clock speeds...
then do the same again untill you see a drop in the fps trend
my fps before i started (everything on very high and maxed out AA and AF @ 1920*1200) was around 20-25 average
OC my CPU to 2.8 and i get 25-30 fps
CPU 3.0 FPS 30-35
CPU 3.2 FPS 35-40
(these are all aprox according to memory)
finally i went to 3.4 and got about 37-40 fps
its then i found my cards were working fully
mighty powerful these cards... full AA and AF and i get 40 FPS... thats crazy

As i said.. with a 10%OC on the cards and CPU@3.8 I get no probs... and about 50-60 FPS
RAWWWWK

[Zarf]

With a modern ati graphics card run task manager / gpuz and look at your cpu/gpu utilisation whilst playing a game or benchmarking - whichever one is maxing out is your bottleneck.
Alternatively you can dial down the graphics to a low res and see what framerate the rest of your system will allow.

I used to be well into overclocking as a teen, had a geforce 2 mx (the legend!) that could go like stink, can't remember the specifics but it was about a 50% overclock.

[Chaos]

I still pine for the days of the voodoo cards... those things were awsome
A friend of mine still has a REALLY old pc with one in
love it