GPU / CPU suitability

[SSA]

Help - I'm speccing a SLI-Ready system. Initially, graphics will be a single Geforce 7600 GS/GT. Later a second card will be added. Which s939 CPU would I need to avoid the CPU becoming a bottleneck (i.e. too slow to cope with the throughput of the graphics subsystem)?

Thanks very much.

[pands@scan]

To be honest you would be ok with a 3500 or greater, make sure its a new core tho!

[Hottentot]

No point in getting anything lower than a AMD 3500+.It will also depend on the resolution you are running the games in. Higher resolutions are normally GPU limited. Here is a good article

http://firingsquad.com/hardware/obli...ce/default.asp

[teachmech]

like all upgrading get the best you can affoard at the time and go for venice/toledo core rather than save a few £ for an older core.

[-ChEM-]

san diego and manchester cores are fine too

[SSA]

Thanks. After a bit more research, I've settled (probably) on a Venice core 3500+ with the Leadtek 256Mb 7600GT Extreme.

Thanks again.

[-ChEM-]

just looked at your profile system... you should get a slight improvement with that lot

[SSA]

I'm afraid it's more serious than that - I'm building a whole new system. The config currently listed is for my trusty Mesh Matrix that's over 5 years old!

[teachmech]

Good luck with the build you've got some nice new parts there.

[SSA]

Thanks, for the record my proposed spec currently stands as:

Abit K8N SLI mobo
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
Corsair TwinX DDR400 1Gb
Leadtek 7600GT Extreme 256Mb
LG GSA-H10A DVD Writer (black)
250Gb Samsung SpinPoint P120
HiperPower 580W Type-R Modular (black)
Coolermaster Centurion RC-534 (black)
Zboard gaming keyboard

All this for just over £600 - can't be bad.

If anyone can see any potential pitfalls in this, please let me know.

Cheers.

[Mama Sumae]

Don’t forget the OS and while we speak bout software remember the really important ones oblivion, F.E.A.R, half life 2, WOW u know whatever makes u happy...

[ajones]

Could be worth biting the bullet now and geting 2G RAM in 1G sticks rather than the 2x512 you've opted for. The more RAM the better, and 2 sticks are better than 4 ;o)

[SSA]

I'm going to recycle the OS (WinXP Pro) from my existing system (plus I'll probably dual/triple boot alongside XP 64-bit and Linux) for a while at least. My old system will become a Linux-based game server / web server / experimentation type system.

2 gigs of RAM eh? With the stuff I'm planning to use, that's an extra £65 or so. Have to think about that as I've already pushed the budget a bit further than I wanted to to get a decent graphics card and CPU!

Cheers.

[orbiter]

I can recommend the 2GB worth of Ram too. I just bought these http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Product...5&GroupID=1116 and noticed the difference generaly over 1GB just using basic stuff, oh and Photoshops CS2 which is a hungry app when editing. Umm.. think I'll go and have a fiddle with the timings

[SSA]

Could be worth biting the bullet now and geting 2G RAM in 1G sticks rather than the 2x512 you've opted for. The more RAM the better, and 2 sticks are better than 4 ;o)

Interesting, is this because it leaves room for further upgrades or is there a technical reason why
2 x 1GB is better than 4 x 512Mb?

[nichomach]

Two sticks can be run at 1T command rates, which helps performance a bit.