Is my Core 2 holding me back?

god's toy

Hey,

I've just upgraded my GPU from a Geforce 8800 to a ATI 5870
Thinking I would see a nice boost I ran a few benchmarks but left feeling a little disappointed.

3Dmark 06 went from 9632 to 10101 (not a huge increase)


Rest of the system is a Core 2 Duo (2.4 GHz)
4 GB RAM
Abit FPIN9 sli

(Non OC)

I can buy Quad core for this mobo if thats the answer or would scraping it and moving onto a i5 750 be much better?

Note: Some games are running much better like Fallout runs at everything maxed and looks FAB!

Would a format of the hard drive help?

Thanks for any advice.

witnessmenow

e5200 is it?

if so buy a new cooler for it and overclock that mofo, mine is running @ 4ghz with a scythe ninja cooler

god's toy

Nope it's an 6600

Sasquatch76

To be fair, 3Dmark 06 isn't the best way to bench a GPU. Play some games!

But yeah, clock that processor as witnessmenow says.

An E6600 at 2.4 is almost definitely the limiting component here. What resolution do you run? What speed ram are you using? The E6600 will oc relatively well but its a hot running processor so you will need upgraded cooling. If you want an interim processor upgrade instead of a full system upgrade then i recommend a dual core over a quad as all current games and anything coming out this year(probably longer) will be fine on an agressively overclocked core 2 duo. Have a scout around for a cheap wolfdale c2d e8X00. Even the e8200's are well capable of 4.2GHZ at least with a half decent cooler. Be carefull that your mobo will support 45nm cpu's though and your ram may limit the overclock depending on speed and available multipliers.

god's toy

Thanks guys.

Just ran the new 3dmark (Vantage) and got 7938.

RES: 1680 x 1050
RAM: Corsair TWIN2X 6400C4 DDR2, 2048MB CL4,


Temp wise: Under full load of test
CPU: 54c
SYS: 42c
PWM: 51c

PogMoThoin

That mobo doesn't support newer Penryn Core2Duo's so all E8xxx cpu's are out (only does 1066 fsb). Abit are also gone so there's no chance of a bios flash to add support

Good news is it does support the older Core2Quads like the Q6600 and You should pickup a nice Q6600 g0 handy if You keep an eye on Advert.ie

PogMoThoin

PogMoThoin wrote: »

That mobo doesn't support newer Penryn Core2Duo's so all E8xxx cpu's are out. Good news is it does support the older Core2Quads like the Q6600 and You should pickup a nice Q6600 g0 one handy if You keep an eye on Advert.ie

But will the Quad give much of a boost in games?

PogMoThoin

david7536 wrote: »

But will the Quad give much of a boost in games?

Depends on the game, some games run much better on a quad, others don't benefit. The main advantage of having a quad is that there's cores left for other things while You're gaming.

god's toy

Funny, that I log into Komplett to get info and it turns out my build is 3 years old to the day!!

I think that means I should be upgrading...


Order Date: 2007-03-07T23:21
Order ref
Order Status: Shipped

Qty SKU Description
1.00 331973 ABIT Fatal1ty FP-IN9 SLI,nForce-650i SLI
, DDR2, Socket-775, GbLAN, 2xPCI-Ex16
1.00 322633 Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz Socket
LGA775, 4MB, BOXED w/fan
1.00 321028 Corsair TWIN2X 6400C4 DDR2, 2048MB CL4,
Kit w/two 1GB Dimm's, E.P.P Technology
1.00 331767 XFX GeForce 8800GTS 560M 320MB XT GDDR3,
PCI-Express,2xDVI/HDTV/HDCP,560/1700Mhz

god's toy

god's toy wrote: »

Funny, that I log into Komplett to get info and it turns out my build is 3 years old to the day!!

I think that means I should be upgrading...

I 100% agree!!

Core i7 920/930 should do nicely for the next 3 yrs!!

lmimmfn

you should post seperate gpu and cpu scores for vantage. You should be getting over 20k on the gpu score with that 5870, but yeah the cpu is definately bottlenecking. I had an E6400 and overclocked it to 3.55Ghz and it was bottlenecking my Nvidia 260( which is a lesser card than the 5870 ).

Go i5 or i7 and you should be sorted but in the meantime you could overclock the cpu and see what you can get out of it.

BadCharlie

You should run Vantage at default settings.
Then tell us your Vantage GPU score.

3dmark 06 is more of a CPU benchmark then a GPU.

god's toy

Sorry guys, Vantage is telling me I used up my key.



Darn.

Pacifico

The e6600 is a great overclocker. I currently have it @ 3.4GHz, and it idles at about 20 degrees.

Overclock it for now and upgrade when it is worthwhile (when USB3 & SATA III become more widespread)

lmimmfn

god's toy wrote: »

Sorry guys, Vantage is telling me I used up my key.



Darn.

get another key using another email address

PogMoThoin

lmimmfn wrote: »

get another key using another email address

http://10minutemail.com/10MinuteMail/index.html

Perfect for situations like this

lmimmfn

lmimmfn wrote: »

you should post seperate gpu and cpu scores for vantage. You should be getting over 20k on the gpu score with that 5870, but yeah the cpu is definately bottlenecking. I had an E6400 and overclocked it to 3.55Ghz and it was bottlenecking my Nvidia 260( which is a lesser card than the 5870 ).

Go i5 or i7 and you should be sorted but in the meantime you could overclock the cpu and see what you can get out of it.

+1

Pacifico wrote: »

The e6600 is a great overclocker. I currently have it @ 3.4GHz, and it idles at about 20 degrees.

Overclock it for now and upgrade when it is worthwhile (when USB3 & SATA III become more widespread)

Idle temps dont matter (and sensor temps are wildly inaccurate at temps below 50 according to intel). What were your prime/IBS load temps when stability testing the oc?

god's toy

lmimmfn wrote: »

get another key using another email address

Cool good idea!

PogMoThoin wrote: »

http://10minutemail.com/10MinuteMail/index.html

Perfect for situations like this

Ah even better!






EDIT: it's not good news, I used the 10 minute email and the test ran fine but it still wont give me anything.

Vantage on line is telling me that: Your trial has expired. You can only submit one result with the trial key. To submit more results, please upgrade your edition to the Advanced or Pro Edition!





Anyhoo I'm looking at the idea of an upgrade if I'm at a brick wall, something like Intel i5 750 CPU on a ASUS P7P55D-E EVO mobo with DDR3 1600MHz 4GB or more??


What you guys think?