Will my Q9650 bottleneck my new EVGA GTX 275?

[asntitys]

My Q9650 is at stock 3.0ghz speed and I am wondering if this processor should bottleneck my new video card? What do you guys think? Thanks!

[ATi]

don't think so:) whats your FSB?

[asntitys]

don't think so:) whats your FSB?

1333mghz

[ATi]

1333mghz

its ok I guess I needed to bump my FSB to 1600 and got a huge performance boost but I think it was because I have a SLi card

[bob saget]

you should be fine.

[Thunderbolt56]

Will totally depend on the title and/or application. The 275 is a decent balanced GPU for the Q9650 IMO.

[asntitys]

I don't think I worded it correctly. What I meant was if my Q9650 at stock speed will be a bottleneck for my GPU. So I shouldn't have to overclock my cpu to have my GTX 275 run at its prime? Thanks for the replies.

[bob saget]

good question. I was actually wondering how much of a jump in games i would see going from stock to say 3.6
Gaming is pretty much by far the most damanding thing i run on my computer.

[jcrox]

I don't think I worded it correctly. What I meant was if my Q9650 at stock speed will be a bottleneck for my GPU. So I shouldn't have to overclock my cpu to have my GTX 275 run at its prime? Thanks for the replies.

Partly depends on the resolution of your monitor. If you're not running at 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 it could be a close call in Crysis. At 1920x1080 and up or in pretty much any other game than that game, you're not likely to run into anything noticeable.

One way to check is to fire up fraps and check the frames per second on a game with all the game settings at stock, no AA no AF. Exit the game and turn up the AA and AF and then go back and check the FPS again. As you turn the AA and AF up if the frames per second don't drop at all or they drop very little, your CPU is likely a bottle neck. I would recommend trying this on a game other than Crysis though.

[CaptNKILL]

More CPU speed is always better.

If you're even considering overclocking, just do it.

There aren't really any down sides other than having to spend money on a better cooler.

Overclocking your CPU is incredibly useful in the rare situations where a game is extremely CPU heavy. You can always turn down graphics settings to reduce graphics load but few games give you any options to reduce CPU load. The more speed you have, the less likely you are to get frame rate drops when things get heavy (tons of AI, physics or geometry).

Also, when it comes one component blottlenecking another, there may be a general "sweet spot" with roughly balanced components but a CPU will always bottleneck a GPU in some situations and vice versa. It may be at 20fps or at 200fps. What's important is keeping your frame rates at a good level in the most situations possible.

[asntitys]

Thanks for the replies. I am going to overclock my cpu.(nana2)

[ViN86]

It's a solid chip, you should be fine. But as always, it depends on the title.

[mailman2]

good question. I was actually wondering how much of a jump in games i would see going from stock to say 3.6
Gaming is pretty much by far the most damanding thing i run on my computer.

3.6 will give you a nice boost. Alot of games will benefit from a faster CPU.