What video card wouldn't be bottle-necking my system?

[SecretOfVampires]

People on other forums said it would be pointless for me to update to a gtx295 or 285 because neither will do much for me on my current rig. Would a 260gtx or 275gtx let me run physx at 1920 x resolution? Both the 260gtx and 275gtx are very affordable cards, are they any good or would I be bottlenecking still?

Amd Athlon II 250 3.0ghz dual processor

4 gigs of ram

Motherboard:
Asus M2N68-AM SE2

[oseven]

EVGA GTX 275, 1792 MB edition. Best buy there is unless you get a 295 which is 2 275's running SLI in one card.

As for bottlenecking your system.... I will assume your AMD processor is a great one (I know very little about AMD) so there should be no bottleneck.

*EDIT* I actually just looked your processor up and I am afraid the entire GTX series may be bottlenecked by your CPU.

[SecretOfVampires]

EVGA GTX 275, 1792 MB edition. Best buy there is unless you get a 295 which is 2 275's running SLI in one card.

As for bottlenecking your system.... I will assume your AMD processor is a great one (I know very little about AMD) so there should be no bottleneck.

*EDIT* I actually just looked your processor up and I am afraid the entire GTX series may be bottlenecked by your CPU.

What does bottlenecking exactly mean? If I updated would I be able to play Batman at 1920 resolution with physx at high with one of those cards still?

[BurningChrome]

Bottlenecking is when one of the parts of your rig is holding back the other parts due to it being lower quality or just not fast enough. Try to think of it as the PC only being as good as it's weakest part. The GTX range is currently top of the range (No ATi arguments please), whereas your CPU was only top of the range a couple of years ago.
That's what's holding things back, not you GPU. Your best bet is to upgrade the processor, which will probably mean a new motherboard if you want to see a real increase.
What Graphics Card do you have at the moment?

[SecretOfVampires]

My cpu is brand new, I just bought it. And the Amd Athlon II 250 came out only like 2 months ago. Its fairly new, its not 2 yrs old. I can't update my cpu again, I just did last week. I need a new video card. If you're telling me some kind of bull**** like I need a quad core to get to play physx with batman at 1920x resolution, then thats some total bull****.

[BurningChrome]

I'm not telling you what you need to play Arkham Asylum in particular, just general system advice. You shouldn't spit at it, it was freely given. What graphics card do you have?

[Moleculor]

What graphics card are you running now and what kind of performance are you getting? (And yes, the Athlon II was only released this year. It's new.)

[ballsguy]

Your going to need to overclock your cpu if you want to get any of the power you'll pay for in a gtx 295.

I've got a q6600 overclocked up to 3.7 ghz...and a 295 gtx...and thats not enough to feed the thing.

For example...an i7 even at stock clocks with my gpu will pull ahead of my q66 at 3.7.

In hardware tests (dont have the link, sorry) they overclocked an i7 with a 295...and were able to pull nearly double the performance I'm getting now.


So a 295 has too much power that will be wasted on your system.

Not to say that you wont see some nice frame rates, it's just that, you'd get the same performance buying a 285 gtx.

[oseven]

Yes, the Athlon II 250 is new this year, but from what I read... It was designed to compete with PENTIUM 4 dual cores. The fact that it is a new release does not automatically make it a top of the line processor.

I would say that the best card to buy with this setup would be 1 tier under the GTX 200 series. Shoot for a 9800 GTX.

Sure, the minimum system specs for a GTX 260 say Pentium 4 / AMD Athlon XP or better, but NEVER EVER EVER EVER run minimum specs for ANYTHING. Buy a 9800 GTX and when the time comes to upgrade, simply buy 2 better cards and run tri-SLI with the 9800 dedicated to PhysX processing.

[jbscotchman]

Yes the Athlon II 250 is new but its not top of the line, its more of a mainstream/budget CPU. Thats not saying its bad by any means, but it will hold back the full power of high end video cards. That said even if you went with a GTX 260 or 275 that would still allow you to crank up the graphics and resolution. What card do you have now?

[lostsomething]

Yeah, the Athlon 2 is technically new but performance-wise it's in line with chips that were released years ago.

That said though I really wouldn't worry too much about bottlenecking. Oh, no reason to waste money on a GTX 295 or even a 285 but being on the gpu heavy side of things is certainly the better way to be. You can always throw the extra power on higher resolutions / anti-aliasing or other such work that tends to tax your video card more than your processor.

[The Coca Cola Company]

I would buy a GTX 260.

[SecretOfVampires]

I would buy a GTX 260.

Thats what I'm thinking about but I really hope that is enough fps for physx on high graphics at 1920x resolution.

My graphics card right now is Geforce 8800 gts 320mb card and it isn't cutting it. I can't only run it at 800x resolution with physx turned on and high settings with no fps drops and it looks like turd on my 25.5 inch monitor. Will the gtx260 be enough or go for the gtx275? Both the gtx260 and 275 are fairly great prices for 1792mb cards. Under 300 bucks for both of em which is nice for a 1792mb card.

[lostsomething]

Thats what I'm thinking about but I really hope that is enough fps for physx on high graphics at 1920x resolution.

My graphics card right now is Geforce 8800 gts 320mb card and it isn't cutting it. I can't only run it at 800x resolution with physx turned on and high settings with no fps drops and it looks like turd on my 25.5 inch monitor. Will the gtx260 be enough or go for the gtx275? Both the gtx260 and 275 are fairly great prices for 1792mb cards. Under 300 bucks for both of em which is nice for a 1792mb card.

Wait a little while for the Radeon 5xxx launch - it should just be a week or so and nVidia will probably be cutting prices in response. There really isn't any point to a 1gb+ card right now though.

If your motherboard has more than one pci-e x16 slot you also have the option of reusing your 8800 gts, which should work quite well for PhysX.

[chriskirza]

i have a gtx 295 with intel E8400 overclocked to 3.6ghz.at 1920x1200 with 4XAA and 8xAF and physx in normal everthing runs perfect.if i put physx option to HIGH again perfect but when you first see the physx effects the frames drop a little then they go normal again.its a small lag.gtx 275 or 285 or yes 295 would be good.you can also wait for the new nvidia cards in 2-3 months!

[deders]

Thats what I'm thinking about but I really hope that is enough fps for physx on high graphics at 1920x resolution.

My graphics card right now is Geforce 8800 gts 320mb card and it isn't cutting it. I can't only run it at 800x resolution with physx turned on and high settings with no fps drops and it looks like turd on my 25.5 inch monitor. Will the gtx260 be enough or go for the gtx275? Both the gtx260 and 275 are fairly great prices for 1792mb cards. Under 300 bucks for both of em which is nice for a 1792mb card.

Personally I'd go for the 275, it's very close to being as powerful as a 280 and significantly more powerful than a 260 and should be enough to turn everything on. Even if it isn't you could use your 8800GTS purely for the physx (if you have a spare PCIE slot and a powerful enough PSU).

The game reccommends that if you want physx on normal you should use a 260, if you want any hope of trying it on high a 275 is the way to go. And just because the rest of the system is bottlenecking it now just means that you will get more performance out of it when you upgrade.

If you compare pretty much any modern graphics card (8800gt and up) on your system and a corei7 there going to be a substantial performance increase with the corei7 anyway so I wouldn't worry too much about bottlenecking right now.

[trek554]

i have a gtx 295 with intel E8400 overclocked to 3.6ghz.at 1920x1200 with 4XAA and 8xAF and physx in normal everthing runs perfect.if i put physx option to HIGH again perfect but when you first see the physx effects the frames drop a little then they go normal again.its a small lag.gtx 275 or 285 or yes 295 would be good.you can also wait for the new nvidia cards in 2-3 months! perhaps you missed the ENTIRE point of the thread. he asking about bottlenecking not what your overclocked E8400 and gtx295 can do. :rolleyes:

the gtx275 or gtx285 would not be too terribly bottlenecked by with his cpu but gtx295 would be a stupid purchase for him. that cpu is a fairly low end new cpu but overall it isnt bad at all. its about equal to an E7300 or so theres no reason he couldnt get about 90-95% utilization out of a gtx260.

[deders]

you can also wait for the new nvidia cards in 2-3 months!

It's probably not worth getting the first in a new generation of graphics chips as it can take months/years for the technology to mature and for games to actually make use of it, by which time there will be more powerful cards for less money.

[woodson]

really people iam using an ati 2600 and a pen d 3.0. game looks fine and plays with out any problems.i think these highend cpu's gpu;s are a waste of money.but then if you have it spend it i guess what else is it for.

[SecretOfVampires]

Wait a little while for the Radeon 5xxx launch - it should just be a week or so and nVidia will probably be cutting prices in response. There really isn't any point to a 1gb+ card right now though.

.

Thats not true, gta iv runs alot better with extra video memory or so I've heard. And with the comments here I think I'll try for a gtx285, I think that card is right for me but I need the cash for it. Hopefully theirs some truth about a price drop since I'm a poor ass bastard who works construction every so often :D

[trek554]

really people iam using an ati 2600 and a pen d 3.0. game looks fine and plays with out any problems.i think these highend cpu's gpu;s are a waste of money.but then if you have it spend it i guess what else is it for.so we should all just play games at your level of acceptance? some of us have larger monitors and prefer to run games at highest settings and enjoy things like physx. ;)

[SecretOfVampires]

really people iam using an ati 2600 and a pen d 3.0. game looks fine and plays with out any problems.i think these highend cpu's gpu;s are a waste of money.but then if you have it spend it i guess what else is it for.

Omg it must look like a turd on that unless you have like a 19 inch monitor. And ati doesn't do physx which makes the game slightly more realistic.

[BurningChrome]

Omg it must look like a turd on that unless you have like a 19 inch monitor. And ati doesn't do physx which makes the game slightly more realistic.

I am a big fan of small monitors. I am currently using a 19" Samsung, but I play the game with everything at top settings (PhysX included), and 8X AA @ 1680x1050, and have noticed no slowdown at all, average FPS in the benchmark was 51.

[trek554]

I am a big fan of small monitors. I am currently using a 19" Samsung, but I play the game with everything at top settings (PhysX included), and 8X AA @ 1680x1050, and have noticed no slowdown at all, average FPS in the benchmark was 51. what Samsung 19inch does 1680x1050?

[BurningChrome]

what Samsung 19inch does 1680x1050?

I have the T190 and yes, you're right, the highest native resolution is 1440x900(I think), but it works fine at 1680x1050. Strange, but I'm not going to argue a good thing.

[trek554]

I have the T190 and yes, you're right, the highest native resolution is 1440x900(I think), but it works fine at 1680x1050. Strange, but I'm not going to argue a good thing. how does it run above native? on every LCD that I am aware of, the native res is the same as max.

[lostsomething]

Thats not true, gta iv runs alot better with extra video memory or so I've heard.

Even if that's true it does not run well with a dual core processor.

And with the comments here I think I'll try for a gtx285, I think that card is right for me but I need the cash for it. Hopefully theirs some truth about a price drop since I'm a poor ass bastard who works construction every so often :D

Waste of money, go with the 275. Performs within about 6% of the 285, costs around 2/3rds of the price.

[trek554]

Thats not true, gta iv runs alot better with extra video memory or so I've heard. And with the comments here I think I'll try for a gtx285, I think that card is right for me but I need the cash for it. Hopefully theirs some truth about a price drop since I'm a poor ass bastard who works construction every so often :D a gtx285 would be foolish for what it costs. ATI will rape it for the same price with its new cards coming out this week. all of Nvidia prices should drastically drop right after but even then I would still get a gtx260 or gtx275 especially with your cpu.

[BurningChrome]

how does it run above native? on every LCD that I am aware of, the native res is the same as max.

I don't know really. The only reason I'm running it like this is that for some reason, the latest Nvidia drivers (for the 900GTX+) stopped supporting my resolution. It's either that or drop down to 1280x800. (Closest one to my native resolution that still keeps the 16:10 aspect ratio)


I'm unsure if it's a wise thing to do, but **** it, it still looks good. Right now I can't really afford to drop £200 odd on a new monitor.

[deders]

a gtx285 would be foolish for what it costs. ATI will rape it for the same price with its new cards coming out this week. all of Nvidia prices should drastically drop right after but even then I would still get a gtx260 or gtx275 especially with your cpu.

With your current setup you probably won't see much difference between a 275 and a 285, this is where the bottlenecking comes into play, i'd still go for the 275 over the 260 though, for all the extra cores for the physx to run on.

[trek554]

With your current setup you probably won't see much difference between a 275 and a 285, this is where the bottlenecking comes into play, i'd still go for the 275 over the 260 though, for all the extra cores for the physx to run on. yeah the gtx275 is borderline but I would probably get it too if the price was right. if I couldnt find a gtx275 for a really good deal then the gtx260 would still be a good choice with that cpu.