What Is A Bottleneck?
No, it’s not part of a bottle. It’s a term to describe something being unable to cope with another, thus holding back performance. A choke-point if you would like another word for it.
The users who are concerned over this bottleneck matter are gamers. The thought of what a waste it would be to own a good graphic card yet having it under-perform due to lack of processing power.
Test Setup
Here’s the test setup used.
| Processor | AMD Athlon II X3 425 |
| Graphic Card | Galaxy GTX 470 GC |
| RAM | 2x 2GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600mhz |
| Motherboard | MSI 790FX-GD70 |
| Cooler | AMD Stock Cooler (Yes, I haven’t install any big ones there) |
| Monitor | 20″ Dell Ultra-sharp Wide-screen LCD |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Professional 32bit |
| Driver Version | GeForce 258.96 |
Test was done with the X3 425 on stock and overclocked to 3.6ghz. That’s 33% overclock. The X3 425 is a tri-core but at 3.6ghz it’s a much faster processor, a lot faster that even the newer Athlon II X3 and X4 in the market.
And yes, I was using stock heatsink for that level of overclock. 😀
Test Results
Crysis
Graphic Detail : Maximum @ 1680×1050
| Processor | X3 425 @ 2.7ghz | X3 425 @ 3.6ghz |
| Average FPS | 26.59 | 26.79 |
World in Conflict
Graphic Detail : Maximum @ 1680×1050
| Processor | X3 425 @ 2.7ghz | X3 425 @ 3.6ghz |
| Average FPS | 36 | 45 |
Lost Planet
Graphic Detail : Maximum at 1680 x 946
| Processor | X3 425 @ 2.7ghz | X3 425 @ 3.6ghz |
| Average FPS (Snow) | 63.4 | 85.5 |
| Average FPS (Cave) | 80.6 | 86.4 |
Mafia II
Graphic Detail : Maximum at 1680 x 1050
| Processor | X3 425 @ 2.7ghz | X3 425 @ 3.6ghz |
| Average FPS | 22.1 | 25.5 |
StarCraft 2
Graphic Detail : ULTRA at 1680 x 1050
*I used the final mission “ALL IN”, Brutal mode – with hordes of ground units attacking my base. Plenty of action, enough to bring the framerate down really hard.
| Processor | X3 425 @ 2.7ghz | X3 425 @ 3.6ghz |
| Average FPS | 11.7 | 18.8 |
3DMark Vantage
Graphic Detail : Default / Unchanged
| Processor | X3 425 @ 2.7ghz | X3 425 @ 3.6ghz |
| 3DMark Score | 15578 | 16492 |
| GPU Score | 13113 | 13777 |
| CPU Score | 35715 | 40338 |
| Game Test #1 | 38.27 | 41.01 |
| Game Test #2 | 38.56 | 39.68 |
Heaven 2.0
Graphic Detail : 1680×1050, 4xAA, Tessalation : Normal.
| Processor | X3 425 @ 2.7ghz | X3 425 @ 3.6ghz |
| Average FPS | 31.8 | 32.5 |
| Score | 31.8 | 32.5 |
Conclusion
The X3 425 on stock is already a lot faster than many older generation dual-core processors out there but even so, you see that graphic performance is boosted along with the processor overclock. Of course, this largely depends on the game you’re playing but
My take is that balance is always a good thing to have. Note that this is just the GTX470 – it’s not the most powerful card available.
Based on the above test, I’d say the RM 200+ tri-cores from AMD and even the lowest Core i3 series from Intel would work fine with high-performance cards but a little more speed would help reduce the bottleneck. If overclocking is alien to you, then you should consider those processors above RM 500 (at the time of this article) to pair with high-performance graphic cards.
very good review, i have juz done reading the old bottleneck review n it is also very good..
but, at the lost planet section(bottleneck v3), the stock processor seems to have better fps than OC’ed one…is that a typo??