Bottlenecks (V3)- How Bad Could It Be?

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.