AMD 6870 Too powerful for my CPU?

H

h41cyon

Weaksauce
Joined
Jan 13, 2004
Messages
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I've got somewhat of an 'outdated' system.

Currently running a Core 2 Duo E6750 (2.66GHZ) P45 chipset board.

I just bought a 6870 (hasn't come yet), and I'm wondering if I just spent way more money than I should have on a video card, when/if my CPU is going to be limiting it like crazy.

Am I right?

(I play @1920x1200)
 
No, you are fine.

Actually, let me rephrase that. You *should* OC your 6750, if you haven't done so. Certainly a strong GPU like that is no longer going to be your bottleneck, which means that the CPU is. If you can get it up to minimally 3.2, or better yet 3.4/3.6 -- there will be very minimal bottleneck, if any (depending more on the individual games themselves at that point).

For reference, I have a 5870 (somewhat stronger than the 6870) and run on an E6850 @ 3.2Ghz. I don't have any noticeable lag in games @ 1920x1080 running Ultra/High settings, 2 - 4x MsAA depending.
 
You *should* OC your 6750, if you haven't done so.
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Let me fix that for you.

You could try OC your 6750, if you havent done so. But it is still a risk to do so.
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Might work perfect for him, might turn his computer into a puff of smoke if he does. Only he can decide to OC or not. Telling him he "should" do so is irresponsible on your part.
 
Comte said:
Let me fix that for you.



Might work perfect for him, might turn his computer into a puff of smoke if he does. Only he can decide to OC or not. Telling him he "should" do so is irresponsible on your part.
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Dude- whats your deal? This is an enthusiast site where most of us overclock. The chances of actually damaging a chip at this point is fairly low unless you try to push too much voltage or let it get too hot. Also- what he was saying is that IF the OP doesn't want the CPU to bottleneck the 6870 by a good bit, he SHOULD OC to at least 3.2 GHz. That is a legit thing to say- most of us on here know the dangers of overclocking.
 
Comte said:
Might work perfect for him, might turn his computer into a puff of smoke if he does. Only he can decide to OC or not. Telling him he "should" do so is irresponsible on your part.
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You remind me of one of those people who would say the maximum "safe" voltage/temp for an i7 930 is 1.35V/65C or one of those Newegg reviewers who claim that their 3.8GHz overclock is insane and awesome. I ran my E8400 for 3 years at 1.45V on air and it's still kicking strong in my old computer. My 930 runs fine at 1.5V/4.5GHz.
 
death by overclocking? has not happened in a long time, unless you set your cpu voltage to something outrageous but most motherboard won't even allow that, unless you go for an extreme oc board that is built for world record runs!

you can get some extra juice out of that cpu pretty easily, get it to 3.2-3.4ghz probably on stock voltage or low increase in voltage
 
Someone in this thread isnt [H]ard enough...Overclock that lil dual, and just watch your temps! have fun
 
If you turn some eye candy on, and the quality up, I'm not even sure you'd be CPU limited. 1920 is a pretty high resolution.
 
you can easily overclock the e6750. Mine runs 3,2ghz on stock air and a less than stock voltage. I could probably take it higher :p

Getting a 460gtx in a day or two to replace ye olde 8800gt
 
OP, depending on the game of course, you will be CPU limited. I found the 6870 to perform best on my setup when the CPU was overclocked to 3.33, but didn't seem to gain much after that. At 3.2 it was slower but not by a large margin, and really only noticeable if you were looking at benchmark numbers. However, I have not tried running anything with my CPU at stock 2.66 because I just never run the CPU that slow.

That being said, non-CPU heavy games will be largely unaffected by CPU speed and you will see a improvements in the video (basically turn more eye candy on).
 
Flyinfinni said:
Dude- whats your deal? This is an enthusiast site where most of us overclock. The chances of actually damaging a chip at this point is fairly low unless you try to push too much voltage or let it get too hot. Also- what he was saying is that IF the OP doesn't want the CPU to bottleneck the 6870 by a good bit, he SHOULD OC to at least 3.2 GHz. That is a legit thing to say- most of us on here know the dangers of overclocking.
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Any overclocking implies risk. You have to be willing to take said risk. Telling him he "should" do something implies there is no risk. That is a lie. Depending on his knowledge he might want to OC or might not want to OC. He also might not be able to afford taking the risk of OC.

I, on the other hand, am knowledgable and able to afford it if my OC goes bad and destroys something. not everyone on here can afford to do that.

You sit there and think your getting free speed from the manufacturer. What you are getting are chips that have been conservatively rated so Intel doesnt have massive RMA's because they dont work at their rated speed. If you can get an OC to work, great. But not all of them will do so. But you are not guarenteed that a OC will work on a given part.

But dont sit there and imply there is no risk, because there is.
And he should be aware of the risk, whatever amount there is, before he starts doing something like overclocking.
 
Comte said:
Any overclocking implies risk. You have to be willing to take said risk. Telling him he "should" do something implies there is no risk. That is a lie. Depending on his knowledge he might want to OC or might not want to OC. He also might not be able to afford taking the risk of OC.
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There's also a risk of his CPU failing, HSF failing, RAM failing, motherboard failing, hard drive failing ,etc. all without overclocking or adding voltage. The thing is, if you know what you're doing, that risk is minimal either way. Hell, they make overclocking so easy nowadays that I'm tempted to say you don't even have to know what you're doing. The safest way to overclock, however, is to raise the CPU clock to its highest stable speed without adding voltage.
 
You can also die from salmonella if you don't handle eggs or meat with clinical caution in the kitchen, or by driving in traffic.

I see absolutely no reason not to try a moderate 20% overclock on an E6750. Its a widely deemed great overclocker, and I have mine running 3,2ghz on 1,250V, a couple of degrees warmer than normal on the stock cooler.
The risk that it will DIE on you with no additional voltage (assuming the cooler is working and clean) is minuscule. At worst it will be unstable or lock up (requiring a CMOS reset at most, pretty unlikely).
Anyway, the only other option is not try at all, and bottleneck the soon arriving 6870 bigtime until a new round of mb, cpu and ram can be afforded.
 
Not to take away from the explosion of nerd rage over the OC comment, but I'd like to ask a quick question as it seems the OP has had his answered.

I'm in a similar situation - a Q6600 instead though. I have a great cooler and beastly fans on it and was able to OC well when I first built my machine.
Question: What should I aim for? 3.4? 3.6? At what level would my CPU not be as much of a bottleneck? I'll get it as close as I can.
 
Kryx said:
Not to take away from the explosion of nerd rage over the OC comment, but I'd like to ask a quick question as it seems the OP has had his answered.

I'm in a similar situation - a Q6600 instead though. I have a great cooler and beastly fans on it and was able to OC well when I first built my machine.
Question: What should I aim for? 3.4? 3.6? At what level would my CPU not be as much of a bottleneck? I'll get it as close as I can.
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Most people find the highest unstable OC they can, then back it off a bit from there. The thing that hurts the most is voltage, not the speed. Even then chips rarely die cause they are running faster then they should. They die when people over volt them and fry them. So just find the highest stable OC and leave it at that, only way to do this is trial and error.
 
WaTaGuMp said:
Most people find the highest unstable OC they can, then back it off a bit from there. The thing that hurts the most is voltage, not the speed. Even then chips rarely die cause they are running faster then they should. They die when people over volt them and fry them. So just find the highest stable OC and leave it at that, only way to do this is trial and error.
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Ya I've done it before for ~6 months, but took it off as I didn't see the need to create the extra heat and use the extra energy. Now I need it so I'd like to know what level to aim for. At what point will my CPU not be a bottleneck? If it's beyond my CPU's capability(3.6+) I'll go as high as I can. Else I'll go lower.
 
Kryx said:
Ya I've done it before for ~6 months, but took it off as I didn't see the need to create the extra heat and use the extra energy. Now I need it so I'd like to know what level to aim for. At what point will my CPU not be a bottleneck? If it's beyond my CPU's capability(3.6+) I'll go as high as I can. Else I'll go lower.
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Bottlenecks are more determined by what you are doing. If you play games that are not CPU intensive, then you are not going to bottleneck. If you want to just be pretty certain, then shoot for the middle, 3.4-3.5, that's still a good chip being its a quad core.
 
OP there is not much point in you paying 60 bucks more for a 6870 over a 6850 with your cpu. in games like GTA 4, Far Cry 2, Red Faction Guerrilla, Dragon Age, Bad Company 2 and several others you will already be giving up 25-30% or more of what even a 6850 can do. only in very few games such Metro 2033, Clear Sky, and Call of Pripyat would your cpu not hold back even a 6850.

also the 6850 has much more headroom for overclocking so if you were to oc both the 6850 and 6870 they would be within 10% of each other. with your cpu, you will never even be able to make up that 10% in 99% of cases anyway.

I would get the 6850 and do a simple and modest oc on it. I would also oc your cpu a little bit too and you will have a nicely balanced pc.
 
cannondale06 said:
OP there is not much point in you paying 60 bucks more for a 6870 over a 6850 with your cpu. in games like GTA 4, Far Cry 2, Red Faction Guerrilla, Dragon Age, Bad Company 2 and several others you will already be giving up 25-30% or more of what even a 6850 can do. only in very few games such Metro 2033, Clear Sky, and Call of Pripyat would your cpu not hold back even a 6850.

also the 6850 has much more headroom for overclocking so if you were to oc both the 6850 and 6870 they would be within 10% of each other. with your cpu, you will never even be able to make up that 10% in 99% of cases anyway.

I would get the 6850 and do a simple and modest oc on it. I would also oc your cpu a little bit too and you will have a nicely balanced pc
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This approach could work depending on the quality settings that the OP wants and what games he plays. However......:
h41cyon said:
I just bought a 6870 (hasn't come yet)
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so really there is no point in recommending a different GPU.

OP, you didn't make a bad decision, the 6870 IS more powerful than the 6850, which you'd have to OC to get to the same level of performance. At your resolution if you want to run a decent level of AA (or any at all, depending on how the game handles with high/max settings), then the 6870 is the far better choice.

As said before, you *should* OC your E6750 CPU to ~3.2Ghz. For the net unsavvy, *should* means 'if you want to, and are capable of, and accepting of the risk, you should do this'....... lol :p
 
Comte said:
Any overclocking implies risk. You have to be willing to take said risk. Telling him he "should" do something implies there is no risk. That is a lie. Depending on his knowledge he might want to OC or might not want to OC. He also might not be able to afford taking the risk of OC.

I, on the other hand, am knowledgable and able to afford it if my OC goes bad and destroys something. not everyone on here can afford to do that.

You sit there and think your getting free speed from the manufacturer. What you are getting are chips that have been conservatively rated so Intel doesnt have massive RMA's because they dont work at their rated speed. If you can get an OC to work, great. But not all of them will do so. But you are not guarenteed that a OC will work on a given part.

But dont sit there and imply there is no risk, because there is.
And he should be aware of the risk, whatever amount there is, before he starts doing something like overclocking.
Click to expand...

I never suggested there was no risk. HOWEVER, at this point, the risk is fairly low if you have any clue what you are doing. If you follow basic voltage/temp limits, then I would bet there is a much greater chance of an HDD failure than that your OC will damage your CPU.
 
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