8800 GTS -- Will Pentium D Bottleneck?

I have a Dell Dimension 9100 and I am looking to do some upgrades to handle upcoming DX10 games like Crysis (at high settings, 1600x1200 res). I currently have an nVidia GeForce 6800 256 MB graphics card and I plan to upgrade to the GeForce 8800 GTS 320 or 640 MB. I also plan to upgrade the 375 watt PSU to a 550-600 watt unit, and add in another gig of RAM to have 2 GB total.

The issue is the processor-- I currently have an Intel Pentium D 830 (3 GHz), and I have heard that this CPU could be a bottleneck on the performance of the 8800 GPU. Unfortunately, I have looked around on the Dell forums and it turns out that my motherboard will not support a Core 2 Duo processor. The Dell Dimension 9200 motherboard apparently supports C2D, but if I bought one of those on eBay, I would have to buy the case as well since the 9200 mobo does not fit in the 9100 case.

So, it looks like my only real options are to upgrade the 9100 as outlined above (GPU, PSU, RAM) and stick with the Pentium D, or build a whole new system, since it does not seem like it would make much sense to upgrade case, mobo, CPU, GPU, RAM, and PSU (oh, and eventually the OS as well).

Any advice would be appreciated.

Get a system with a X2 3600 and X1950XT,Dx 10 is just a showoff thing.RTSFTW

I do not think the mobo supports AMD processors, or at least not Athlon 64 x2. I was considering just upgrading the GPU to a nice DX9 card like the 7800 or 7900/7950, but I want to make my system somewhat futureproof so that I do not need to upgrade for another 2-3 years. If I did choose to go with a high-end GeForce 7 series card, though, would the Pentium D still be a problem?

heyyy, pentium D is fiiine with the 8800 GTS 320mb, i have a pentium D 945 stock 3.4, currently @ 4.1 Ghz,coupled with a8800GTS evga asc3 KO 320 mb, i can max any game out there with a aa and af.

i suppose that pentium d is one of the oldest steppings, cant say it wont bottle neck but u can overclock it a little bit, ur going to be missing around 10-20 frames ( varies). stick with the pentium d and overclock it a little bit.

heyyy, pentium D is fiiine with the 8800 GTS 320mb, i have a pentium D 945 stock 3.4, currently @ 4.1 Ghz,coupled with a8800GTS evga asc3 KO 320 mb, i can max any game out there with a aa and af.

i suppose that pentium d is one of the oldest steppings, cant say it wont bottle neck but u can overclock it a little bit, ur going to be missing around 10-20 frames ( varies). stick with the pentium d and overclock it a little bit.

r3351925

Does it matter that the Pentium D 830 uses the 90-nm architecture, whereas the 9xx Pentium D's use 65-nm? Does 90-nm have worse performance?

I do not know much of anything about overclocking, but I would like to learn more if this will help boost performance. I was reading in another thread about using a 1:1 FSB to RAM speed ratio for optimal performance when overclocking-- is this important? Since the Pentium D 830 uses an 800 MHz FSB, which memory speed should I go for?

the 65nm architecture helps by reducing the amount of heat the cpu produces therefore enabling higher frequencies, pm me with the following details and i shall help u, what is the name of your mobo, and what is its maximum fsb speed support, maximum memory speed support, your current cpu temps underload and idle and i'll give u the best frequency ucan operate on. probably if u've got a 533mhz type memory, u should set it to 1:1 = 400mhz, DDRthen when u overclock its going to be increased automatickly when uru wont be stressing your memory or northbridge. i think that u can reach 3.5 stable if u've got the right mobo and memory.

Sad part is your 8800GTS card will be worth more than all the other PC components combined...hahahaha. Yeah, the Pentium D will be a bottleneck becuase of its slow Bus speed of 800MHz. But you could get the 8800GTS now, and buy a new motherboard and CPU in the near future, then just transfer the card to it.violian

This seems like a good idea. I think I will wait until the end of the year for a price drop on the 8800 GTS, though. Then I could upgrade the motherboard and CPU sometime in 2008. This would make a lot of sense since I had not planned to upgrade to Vista until 2008 anyway, and it would probably cost less than buying an ATI x1950xt for now and then upgrading to a DX 10 card and system in 2008.

Also, if I can overclock the Pentium D a bit maybe I can squeeze some more performance out of it. Especially if the Crysis recommended requirements are as low as that other thread suggested a few days ago.

I have been thinking about this some more in light of the fact that upgrading anything but the RAM, HDD, or GPU (and maybe PSU) seems damn near impossible with this Dell case and motherboard, and I wonder if it might be better to buy a relatively cheap card (~$130) like the GeForce 7900 GS or Radeon X1950PRO now. Then I would most likely not need to worry about a CPU bottleneck, I could run most recent DX9 games on high settings at 1600x1200, and I could build a completely new system next year with a Core 2 CPU, Vista, and a DX10 GPU. Of course, I would also add a 2nd GB of RAM to my current system, since I only have 1 at the moment.

My question though, is what sort of PSU would I need to run the 7900 gs or X1950Pro (along with the Pentium D, which apparently is quite power hungry-- I think I heard 130 watts somewhere)? My current PSU is 375 watts and current GPU is a GeForce 6800 and it obviously works fine. Can I stay with this PSU if I get a 7900 gs or x1950pro, or do I need to upgrade it?

would u even be able to play crysis with a pentium D ?xXSN1PERXx

Definitely. I read in another thread that the minimum requirement for CPU will probably be P4 2.8 GHz or so and recommended will be Pentium D at same speed (obviously C2D or quad core would be better), if I remember right.

Sell it and use the money for a new rig.X360PS3AMD05

Where would be the best place to sell it? eBay?

The basic specs. are:

Dell Dimension 9100 -- Intel Pentium D 830 (3.0 GHz), 2x512MB DDR2 SDRAM @ 533 MHz, nVidia GeForce 6800 256MB, 250 GB SATA HDD (7200 RPM), Dual Optical Drives- DVD-ROM and DVD-RW, some crap Dell 375 W PSU, SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS sound card, decent amount of expandability on mobo with several open PCI slots, extra hd and optical disk bays, room for a big fat 8800 or somesuch, runs very quiet with BTX form factor.

How much would a system like this probably go for?

Someone will buy it, just put "Extreme Gaming PC" in the title :lol:X360PS3AMD05

lol, I don't doubt that I could get someone to buy it, but what range are we talking here? $700? $1000? I do not know how much this kind of system would get on eBay these days; I have only used eBay once and that was for buying a really old desktop for $30.

$500 :?X360PS3AMD05

:o Alright, alright, the system is nearly two years old after all. So if I write "Super-XXXTreme Gaming Machine" on the ad, do you think I might get someone to bid $600?