**all gamers read this**dual/quad cpu usage

[ShArKo]

I do know for running dual 295's, the CPU makes a huge difference in the performance of Vantage. Probably in games too, but I cant speak to that.

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=...1&key=�

They were just using a single GeForce 8800 Ultra, correct...

I think most CPU's can keep that GPU happy.

Not all......imagine a Celeron D 420 with a GTX295......

That for sure a bottle neck

[Talonman]

I will give you that one!!

[One_Hertz]

extra cpu speed = faster loading times of just about everything (as long as you have fast storage, i.e. SSDs). I will never go back to a sub 4.5ghz quad... everything loads so slow.

[RaZz!]

The Last Remnant loves my CPU, so much in fact it uses 70-80% across all four cores! Square Enix did a pretty good job of multithreading with UnrealEngine3 especially considering it was ported over from Xbox360!

i don't think they had much to do with multithreading as the ue3 is multithreaded already. look at e.g. ut3. it scales pretty good with more cores.

[ShArKo]

extra cpu speed = faster loading times of just about everything (as long as you have fast storage, i.e. SSDs). I will never go back to a sub 4.5ghz quad... everything loads so slow.

Im not so sure about that.
Wen I play Crysis on my PC (with 2x1GB of ram and a Raptor X) the loading map was very slow (some times and with a high resolution), but now that I got 4GB of ram (and the same raptor x) the loading map is more faster than before :p

[Chumbucket843]

i don't think they had much to do with multithreading as the ue3 is multithreaded already. look at e.g. ut3. it scales pretty good with more cores.

i thought ue3 had 2.5 threads.

[One_Hertz]

Im not so sure about that.
Wen I play Crysis on my PC (with 2x1GB of ram and a Raptor X) the loading map was very slow (some times and with a high resolution), but now that I got 4GB of ram (and the same raptor x) the loading map is more faster than before :p

I am actually 100% sure about that. Like I said, you need good SSDs to see the difference. If you just have an HDD then that is your bottleneck, not your CPU.

[Chickenfeed]

For the current dual gpu cards ( or standard SLI/CF for that matter ) I'd probably say having roughly a 3Ghz Core 2 / K10.5 cpu would be comfortable. The E8400 did just fine stock with my 4870x2 and unless the game is really cpu limited there wasn't much in teh way of gains clocking it much higher.

As far as UE3.0 it scales quite well with additional cores, especially Unreal Tournament 3 ( being its in house I'd think )

My stance right now is that if you are upgrading your platform, quad is the way to go but if your using a dual now and don't feel compelled to upgrade then don't sweat it as they'll still be fine in the majority of games for the next half year - year.

@ Quad SLI needing high clocks Talon, you are correct. You *need* to overclock the system to get the most out of this platform. At all but 2560x1600 with 8-16x AA you will still be cpu limited in most cases and often to a great extent ( this is one of the few times currently were i7 really pulls ahead, it seems to do much better with dual 295s than both Core 2 and Phenom )

As far as loading times, increased clock speed does help BUT the order of increased performance stems more from CPU --> HD --> RAM. Having at least 4GB of ram on a x64 OS and an SDD will do more overall for loading times than a highly clock cpu alone.

[One_Hertz]

As far as loading times, increased clock speed does help BUT the order of increased performance stems more from CPU --> HD --> RAM. Having at least 4GB of ram on a x64 OS and an SDD will do more overall for loading times than a highly clock cpu alone.

Yep. COD4 loads in ~20sec from an HDD regardless of CPU clock speed. It loads in ~5sec from a good SSD with a 3ghz quad and in ~2.8sec with a 4.5ghz quad.

[Brian MP5T]

I did notice that anything in SLI requires a bigger chunk of CPU to run to it's potential.

[ShArKo]

I did notice that anything in SLI requires a bigger chunk of CPU to run to it's potential.

Welcome to the thread Brian