Bottlenecking the GPU
 

I'm looking for a CPU that won't bottleneck an 8800GTS, or possibly an 8800GTX. I'm looking to build my friend a computer for a $1k budget and I want to focus mainly on the graphics card since he uses his computer for gaming more than 95% of the time. I'm not set on only AMD or Intel, I can work with both just as well. I was originally going to go with the over clocked X2 3600+ setup and an 8800GTX, but now I'm thinking it might limit the graphics card.

Either AMD X2 at 2.5~2.6Ghz or Intel Core 2 Duo at 2.2~2.4Ghz will do nicely

you will notice that in the midrange section the C2D will be cheaper:)

Well boy jmke, arn't you just a C2D lover boy? Every thread that mentions a pro about AMD; there you are mentioning C2D.:-p

So your pretty much saying, that the clock speed of the CPU will be the limiting factor in bottlenecking the GPU? Or are you saying that CPUs clocked (stock) at those speeds will be the limiting factor. Get my point?

Cause from what your saying, I could by all means get the X2 3600+ and OC it near the 3.0Ghz limit, and it wouldn't bottleneck the GPU.

ha ha ha. I hope you are joking, I'm not PRO AMD/INTEL/ATI/NVIDIA, I'm PRO best gear for least money.
In the LOW end the AMD CPUs give you more bang for buck; in the midrang & higend INTEL C2D give you more bang for buck.

Low end AMD: $734
Low end Intel: $810

Mid range AMD: $1497 4800+ X2
Mid range Intel: $1450 E6300

http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=2973&p=1

as soon as AMD brings out a CPU in the mid range with better performance and costs less than C2D, I'll be "a AMD lover boy" in your eyes...

the overclocking argument is useless, overclocking E4300 to 3Ghz will make it faster than OC'd AMD 3ghz... fact.. and cheaper:)

what else? :) it depends on your display too, if you run at 1024x768 you'll find 8800GTX fast enough to run all games fluently even on a Celeron;)

Hehe :)

Well from I can see, the 8800GTX will pretty much strip off half the budget costing somewhere around $500-$600. So I'm pretty much left with $400 for a case, CPU, mobo, ram, PSU and fans/heat sink. So if AMD can give me the best bang for the buck budget wise, then it's the approach I'm going to take. This guy currently runs a display that supports 1024x1280 max, but he likes it at 1024x768.

get him the GTS then, no point to buy the GTX at 1280x1024

You're right. I could focus the extra cash on a better CPU and possibly a much more convenient cooling solution. Actually, maybe the ATI equivalent. From that benchmark review I read it seemed like ATi's 8800GTS equivalent outperformed the 8800GTS.

Yes, around half may the ATI Radeon HD 2900XT will be "hard" launched at price point similar of Geforce 8800 GTS 640Mb but with performance between the GTS & GTX. Best bang for the buck still remains the GTS 320mb with some shopping around you can get it for as little as $210

Maybe you can also use the extra cache to get upgrade the amount of system memory. If you chosed 1Gb, I would tend to choose 2Gb isntead of a better CPU. Some games are really keen on +1Gb memory.

Yeah, 2gb would be nice and all, but the price difference between a "great" 1gb kit and a "good" 2gb can be so big :( I don\'t know yet. I\'d have to start seeing which parts I want to use.