Does FSB make a big difference?

OmegaRed

I just bought and installed a new 4870X2. I was so excited as I was finally going to be able to max my games out (crysis, crysis warhead/wars and Far Cry)…. Yes I love to cry!

The results were astonishing but at the same time I was slightly disappointed as I could max everything out. I was running Crysis on 1900X1200 with all max settings and it runs incredibly smooth. It looks amazing. But when I cranked up the AA from 0 to 8X then I would get massive lag. The same with Warhead.

Now I know at those resolutions AA doesn’t make a massive difference but for the money I spent on the X2 you’d kinda want it to run everything.

I did I bench mark on with 3D Vantage and over all only got about 10190 while the graphics card got roughly the same (sorry, in work at the moment and the results are at home). The only main difference I can see with other people is my MB. I have this:

http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfullat.asp?productcode=ECE1356468#spec

which has an FSB 1333 MHz. Other people are using MB’sith 1600 MHz.

Would 267 MHz make that much of a difference?

I was looking at something like this:

http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=640&l4=0&model=2070&modelmenu=1

Any thoughts where I could get a bit of improvement?

Chosen

A) You cannot play Crysis "smoothly" at 19x12 with maxed out AA & AF, accept it.
The motherboard is not the only factor determining the FSB, the CPU is the other one. Which CPU do you have?
C) There's always overclocking too, but it's not worth it for Crysis. You can overclock your CPU by 50%, but Crysis won't take much in. And you can overclock your GFX card by 10%, which will give you a bit less than 10% increase in performance, which sounds great in theory, but it's not too much in practice. If for example you used to get 50 fps as it is, a 10% increase in performance would mean 55 fps = not worth the risk imho overclocking your GFX card for 24/7.

OmegaRed

the CPU is an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600

Chosen

Your CPU's FSB is 1066 MHz, which means that regardless whether you put it on a 1333 MHz or 1600 MHz FSB motherboard, both the CPU and your motherboard will still operate at 1066 MHz.

But in any case, what I told you about Crysis and AA/AF is true, so you can relax.

And to answer the original question: the FSB does not affect graphics performance, at least not more than a couple frames per second...

Anti

Chosen wrote: »

Your CPU's FSB is 1066 MHz, which means that regardless whether you put it on a 1333 MHz or 1600 MHz FSB motherboard, both the CPU and your motherboard will still operate at 1066 MHz.

But in any case, what I told you about Crysis and AA/AF is true, so you can relax.

And to answer the original question: the FSB does not affect graphics performance, at least not more than a couple frames per second...

QFT !!

OmegaRed

ta very much lads!