How To: Determine if your Video is CPU Limited!

ok, I just sorta figured this out, but heres a quick guide to figure out if your current system is CPU limited, or GFX Card Limited.

First: Find your favorite benchmark program. I prefer Aquamark, because its sensitive to overclocking(I.E, if you overclock to far, it will be noticeable almost as soon as you run the bench).

Run it, and record your score on notepad, or whatever you want.

Second: If your a NVidia guy, download RivaTuner. If you're ATI Download ATITool.

Third: Overclock your core by about 10Mhz, and then run your Benchmark. Compare the scores, if there is an increase, you are not CPU Limited yet. If there is no change, you are CPU Limited already. Continue until either A) Overclocking causes a severe drop in score B) Artifacts appear C) Your Video Card Drivers force a restart because you overclocked to high or D) Your Score does not increase at all.

Once that happens, back down a few mhz, and run again. If your score has increased from your original score, congratulations! Your system is NOT CPU limited.

If, however, your score increases absolutely squat, your CPU is the limiting factor.

Sooooooo.....

IF you were CPU Limited at the start,

Start dropping your GPU OC by about 10Mhz each time, until you finally begin losing points. This will determine how much "Powa" you are losing because your CPU is diddly squat .

Thanks! I really hope this helped you guys out, i know sometimes when I overclocked my Vid before my CPU, I got no benefits for the GPU OC, but now that I'm up to 2.5 Ghz+ on my 3000+ I'm very very happy :-D

Nice 2 my mx440 anit cpu limited thank god(looks around) but once i get my next card i might havt o over clock my cpu!

Elif Tymes said:

ok, I just sorta figured this out, but heres a quick guide to figure out if your current system is CPU limited, or GFX Card Limited.
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Click to expand...

That's exactly how I do it with games I like to play: just to find out how far I can push my settings. Last test I did, was the HL2 demo. I had it written down somewhere but I must have lost it somehow, so by memory now. 640*480@lowest settings gave me the same min/avg framerate as 1024*768@2AA&2AF@medium settings. It wasn't that good to begin with though.

Another test: ut2003 demo. It came with some benchmark batch files, and the ones I used were CTF-Citadel with and without bots.
640*480 0AA 0AF gave me the same results (min and avg fps, no bots) as 1600*1200 0AA 0AF, 1024*768 4AA 8AF, and 640*480 8xS AA 8AF.
Only when using 8xS AA fromof 1024*768 or using either AA or AF at 1600*1200 made the avg framerate drop.
Using bots made the min. fps go in half, making the difference between 1024*768 4AA 8AF and 1600*1200 4AA 8AF go nearly away.

Good examples of being CPU limited in both cases. No suprises really when looking at my system.

edit: btw nice guide

Intresting, never thought of doing this before. I will have to play around with these now. I mean whats the point of OCing a card (noted below) if I'm not going to get any extra power out of it.

sticky, this is pretty cool stuff.

yeah sticky if u can edit and capatalize with good spelling

I know I'm vid card limited I overclock my cpu and it doesn't change my score but a little bit........can't overclock my card cause it's so hot........it's a sad circle.

Nice read, Thx for the info!!