Bottlenecks

I recently constructed my second build, and it runs fine. However, I've been wondering about what to upgrade, when I do upgrade. I don't want to randomly upgrade some component for no reason. Naturally, I would prefer to upgrade the slowest part of my system. But how do I determine what the slowest component is? I ran 3dmark hoping it would give me some insight, but it didn't give me very specific data on each component. I need some way to analyze the speed of each part and their relationship to one another to determine what the slowest part of the system is. Any ideas?

 

Hi Mongooe.
When you talk of upgrading, it would help if you posted your present spec.
Speed is down to many things in a computer,
Ram is one of the best upgrades.
A upgraded cpu, if your motherboard supports it, is another.
Later socket type motherboards, that are capable of dual core/core 2 duo, or even quod core ( or AM2 ETC: ) give the ultimate upgrade, but if you have ddr ram, you then need ddr2 ram, or possibly ddr3, so thats really the way for a newbuild, or total upgrade if you have a good case, and psu.
Your present spec will help to suggest upgrades for you.

 

I don't think you really need go to all the trouble of working out an upgrade scheme unless you would like. I was generally hoping for some general techniques for finding the speeds of everything and understanding how they should relate to one another. Nevertheless, here's my specs:

Athlon 64 X2 6000+ 3.0G cpu
Radeon HD 3870 video card
4gigs (only 3.75 show up) ddr2 1066 RAM (running at 800 because of cpu)
BIOSTAR TFORCE TA780G M2+ AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G mainboard
750Watt psu

As I remember from the overclocking intro on the forums here, the RAM is generally the slowest component, and it must always be scaled down from the cpu speed. What I am really curious about is how the cpu interacts with the graphics card and how all three components affect gaming. The motherboard supports the appropriate hypertransport so there shouldn't be a problem there.

 

all in all everything is up to date. an upgrade in cpu or video would give you minimal gain at this point. Some may say video on your system but I'm sure we will see.3.75gig ram would probably be a 32 bit windows environment limitation.

 

Thank you I guess the only way to move up from here then is to do a little overclocking. I should be able to get fairly fast since I got a 3dmark of 9700 just with the stock parts. Could you give any pointers as to what parts affect what dynamics in a game? For instance, I have heard that the video card is primarily or exclusively used for shading and textures while the processor actually draws the polygons. Of course the RAM should be large and fast enough to feed the cpu and gpu with enough textures and polygons to draw. Other than that I'm completely ignorant.