Where is my bottleneck?

[midlothian]

Thanks for your reply! Interesting to see we have similarly specced rigs. Did you try to play God of War on your machine?

No, sorry, I've never had GoW in my collection.

I would be surprised if the amount of RAM made such a difference, but who knows... I guess that 2GB is a bit on the low side anyway, but I was more thinking about putting my money on a CPU cooler now that I toying with overclocking.

As far as I know vista and 7 systems are using lots of ram for themselves and even that pcsx2 doesn't need it too much lack of ram might cause some slowdowns I think but I'm not an expert at all, I'm just trying to imagine the situation. Anyway 2GB should be enough if you are not running any other programs, only system and pcsx2. About cpu cooling, I'm using some asus cooler but stock cooler from phenom II black edition seems good to me at least to run with stock clock (specially if compared with intel stock ones), for overclocking I would recommend to change it for something bigger, overheating might cause slowdowns and unstable work I think.

My PSU is an Arctic Cooling Fusion 550R; I am no expert, but I guess this should be enough as the 5770 is supposed to be less power-hungry than the previous generation, and I don't run into problems when running PC games. Is there an app or something to measure the power load on the PSU?

Cheers!

Application like pcsx2 is using cpu to it's maximum, I don't think any pc game can do it so well but 550W arctic cooling psu should be really enough for phenom II 550 and 5770. So I would think about better cooling for cpu, specially that you said you've already overclocked it, and some good non-metallic thermal paste. Good luck.

[KidOtaku]

About cpu cooling, I'm using some asus cooler but stock cooler from phenom II black edition seems good to me at least to run with stock clock (specially if compared with intel stock ones), for overclocking I would recommend to change it for something bigger, overheating might cause slowdowns and unstable work I think.

You hit it right on the nail!

I ran PCSX2 tonight at four different CPU speeds (1.8, 2.4, 3.0 and 3.6 GHz) and was getting a remarkably linear increase in performance. The framerate was constant at all speeds. Then all of a sudden, performance started to degrade at high CPU speeds and the framerate became erratic. I then noticed that the cores were ramdomly going down to 0.8 GHz for a fraction of a second or so. I also saw that the temp of the cores was basically just below 70C, which is as far as I know the operational limit of this CPU.

So essentially the CPU slows down to protect from overheating. Yesterday when I ran my PCSX2 tests, the CPU was already hot from the mild OC stress tests, hence the skewed results.

Time to buy a new cooler

Cheers and thanks to all of you for your help!

[andutrache]

or if you are a maniac you can buy watercooling and it gets the job done quite nicely
i oc'ed my CPU to 4500 on watercooling but had get down to 4250 because ny 600W Thermaltake PSU started overheating and caused instability. I'm currently saving money for a 800 or 1000W one (don't want any Raidmax/ANS/other PSU's that explode) so i want to buy a good one.

P.S: The cooler/heatsink i had before the watercooling was Zerotherm FZ120 it comes with an 120mm cooler (quiet) it has 8 heatpipes and i could run my CPU at 4 Ghz without it blowing up (i had like 48-53C idle and 76-78 in full load[where full load is the orthos blend test]). I dunno if the zerotherm fits on amd cpus though.

[Shadow Lady]

No, ram has absolutely 0 impact on PCSX2 speed,size,speed or timings make no difference.

RAM speed/timings do make a difference it's just not that big compared to CPU, might show more (or maybe actually less? Oo) on a slower CPU though

[Bositman]

No, ram has absolutely 0 impact on PCSX2 speed,size,speed or timings make no difference.

RAM speed/timings do make a difference it's just not that big compared to CPU, might show more (or maybe actually less? Oo) on a slower CPU though

I've tested that myself, the difference was marginally 1 FPS so yeah I'll call it 0

[Shadow Lady]

Depends on the game/scene I suppose, in Persona 4 I could get a 10% speed difference by just lowering the Frequency from 400 to 333 and keeping same timings. Didn't really test more than that last time I was changing my OC but I suppose it could have just been a scene that really showed a difference with it and doesn't happen much more :P

[KidOtaku]

or if you are a maniac you can buy watercooling and it gets the job done quite nicely

Unfortunately my rig is fairly small, it is essentially connected to my plasma in the lounge and I use it mainly as an HTPC with the occasional gaming / tinkering. So all those fancy watercooling solutions are a no go for me!

I just ordered a Zalman 8700, which appears to be the best performing cooler that fits my case. I'll see how it goes.

Cheers!

[andutrache]

i heard good rumors about that cooler it should be enough for you.
also wasn't it HDCP and not HTPC???

[ilovejedd]

i heard good rumors about that cooler it should be enough for you.
also wasn't it HDCP and not HTPC???

It's HTPC.

HDCP = High Definition Content Protection
HTPC = Home Theater Personal Computer

[andutrache]

thank you for the clarification