This is probably a stupid question, but would this be a good combination or would the system be instantly bottlenecked by the CPU?
Right now it has a GeForce 6800 256MB, and it games well but the 9800 GTX has just been lying around doing nothing and I was wondering if it would be a good upgrade for the system. I have a PSU that can support it.
It's likely that the CPU will be the bottleneck in that scenario.
I use a 9600 GT with my Athlon64 3700+ and can definitively feel the CPU holding things down in games like Oblivion. That said, I don't play many games made after 2005 on that system, so it's not a huge issue.
Bottleneck? Sure!
I have a FX-60 (little bit faster single core performance) with 9800GT SLI. I can crank up all eye candy in full HD without any malus. And the 9800GTX has PhysX support too.
Use it and be happy, It is not fully senseless.
Are you playing games at a higher resolution than typical of the era? E.g. Oblivion, FEAR, DOOM3 at 1080p or 1440p? If so, the increased power of the GPU will be useful.
Otherwise, yes it is a bottleneck, you could try to track down a Athlon x2 4200+ (if socket 939) or pretty much any Athlon x2 if you're on AM2. On AM2 especially they're dirt cheap.
Ryzen 3700X | 16GB 3600MHz RAM | AMD 6800XT | 2Tb NVME SSD | Windows 10
AMD DX2-80 | 16MB RAM | STB LIghtspeed 128 | AWE32 CT3910
I have a vacancy for a main Windows 98 PC
I'll be sort of doing that. I just want to turn all the settings up as high as they will go and then run it at 1024x768 (Plan A).
I'm very tempted to use my old 1440x900 LCD, though it sort of clashes with the build because this system is in a beige case and the monitor is silver/black. That's Plan B.
[EDIT]
What would be a good video card for this CPU where there are no bottlenecks? The GeForce 6800 was obviously a bottleneck because before it could only do 800x600 with a mixture of low and medium settings, but it can now do 1440x900 with all the settings maxed.
