Will a GFX card upgrade benefit me?

KiLLerCloWn · Post by **KiLLerCloWn** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 2:45 am

Hi all,

I need a bit of advice as usual

I'm wondering if a GFX card upgrade would help my framerate or if I'm maybe bottlencked by my system in any case - it's getting a bit old now. I'm mostly interested in GTR Evolution which I play extensively.

GTR Evo runs between 40 and 60 FPS, hi quality settings but with the fancy stuff like hq shadows, reflection and antialias disabled. Goes down to about 30fps in traffic with lots of cars rendered. So it's fine, but it's not great. I'd like to see it in all its glory

System:

Athlon64 3700+ processor
2 gigs ram
Asus 8N-E Board
Saphire Radeon x800 PCIE GFX Card

Would a GFX cad upgrade help my FPS or am I bottlencked by processor? If so, any good tips? If I could get dual or even triple monitors set up that would be damn cool! But it's not necessary if I have to pay $500 for it...

*edit* - I'd be happy to pay up to $250 if I really get a good improvement in FPS with antialias turned on and good detail settings for most games. That's max really, if I can get something good for $150 then so much for the better

*edit again* - seems like this monster may just fit into my budget:

http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/ ... rview.aspx

Is this worth it on my system? Or can it not pump through all it's goodness because my bus or my cou or my ram or whatever are too old and slow

Cheers

KC/Chris

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 7:30 am

Yes you have a dated processor BUT I'll tell you my framerates (games at that time were FEAR, TF2, COD4) went up dramatically and let me turn on more eye candy when I upgraded from a Radeon x800 to a Geforce 8800GT on a pretty similar rig (Athlon64 4000+).

I assume you're running WinXP? If so then the RAM is adequate. If you're running Vista, though, that 2Gb RAM is another bottleneck.

Don't expect miracles, because you can only get so much out of that CPU, but in most modern MULTIPLAYER games it is the GPU that does most of the work. In single player, however, you are more at the mercy of the CPU.

KiLLerCloWn · Post by **KiLLerCloWn** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 9:20 am

Thanks for that Penguin

Maybe it's a good idea to upgrade the CPU, would that be worth it?

What's the top CPU I can run on this board?

Since this is an nForce chipset, maybe I should go for an nVidia as you did? On the other hand I though popping in a Radeon maybe less troublesome as that's what I have in there now ( I still hate upgrading/changing card drivers

)

What would you recommend now - processor and gfx card and how much should it set me back?

I've googled for a while but I'm not 100% sure of the limits of my board and how much it would be worth investing.

Thanks again for the help!

aceracer

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 12:17 pm

If you are going to upgrade the CPU, go ahead & get the new board & ram. The best s939 CPUs are going to have trouble keeping up with any of todays lower end ones & you'll be paying a pretty penny for a dual core. You can get a newer dual core cpu, motherboard, & ram for $150 if you play your cards right & definitely for under $200.

KiLLerCloWn · Post by **KiLLerCloWn** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 12:38 pm

Ok, thanks for that, that makes sense - I think I'll waive on that, that will be a new system then, which I may consider, too. But not right now, I'm simply too busy and would need 3 days to have all my software back on that (tons and tons and tons....)

So just a GFX card upgrade then - is this still a good card to buy today?

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD4870 1GB DDR5

I can get that for $160 which seems a nice price for lot of power...

Cheers

KC/Chris

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 12:43 pm

Yeah, the GFX cards are nice, but the ATI's use a bit less power & are smaller. Here's a good deal I just saw:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... _-14121291

KiLLerCloWn · Post by **KiLLerCloWn** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 1:21 pm

Very nice, thx a lot! Looks like this will be my upgrade.

Much appreciated!

Cheers

Chris/KC

NubyCanuby_OFC · Post by **NubyCanuby_OFC** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 5:59 pm

This is a better deal and XFX has a lifetime warranty.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150436

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 11:35 pm

Another vote for XFX.

CrazyBones · Post by **CrazyBones** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 12:01 am

Go with the XFX. I just ordered that too. :-)

KiLLerCloWn · Post by **KiLLerCloWn** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 12:33 pm

Argh, just bought the Asus board before seeing this!

Another quick quesion: do I need to know anything sticking a PCI-e 2.0 board into a old PCI slot?

I guess that also means loss of performance, yuk!

Cheers

Chris/KC

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 12:54 pm

From some quick Googling it seems that mobo should support any PCI-E 2.0 video card.

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 4:46 pm

Doh, you should be able to cancel the order before it ships. Didn't notice the XFX for sale. I do like the Asus heatsink better though. It'll be quieter.

KiLLerCloWn · Post by **KiLLerCloWn** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 8:19 pm

@Penguin: Yes, I googled some before buying and found that PCI-e 2.0 is backward compatible and should be OK on the board.

normalicy: not to worry, I'm sure performance will be very close - and nothing lasts a lifetime in this business in any case

Quiet fans? I have my air conditioning on, a fan on the table to blow the clold air down and another next to my open PC to blow the cold air into it. One thing I'm not worried about is fan noise, lmao

It's hot here!! Good thing is it makes my racing sims realistic, lol. In summer I sometimes have to wear gloves because I sweat so much I can't grip the wheel tight enough, lol. My office is at least as hot as a NASCAR cockpit

Chris/KC

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 10:50 pm

Wow, I just noticed that you have Seville, Spain on your location. Is that true?