5850 on a P35 board

[Pleasence]

I'm planning a graphics upgrade but I'm concerned the rest of my system will mean I see little of the new card's potential.

Planned move: Nvidia 8600GT --> HD5850

Motherboard: Gigabyte P35C-DS3R
Mem: 2GB DDR2 (My next planned update when I can justify the spend)
CPU: E8400 @ 3.6

I bought the 8600GT for £50 a couple of years ago expecting only to have it a few months but it's lasted much longer (I run most games fine at 1680x1050).

1. Will the throughput on the card be limited by the board being PCIe 1.1?
2. Should the next upgrade be to DDR3?

 

[SteveOBHave]

I'm planning a graphics upgrade but I'm concerned the rest of my system will mean I see little of the new card's potential.

Planned move: Nvidia 8600GT --> HD5850

Motherboard: Gigabyte P35C-DS3R
Mem: 2GB DDR2 (My next planned update when I can justify the spend)
CPU: E8400 @ 3.6

I bought the 8600GT for £50 a couple of years ago expecting only to have it a few months but it's lasted much longer (I run most games fine at 1680x1050).

1. Will the throughput on the card be limited by the board being PCIe 1.1?
2. Should the next upgrade be to DDR3?

Well I have a Sapphire HD5850 in an Asus P5KC mobo which is a P35 combined with an E6750 @3.3GHz and it seems pretty good. I upgraded from a BFG 8800GTS 640MB OC and have noticed a very large difference in performance. Personally I think it's worth it - more so for me because over the next 6-8 months I intend on buying a Core i7 rig. It's the first bit of kit I'd upgrade.

 

[Pleasence]

Well I have a Sapphire HD5850 in an Asus P5KC mobo which is a P35 combined with an E6750 @3.3GHz and it seems pretty good. I upgraded from a BFG 8800GTS 640MB OC and have noticed a very large difference in performance. Personally I think it's worth it - more so for me because over the next 6-8 months I intend on buying a Core i7 rig. It's the first bit of kit I'd upgrade.

Thanks for the response, think I'll go for the 5850 now and see about a RAM or full system update later in the year.

 

[UKDTweak]

I have an IP35 Pro (P35), and just upgraded my 8800GTS 512 to a 5850 Toxic edition, BFBC2 now runs soo much better and with 4x AA and 16x AF @1600/900, all game settings on max and the CCC settings on Quality, my old card could only dream of doing that..

 

[Mr Paul]

5870 here in P35

 

[TONY]

5970 here in a P35 pro, I will be upgrading the mobo and cpu soon though just want to see what price the Intel 6 core comes in at.

 

[pastymuncher]

It will be fine and you will see a absolutely massive jump in performance coming from a 8600GT.

 

[MagicBoy]

1. Will the throughput on the card be limited by the board being PCIe 1.1?
2. Should the next upgrade be to DDR3?

1. No. Even with a pair in Crossfire you lose very little performance.
2. No. Very little performance benefit. SSD upgrade would provide better bang for the buck.

 

[Stonedofmoo]

1. No. Even with a pair in Crossfire you lose very little performance.

Not true on the P35. Crossfire takes a big hit as only 1 socket runs at x16 while the other is limited to x4.

If you want to crossfire defo do not use a P35. Plenty of reviews about this on the internet if you Google it.

 

[MagicBoy]

I never had a problem with a pair of X1950s crossfired up on a P35 board, performance was around 1.7x a single card. Maybe the 5800 series requires more bandwidth.

 

[InkZ]

5850 was fine on my Abit IP35 pro.

 

[GeezerButler]

Have an Asus 5850 hopefully coming tomorrow to go in my MSI p35 board. My first AMD card since I had an X800 AGP card! It will be replacing a GTX280 so I'm not expecting much of a performance improvement (if any). I'm mainly replacing it because my 280 is one of the early ones that shoot straight up to 105c under load (even with aftermarket cooler) and then start throttling giving nasty uneven performance. I will probably post back tomorrow with some benchies.