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New GFX card? Fairly old rig!

CaNNoN_1981

CaNNoN_1981

CaNNoN_1981

Associate
Joined
16 Aug 2004
Posts
732
Location
Bury
Hi all

Its been a while since I was last on these forums as you can prob tell from my signature below.

I've decided to maybe perform a little PC upgrade depending on if I would see any significant increase and of course if its worth the money.

I really dont want to be spending lots of money on a new mobo/cpu(icore)/ram(ddr3) etc but I would like to spend a couple 100 quid on maybe a better GFX card or maybe a core2 quad.

I tend to use my PC for mostly gaming but as I said I've been away from it for a while and looking to play existing games and maybe a few newer ones. Not bothered about maxing out game settings or anything like that but mid to high would be nice.

I've been looking at the MSI HD 6970 OC 2048MB Twin Frozr II GDDR5 at £200 as a nice little investment and just wanted to know peoples opinions on whether it would be worth it and how much of a performance increase I would see, would my current CPU bottleneck this card perhaps or would there be any other issues? Should I think about maybe getting a quad CPU before GFX, those sort of questions.

Just want to have a few ideas and thoughts really.

Thanks in advance

CaNNoN
 
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To take full advantage of a 6970 you'll need to upgrade the rest of your system, games are quite CPU dependent these days so depending on what type of games you play a quad core would be advised, even Bad Company 2 benefited from a quad core so I imagine games like BF3 even more so
 
I'd upgrade the mobo and cpu but keep the gpu for the moment, you may well find it will deliver much better fps once you have a faster cpu in your system. If it still doesn't cut the mustard, then at a later date you could throw in something like a 6850 / 460, or perhaps a 6950 2gb / 560ti 2gb / 560ti 448.

Nearly forgot the 7850! :D
 
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I would personally get a 7850 instead of the 6970 for a start and I would get the GPU now ahead of CPU and mobo.

I would do it the reverse of what arcass suggested. You're more likely to get higher FPS with a new GPU and I don't think the bottleneck would be HUGE and then upgrade mobo and cpu when you can.....
 
I'd suggest a 2nd hand first gen i5 or i7 which should be around 100-150. Should give you a fair bit more performance out of the 4870 and future proof your system for when you do upgrade GPU.
 
I've got a Q6600, and this week I ordered an MSI 7850 Twin Frozr IV to go with it. I'm planning on upgrading to a 3570k within the next 6 months, but the graphics card will give me a nice boost until then even on my older CPU. I recently built a new PC for a friend, and I borrowed the 6950 that he bought, ran a few tests and it made a big difference to gaming on my PC. I only game at 1680 x 1050 anyway, so at the moment I doubt I'm even headed for the CPU bottleneck just yet.

I'd go with the 7850, they clock well, are a reasonable price (the MSI is £20 more than what you're buying). You'd be better investing in that rather than the 6970 since it is newer and clocks really well according to most of the posts in this forum :)
 
Was really hoping to avoid an i-core as it means upgrading CPU MOBO RAM (money) etc but if its going to be more beneficial then I may save for a few months first and just go for it....
 
Yeah definitely go for the 7850 over the 6970 if you're planning on upgrading your CPU, RAM and mobo in the next few months. It's a newer card and clocks really well, and the cooler on the Twin Frozr looks like it'll allow for some very nice stable overclocks.
 
How does this look for an upgrade over the course of the coming months, GFX would be first purchase.....

MSI HD 7850 Power Edition Twin Frozr IV OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail

Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit

Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
 
Super bottleneck if you just get a 6950.

I'd suggest a 6850/7850, i3-2100/2120, cheapest Z68/Z77 mobo you can find, 8GB ram kit

Perhaps stagger the purchases so you buy a few at a time over a longer period of time if it's too much to spend in one go?
 
Cheers guys...

Think I'm set on the MSI HD 7850 now for sure.

Will drop the Ram down to Corsair Vengeance Blue 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz

Bit of a fan boy with Gigabyte mobos so I'm happy with the one I've selected.

I guess is just which CPU gives best bang for buck now.....
 
CHokKA said:
I've got a Q6600, and this week I ordered an MSI 7850 Twin Frozr IV to go with it. I'm planning on upgrading to a 3570k within the next 6 months, but the graphics card will give me a nice boost until then even on my older CPU. I recently built a new PC for a friend, and I borrowed the 6950 that he bought, ran a few tests and it made a big difference to gaming on my PC. I only game at 1680 x 1050 anyway, so at the moment I doubt I'm even headed for the CPU bottleneck just yet.

I'd go with the 7850, they clock well, are a reasonable price (the MSI is £20 more than what you're buying). You'd be better investing in that rather than the 6970 since it is newer and clocks really well according to most of the posts in this forum :)
Click to expand...
Hi chokka

Just a quick question, why did you prefer the MSI HD 7850 Power Edition Twin Frozr IV over the Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 7850 OC Windforce 2X? The gigabyte appears to have the same features with an increased core and £20 cheaper....

Cheers
 
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Hi CaNNoN

I actually didn't as it happens. I contacted OcUK today and changed my order to the Gigabyte. It's an overall better package when you include their RMA turnaround. I wated a cooler with two fans and that suits nicely.

The Gigabyte wasn't listed on their site when I ordered the MSI a few weeks ago :)
 
I've just ordered the Gigabyte card today so hopefully it will be with me tomorrow.

I will be ordering the mobo, cpu and ram over the course of the next few months.

I will be using the new GFX card in my current rig for the time being, in terms of seeing any increase in performance (if only slight, due to bottleneck) what is the current appropriate benchmark to show these results?

Cheers.
 
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