Suggestions for a card.

[SteelerRob]

Hi all

I have managed to get round to sorting out my old system, it has an over clocked quad core Intel so it still got a bit of bite to it however the graphics card has broken so I need to replace it, the system specs are as follows, can someone please suggest a card that won’t be bottlenecked by my CPU please?

Abit IP35 Pro
OCZ StealthXStream 600w Ready Power Supply
Point of View GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - RetailIntel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - @3.0Ghz
GeIL 4GB DDR2 PC2-6400C4 800MHz

Thanks in advance

Rob

 

[Its_Me]

Have you got a budget in Mind ?

 

[Davedree]

resolution of your monitor?

 

[arc@css]

If possible, overclock the cpu further.

 

[SteelerRob]

Ill have the computer hooked up to my sony surround sound and tv so resolution will be 1080p.

No strict budget pointless spending £400 on a card though if im not going to be able to use it properly.

Dont intend on overclocking the CPU any more it becomes unstable at 3.2 and I wont be watercooling untill i build my next system.

Cheers

 

[arc@css]

I'd probably be inclined to go for something mid range, like a 7850 or 660. Both will give a massive jump in performance, and will serve you well until you next upgrade the cpu and mobo.

Alternatively, I suppose you could go for a 7950, which should perform quite well in gpu dependent titles despite your overclock / cpu (I had a gtx480 with a Q6600 @ 3.4 and that worked quite well - though overclocking the gpu gave me no gains at all, unsurprisingly). So with that said, bear in mind that you'd be lucky to receive even minimal gains when attempting to overclock the 7950 - and overclocking is the best feature of the 7000 range, so unless you're planning on a new cpu sooner than later, I'd say it wouldn't be worth it.

 

[Gregster]

I'd probably be inclined to go for something mid range, like a 7850 or 660. Both will give a massive jump in performance, and will serve you well until you next upgrade the cpu and mobo.

Alternatively, I suppose you could go for a 7950, which should perform quite well in gpu dependent titles despite your overclock / cpu (I had a gtx480 with a Q6600 @ 3.4 and that worked quite well - though overclocking the gpu gave me no gains at all, unsurprisingly). So with that said, bear in mind that you'd be lucky to receive even minimal gains when attempting to overclock the 7950 - and overclocking is the best feature of the 7000 range, so unless you're planning on a new cpu sooner than later, I'd say it wouldn't be worth it.

Spot on post

+1

 

[arc@css]

Spot on post

+1

*Tips hat*

 

[Gregster]

Yours is cuter

 

[SteelerRob]

Thanks for the suggestions, can i just ask though, I'm not as savvy as i used to be, Ive noticed that you can get a 7970 for not much more than a 660Ti. Why is this? isnt a 7970 top of the range? Its been that long since i put together a system i dodnt know ATI had been took over my AMD?!

 

[Gregster]

The 7970 is top of the range however you have told us you will not be clocking your CPU any more as this is unstable, therefore the cards recommended are to save you some cash.

If you get a 7970, you will need to upgrade the CPU to get the full potential.
If you get a 7850, this may still be slightly bottlenecked but only slightly.

The same goes for a 680, this would be wasted on a Q chip but a 660 would be ideal.

 

[Tonester0011]

^ Pretty much what Greg said.

 

[SteelerRob]

The 7970 is top of the range however you have told us you will not be clocking your CPU any more as this is unstable, therefore the cards recommended are to save you some cash.

If you get a 7970, you will need to upgrade the CPU to get the full potential.
If you get a 7850, this may still be slightly bottlenecked but only slightly.

The same goes for a 680, this would be wasted on a Q chip but a 660 would be ideal.

Thanks, im not trying to vear away from reccomendations, the last time i built a system the price difference between a mid range card and a top of the range was much more, im just trying to get to grips with all the changes in technologies and price differences.

I dont get how a 660Ti can be compared with a 7970 when nVidia have a 670, 680 and i think a 690 series out?

 

[Gregster]

7970 - 680
7950 - 670
7870 - 660TI
7850 - 660

That is how they compare. In no way would I compare an over priced card like a 660TI to a 7970