E2160 @ 2.8ghz and a AMD 7950 3gb?

alexthecheese · 15 Jul 2013 at 11:21

Perhaps looking to upgrade my PC for a bit of short term fun and have just been reading about the 7950 with 3GB of RAM.

Seems like a nice card for the price, but I am wondering how hard my dual-core E2160 @ 2.8ghz will be able to push it? Not really in the frame for upgrading everything, but if I could get away with just a gfx card purchase upgrade then it might be tempting.

EDIT: Man... my CPU was launched in Q3 of 2006...

EDIT 2: I only have a 1920x1200 monitor, so no crazy resolutions. And 4gb RAM.

Fire_fly · 15 Jul 2013 at 11:36

The CPU will cause one huge bottleneck.

However depending on what card you are upgrading from you should see a performance increase. but if you are not going to upgrade your CPU then it would make more sense to go with a cheaper card.

Rainagul · 15 Jul 2013 at 11:42

You would see some performance upgrade with a new card obviously, but your CPU could drag you down in games that do need a more modern CPU to run well.

Honestly, I would think about upgrading that CPU first

Jony27 · 15 Jul 2013 at 11:44

If you are planning to upgrade your cpu/mobo/ram soon, then yes go for the HD7950, but if you cant afford to upgrade both within an acceptable time (2-3months) the ngo for a more balanced upgrade.

If you dont mind going 2nd hand then, you should be able to get a i3 sandybridge/z68 motherboard/4-8gb of ddr3 ram/hd7850 all for the price of 1 HD7950.

Doomedspeed · 15 Jul 2013 at 11:44

Massive bottleneck.

What is your current GPU?

alexthecheese · 15 Jul 2013 at 11:57

It's a chuffing awful Ati 2600, I believe. 512 megs of RAM, not intended for gaming when purchased. It runs things reasonably badly even at 1280x800.

Probably not best to just buy a graphics card then... hmmm. :confused:

Doomedspeed · 15 Jul 2013 at 12:04

alexthecheese said:
It's a chuffing awful Ati 2600, I believe. 512 megs of RAM, not intended for gaming when purchased. It runs things reasonably badly even at 1280x800.

Probably not best to just buy a graphics card then... hmmm.

No not really.

I'd get yourslef to the MM, pick up a 2500k, motherboard and 8GB of DDR3. Then maybe a 7850 (new) or GTX 570/580/660 secondhand.

should be around £250-£300.

Fire_fly · 15 Jul 2013 at 12:07

As Doom says, you would be best to start over again.

If you are lucky you may be able to salvage a few things from that computer, ie SATA HDDs.

olivier renault · 15 Jul 2013 at 12:10

Doomedspeed said:
No not really.

I'd get yourslef to the MM, pick up a 2500k, motherboard and 8GB of DDR3. Then maybe a 7850 (new) or GTX 570/580/660 secondhand.

should be around £250-£300.

YOUR BASKET
1 x KFA2 GeForce GTX 660 EX OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with a free copy of 3DMark advanced edition £149.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £45.95
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £43.99
Total : £251.33 (includes shipping : £9.50).

hmm, more like 350 it would seem to me. And the PSU may not be up to scratch either.

YOUR BASKET
1 x **B Grade** MSI HD 7850 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards w/ FARCRY3, Nexuiz & Sleeping Dogs PC Games £119.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £45.95
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £43.99
Total : £221.33 (includes shipping : £9.50).

Looks more in the ballpark, but I don't think 1GB cards are a good buy.

marc2003 · 15 Jul 2013 at 12:17

get yourself a more modest upgrade like a used GTX460 or 6850. sure you won't be playing the latest games on high settings but it will still be a stonking upgrade and should set you back 40-50 quid at the most.

Doomedspeed · 15 Jul 2013 at 12:20

marc2003 said:
get yourself a more modest upgrade like a used GTX460 or 6850. sure you won't be playing the latest games on high settings but it will still be a stonking upgrade and should set you back 40-50 quid at the most.

Another good suggestion.

Either you upgrade your whole lot for £300-£350

or just the GPU for £30-£50..

The former is better for overall performance (you will instantly notice)

The latter is better for the wallet.

pastymuncher · 15 Jul 2013 at 14:04

Whatever you do graphics card wise that cpu will horribly bottleneck it. Another option, although not as fast as a Intel i5 setup, would be to go down AMD's apu route on socket FM2. Even using the built in gpu on the 5800k would be a big upgrade to what you have now. When funds allow you can always add in a gpu. Something like this would be pretty good:-

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD A10-5800K Black Edition 3.80GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Quad Core Processor **FREE SIMCITY PC GAME** (AD580KWOHJBOX) £99.95
1 x ASRock FM2A75 Pro4-M AMD A75 Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £59.99
1 x TeamGroup Xtreem LV 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (TXD38G2400HC10QDC01) £59.99
Total : £230.72 (includes shipping : £9.00).