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Best card for an old i7 920 system

naty_morris

naty_morris

naty_morris

Associate
Joined
4 Jan 2010
Posts
30
Hi,
Looking for a bit of advice on what options are out there card wise for an i7 920 system

Current setup is
i7 920 (clocked to 3.8)
Asus p6t board
8GB Crucial Ballistix Ram

Currently Running 2 Radeon HD 5700 cards linked (5770 i beleive)

Is there anything out there that will improve on that with my current setup.
what is the best the i7 920 can do graphics card wise?
I do intend to upgrade likely a year or two from now with a new cpu/board setup.

Im currently running a 600watt silverstone PSU, is that enough to supply whatever card i may upgrade to?

Thanks,
 
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First thing to do is upgrade to a hex core Xeon. Then upgrade the ram to around 16gb (12gb may work OK in your case)

Then buy whichever graphics card you please. That would depend on resolution and your budget.
 
OK!

I have been out of computing for a while, just checked up the 980. I wouldnt have even guessed a card like that would have been compatible with an old system like mine!

unfortunately, my budget is not near that high.
I believe i can stretch to aprox £150 + Whatever i can get for the 2 5770s (i was expecting having to buy an older used card)

Currently running max resolution on my screen which is 1680x1050, i do intend to buy a new screen at some point. but i dont know what that will be yet.

I have heard about swapping out for a Xeon, which chip would that be?
 
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why change cpu? I would just stick 980 or something similar, I bet he would be ok for the next few years. but yeah 56xx doesn't cost a lot, and you can still sell 920.
 
I have a 920 at 4ghz. My current 290 is a good match so i would recommend a 390. I am not sure how much life is left in the old dog but its still performing really good.
 
Just change out the GPU leave the CPU because unless you're playing CPU intensive games and hitting a bottleneck a CPU upgrade won't do much. My CPU in the games i play (important) generally hovers around 10 - 25% usage, GPU around 100%. Changing my CPU to the latest and greatest would make virtually no real world difference.

Spend your money on your GPU but check how your system is consuming its resources first. MSI afterburner enable the OSD, add in CPU, RAM etc.
 
I would upgrade your RAM - with 8GB you are NOT taking advantage of the benefits of the P6T (I had one with a 920 in it - later upgraded to a 2nd hand 980X gulftown hexcore which was awesome).

The 920 supports tri-channel ram and 8GB doesnt divide by 3 so you are losing 50% extra performance and running in dual-mode. Upgrade to 12GB - depending on whether you have 2 x 4GB or 4 x 2GB presently (but you would probably need to make sure the new ram was the same or same timings as what you have now).

But if you have 4 x 2GB then reducing the RAM to 6GB and going for 3 x 2GB and rearranging the orphaned stick would be 50% faster than what you have now - tri-channel rather than dual-channel.

Then stick something recent in for GFX. You won't get PCIe V3.0 but that isnt much of a win - certainly at your resolutions, anything from an AMD 380 upwards would be fine.
 
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+1 agree with the above, if your not cpu bound there is no need to upgrade it (although we all like nice new toys to play with ;)). Get the best graphics card you can afford. Unfortunately you haven't got access to the members market to sell your cards and get a replacement, so that restricts you options.
 
Some of the suggestions so far are idiotic. OP, get a 960 or a 380, they are more than enough for you resolution. When you upgrade the monitor, consider getting a brand new system (note that those 2 cards can handle most games at high details even at 1080p).
 
OP I've got the same CPU and motherboard combination as you in another PC.

You should really be running tri channel RAM so add another 4GB stick and just get a GTX 970 or 390.

If you think you'll be getting a 4K monitor down the line, buy a X5650 and GTX 980 Ti.

To honest I find the i7 920 overclocked still very good for gaming compared to my 5820 @ 4.7 GHz

 
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If you go for a new card grab a 4GB 380 or 4GB 960, 390 if you can stretch to it. If used a 290 would do a top job. Your 600w PSU is fine for any of these cards.
 
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