A little help please.

sexyhyde

sexyhyde

sexyhyde

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Joined
30 May 2011
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332
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Midlands
Right, have a second PC (running an AMD 4200+ X2 s939 & ATi 3850) which i need to upgrade. The only things this needs to do is play TF2 @ 1680x1050. Need opinions on keeping the graphics card and getting an intel chip (sandy pentium?) or getting an A8 3870k and gaming with that.
 
I'd keep the Mobo/cpu and upgrade the Graphics card a bit assuming it's PCI-E?

ATi HS 3850 is like a salted slug. :/

You can pick up old Radeon HD 4870 for £30-40 which is more than twice as powerful.

What PSU do you have as the 4870 can use up to 150 W?

If you were looking at new Asus HD 6670 £53.99, but this would be slower, tbf the current crop of budget graphics cards (under £80) can't compete with the 2nd market at all in performance/value.
 
The 3850 is a 512Mb version and did me fine with my i7 920 (for TF2) but paired with the 4200+ it chugs in places and keeps falling over (blue screen/lockups). plus its only got 2Gb of DDR ram. If i go for a better card it'll be severely bottlenecked by the cpu. My PSU is a 500w OCZ.
 
If your getting blue screen/lockups that suggests something else is wrong.

Recommended: Pentium 4 processor (3.0GHz, or better), 1GB RAM

4200+ should be up to it unless updates have made that spec out of date.

I have a AM2 4600+ next to me with my old HD 5870, I might try it out if I get time.
 
Suppose the next question should be how much your budget is, I mean chucking more money into a painfully old system seems like a waste to me...

I have to agree with Sasahra though, the 4870 at that price can't really be beaten, yes it may be bottlenecked but it is a solid card, I had one in my last system and never had a problem with it....
 
TF2 specs are fairly out of date, due to all the updates.

well its got a newish psu and an ssd and the graphics card is usable with a more capable chip so not really looking for a graphics bump. which means a new cpu/mobo/mem and 'possibly' graphics but want to keep it low cost as possible. just would like opinions on whether the llano or sandy pentium is better intel being £100ish and llano £130ish
 
 
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