ASRock 4Core Dual-VSTA upgrade question

Supermode

Supermode

Supermode

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2 Jan 2009
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Hi guys,

I'm currently running an e4300 with an AGP card and DDR RAM on an ASRock 4Core Dual-VSTA.

Although the CPU is holding up pretty well; it's overclocked to 2.6GHz, the 6800GT and the 1GB of PC3200 are both really bottlenecking performance. I wish to do a cheap upgrade of the video card and the RAM with a budget of around £200 while keeping the processor and motherboard as the mobo supports PCI-e and DDR2 and I feel the CPU is performing fairly well.

Now as you may know this ASRock board only has a PCI-e 4x slot rather than the usual 16x - will this drastically affect performance? From what I've read it really only has a relatively small negative effect performance wise. Does anyone have experience of using a a PCI-e card in the 4x slot?

After a quick look around I found the 4850 512 card to probably be the best choice for the video card and 4GB of PC6400 DDR2 RAM wise.

I've heard of some people having issues with using DDR2 RAM above PC5400 but there is custom bios available that deals with that problem.

Is what I'm doing advisable or should I be buying a new motherboard? Keeping in mind that I really won't be using the PC that much for the next while - only really on the weekends.

Any input is welcome, thanks.
 
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You can follow the upgrade path you mention, isn't that why you bought the frankenstein board in the first place?, however with £200 to spend it might be time to cut and run, a 9600GT(or better) with a Gigabyte GA-EP43 and 2gb of OCZ 800mhz ram would do the trick and leave you with a couple of ram slots free and better overclocking options as well as being a 16x board (not all that important with mid range cards but as faster graphics go in it could rob 10-15%)
 
Guzzidom said:
You can follow the upgrade path you mention, isn't that why you bought the frankenstein board in the first place?, however with £200 to spend it might be time to cut and run, a 9600GT(or better) with a Gigabyte GA-EP43 and 2gb of OCZ 800mhz ram would do the trick and leave you with a couple of ram slots free and better overclocking options as well as being a 16x board (not all that important with mid range cards but as faster graphics go in it could rob 10-15%)
Click to expand...

Yea I did pretty much buy the board for that notion.

I'm not really that bothered about it robbing 10-15% though as I will probably upgrade my CPU and get a new mobo down the line anyway so this is only really a stop gap for the moment.

Would my current CPU @ 2.6GHz be enough for a 4850 or would it be bottlenecking it?

Also I see the 3850s are relatively cheap nowadays - what are these like performance wise?
 
Nothing wrong with the Asrock boards, I stuck with a Combo-Z (754/939) for 4 years, essentially a 2.6mhz dual core CPU and a 4850 won't really hold each other up, you'll squeeze a bit more out by overclocking both a bit more mind. If you had a brace of 4870's or an Nvidia 260 it might throttle it down a bit but with that sort of set up the 4X PCI-E slot will start being an issue anyway.
Because the Asrock isn't the best overclocker I would be looking for a chip with a higher multiplier so you don't have to push the FSB so far, so in this respect the E5200 would be a great improvement (12.5 x multiplier vs 9 x multiplier), the smaller die size will also help keep it cooler allowing higher possible overclocks, I don't think you'd have much problem seeing around the 3.2ghz mark with a 5200 at much the same FSB and temperature as your current set up.
 
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dont like Asrock.. had that one and didnt want to oc to any respectable levels. If its a gaming machine and you want something pretty decent.. LOSE the mobo lol :p
 
Thanks for the insight guys.

Now I can get a Gainward HD 3850 512MB card for about £75 while the nearest 4850 is about £125.

Is the jump in performance really worth the £50 or will the 3850 do?
 
for 75, i would look for an 8800GT, the 4670 is just a bit better then the 3850 and handles AA better
 
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I had my e4300 running at 3Ghz on that board so it can clock well, but even with my old 7900GTX I noticed an FPS increase when I moved all of the components onto a new MB.
 
If I were you I'd get 2Gb DDR2 ~£20 (selling yours for ~£10) = £10
Get a second hand 8800GT for ~£50 (selling you card for ~£15) = £35
Buy a P35 from the MM for ~£50 (selling yours for ~£20) =£30

Total £85
 
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