Expat in need of GPU price advice!

[Liampope]

Dont get a 5770 - not great performance for the money. You ought to be able to pick up a 768MB 460 for hardly any more which is much better.

 

[Glenmoray]

Well the 470 sounds just too loud and power hungry for my liking, and I'll put the money I save from not buying it into a full upgrade in the future.

I've narrowed the current GPU choices to the following:

PNY GTX 460 768MB 130 Euros (£113)
Palit GeForce GTX 460 Sonic 1GB 161 Euros (£140)
Sapphire HD 6850 1GB 169 euros (£148)

Asus ENGTX470/2DI/1280MD5 214 Euros ( £186)

(I've only put the 470 in there because I may be swayed if it is too good value for money... but from what has been said I've been put off.)

By the way the Gainward GeForce GTX470 1280MB ---- 189 Euros (£165) page has disappeared from a retailer...hmm haha.

I'm one step closer... thanks guys!

 

[crackerbear]

Of that list, I'd go with the 460 1GB, It looks to be the best of the bunch for price/performance. However I'd go for the Gigabyte version from your first post if it's still available.

The 470 at £165 was an absolute steal though.

 

[opethdisciple]

Really? I very much doubt it - any benchmarks to back it up?

My 2.2ghz dualcore has never limited gaming and his is 3.6ghz and a better architecture...

Are you serious?

My quadcore at 3ghz.... was holding my gpu back. Overclocking the cpu from 3 to 3.7ghz... and I have see a big leap in performance.

Benchmarks eh? I think your the one that needs to look at the benchmarks...

As I said his gpu is adequate. Adequate = good enough but could be better.

As money is tight, then he cant upgrade the cpu which is fair enough.

I think a cheap gpu upgrade is what he needs some thing like a 460 1gb is a good upgrade... something in that performance bracket anyway..

 

[Paracelsus]

Yep entirely serious

If you think I need to look at benchmarks, please link to them mate

I've done a fair bit of benchmarking myself and found increasing CPU and RAM speed did next to nothing to FPS, so I'm very hesitant to believe another 2 cores would do much

Going from an X1950XT to an 8800GTX gave me 2.5x the FPS in STALKER and roughly 2x in Crysis and Crysis Warhead.

OCing CPU from 2.2GHz 733MHz RAM to 2.6GHz 865MHz RAM did not even make a statistically significant difference in any of those games, we're talking going from 32 to 33 fps at high detail from a ~20% overclock

Yes that example is OCing as I have not owned a quad to test with, but dropping details from high to med to low (with Physics kept on Very High) resulted in large boosts in FPS each time, suggesting the bottleneck is absolutely the GPU and nothing else, and historically games have benefitted from clockspeed over more cores

Just found this - http://www.anandtech.com/show/3937/...thlon-ii-cpus-balance-price-and-performance/5

Low res presumably to remove GPU bottleneck, and a 3.3ghz dual beats a 3.1ghz quad, and only loses by 5fps to a hexacore

Dawn of War 2 and WoW both favouring clockspeed over cores on that same page

DAO, this one does seem to scale with cores, yet with a 2.8GHz dual getting > 60fps, I wouldn't call that a real-world example of holding back...as I wouldn't say going from 60 to 90fps is even noticable unless you have a 120hz monitor...even then...who knows

Not had much time to look, but couldn't find any CPU benchmarks of games at 1920x1200 with high details...my guess is because pretty much all CPUs blend into one result in that case

So yeah I very much doubt changing from 3.6GHz C2D to something higher would make any noticable difference, but the same cash added to gfx card budget...that would indeed

 

[opethdisciple]

You may have a point*

However any one can find benchmarks to support anything these days:

Look here big gulf between 2 and 4 + cores:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd5870-cpu-scaling_4.html#sect1

One thing to keep in mind is one of the optimizations of Dx11 over Dx10 is better multithreading...

More games are coming out that will work better with more cores...

The sweet spot from what Iv read is a frequency of 3.6 and between 3-4 cores.

 

[opethdisciple]

Yep entirely serious

If you think I need to look at benchmarks, please link to them mate

I've done a fair bit of benchmarking myself and found increasing CPU and RAM speed did next to nothing to FPS, so I'm very hesitant to believe another 2 cores would do much

Going from an X1950XT to an 8800GTX gave me 2.5x the FPS in STALKER and roughly 2x in Crysis and Crysis Warhead.

OCing CPU from 2.2GHz 733MHz RAM to 2.6GHz 865MHz RAM did not even make a statistically significant difference in any of those games, we're talking going from 32 to 33 fps at high detail from a ~20% overclock

Yes that example is OCing as I have not owned a quad to test with, but dropping details from high to med to low (with Physics kept on Very High) resulted in large boosts in FPS each time, suggesting the bottleneck is absolutely the GPU and nothing else, and historically games have benefitted from clockspeed over more cores

Just found this - http://www.anandtech.com/show/3937/...thlon-ii-cpus-balance-price-and-performance/5

Low res presumably to remove GPU bottleneck, and a 3.3ghz dual beats a 3.1ghz quad, and only loses by 5fps to a hexacore

Dawn of War 2 and WoW both favouring clockspeed over cores on that same page

DAO, this one does seem to scale with cores, yet with a 2.8GHz dual getting > 60fps, I wouldn't call that a real-world example of holding back...as I wouldn't say going from 60 to 90fps is even noticable unless you have a 120hz monitor...even then...who knows

Not had much time to look, but couldn't find any CPU benchmarks of games at 1920x1200 with high details...my guess is because pretty much all CPUs blend into one result in that case

So yeah I very much doubt changing from 3.6GHz C2D to something higher would make any noticable difference, but the same cash added to gfx card budget...that would indeed

In starcraft however you can see between the dual and the quad there is 14fps difference... (I5 and I3)

In DAO ther is like 50fps difference between I3 and I5 (2 -4 cores)

 

[Essexraptor]

Reality check here guys.... the OP wants to play WOW Catacysm (spelling not my strong point) not a recent all singing all dancing FPS.

Why are you trying to shoehorn him into buying the latest and greatest? You'd better serve him buy suggesting a option for a overall balanced system to achieve the results that he is requesting!

quote

"I'm looking for best price for performance, not necessarily the top range stuff but maybe a steal or most reasonable buy."

 

[opethdisciple]

Isnt WOW extremely cpu dependant?

Also ATI vs Nvidia which is better for WOW?

 

[Essexraptor]

Isnt WOW extremely cpu dependant?

Em... so why does he need a 6850 or 460 or 470? Beginning of this year the Noobs would have been shouting 5770 or 5870 at him!..... Doh

Second question... either... it's not a game that rely's on PhysX or DX11 for best results graphics wise.

 

[opethdisciple]

He'l still need an upgrade to his: ASUS 8800GTS 512

 

[Essexraptor]

He'l still need an upgrade to his: ASUS 8800GTS 512

Min system spec is this

Intel Processor - Core 2 Duo E4300 1.8GHz
AMD Processor - Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+
Nvidia Graphics Card - GeForce GT 230
ATI Graphics Card - Radeon HD 4650
RAM Memory - 2 GB
Hard Disk Space - 12 GB
Direct X - 9

Pitch the system a couple of levels up and you'll get a balanced system to play with higher effects level

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

as I want to play the upcoming Cataclysm in full . I don't speak Dutch and don't have friends who know enough about PC's to help either

Rig:
*Edit* Corsair HX620 watt
ASUS P5Q-E
Intel E8400 @ 3.6ghz
4gb OCZ PC6400
ASUS 8800GTS 512
Windows XP 32bit

Really just looking for general advice on how to get the most out of my rig, my obvious thoughts are the GPU and Windows XP 32bit... Don't think I can be bothered upgrading to Windows 7 but if theres an outrage as to why I don't have it already I'll acquire a copy :]

Your system still looks decent TBH even with newer games. I would first try the game on your system to see how it runs first.

If you really want DX10 support for the game then getting a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit would be a good idea.

 

[opethdisciple]

Your system still looks decent TBH even with newer games. I would first try the game on your system to see how it runs first.

If you really want DX10 support for the game then getting a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit would be a good idea.

Cataclysm is Dx11 no?

Also what Cat says I think is your best option.

See how the game runs on your system, and take it from there.

 

[lanzarobbie]

you got some great prices there
im an expat, this is what it costs here

powercolor 6850 €210
powercolor 6870 €267
460 €220
470 €260
480 €445
i usually wait for a relative to bring me components over.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Cataclysm is Dx11 no?

Also what Cat says I think is your best option.

See how the game runs on your system, and take it from there.

The game has DX11 support like you said but the 8800GTS 512MB is a DX10 card.

 

[Essexraptor]

And as per the spec previously posted it will run on DX9 even.

As you say CAT probably best to "try it and see" first before upgrading.

Even then I don't see the point of recommending a "top spec" card to the OP if it's way over what he has requested that he wants to achieve

 

[Glenmoray]

Thanks for the continued advice!

Will hold out until Cataclysm is out then, by that time hopefully GPU prices will have fallen and I can better find what card will play the game with everything on Ultra

Cheers guys.