Finally can purchase an upgrade.. but which one?

[Soulmagika]

Right now i have a Radeon HD4670, i'd like to buy an upgrade but i'm not sure to what.

I run at 1200x100 resolution since my monitor sucks but i'm ok with that for now, i play games like Starcraft II (great game), crysis, farcry 2 and more like that. I'd also like to play things like Bioshock 2 and crysis on full but i know i won't be able to on full graphics. I can barely do it with starcraft 2.

My budget is around £150-£200

My specs are:

500watt PSU (I actually bought it from here, heh)
Intel core QUAD Cpu Q8200 @ 2.33GHz 2.34GHz
Windows Vista 64bit
4GB ram

Hmm.. not sure if you need to know anything else. Just ask if you need any other information.

 

[Marine-RX179]

The 500W PSU you bought...is a decent brand, or just a generic value one? Cause I wouldn't recommend risk using a £200 graphic with a generic value PSU.

For under £190, you can get a Gigabyte GTX460 1GB which has a very good twin fans cooler that is quiet even at 70% fan speed, and people have managed to overclock the card to 950MHz (around same speed as a stock speed 5870), and temp is only around 65C when the GPU is underload with the fan speed at 70%).

You can probably get a 5850 around £200, but I would avoid VTX (only 1 year warranty) or PowerColour (it has 2 years warranty, but some poor guy's 4870x2 borked within the warranty period and RMAed the card, but PowerColour refused to replace with a equivalent level card (they no longer had 4870x2, and they refused to replace the borked 4870x2 with a 5850 or 5870, and only refunded the poor guy £110 despite he originally paid near £300 for it).
If you are getting 5850, try look for Asus brand since it has voltage tweak for better overclocking, and also 3 years warranty (1 year more than more brands)...but the chances are it will cost over £200.

If you want to save money and get a card that's closer to the £150 range, then you could consider getting a GTX460 768MB. But honestly if you can afford, spend a little more getting a GTX460 1GB or a 5850.

Both the GTX460 1GB or a 5850 would be overkill at that res for most games, but for Crysis it won't be overkill if you are playing at VERY HIGH and with AA, even at those low res.

Also, you should definitely consider overclocking your CPU to at least 3GHz, or it will bottleneck the cards pretty badly with the CPU at stock speed.

 

[Soulmagika]

The 500W PSU you bought...is a decent brand, or just a generic value one? Cause I wouldn't recommend risk using a £200 graphic with a generic value PSU.

For under £200, you can get a Gigabyte GTX460 1GB with has a very good twin fans cooler that is quiet even at 70% fan speed, and people have managed to overclock the card to 950MHz (around same speed as a stock speed 5870), and temp is only around 65C when the GPU is underload with the fan speed at 70%).

You probably get a 5850 around that price too, but I would avoid VTX (only 1 year warranty) or PowerColour (it has 2 years warranty, but some poor guy's 4870x2 borked within the warranty period and RMAed the card, but PowerColour refused to replace with a equivalent level card (they no longer has 4870x2, and they refused to replace the borked 4870x2 with a 5850 or 5870, and only refunded the poor guy £110 despite he originally paid near £300 for it).
If you are getting 5850, try look for Asus brand since it has voltage tweak for better overclocking, and also 3 years warranty (1 year more than more brands)...but the chances are it will cost over £200.

If you want to save money and get a card that's closer to the £150 range, then you could consider getting a GTX460 768MB. But honestly if you can afford, spend a little more getting a GTX460 1GB or a 5850.

Both the GTX460 1GB or a 5850 would be overkill for that res for most games, but for Crysis it is neccessary if you are playing at VERY HIGH and with AA, even at those low res.

Also, you should definitely consider overclocking your CPU to at least 3GHz, or it will bottleneck the cards pretty badly with the CPU at stock speed.

This is the one i bought
OCZ StealthXStream 500w Silent ATX2 Power Supply

I appriciate the in-depth answer, but seriously.. dude. I've used computers for a while but i don't understand all this crap you're talking about, its pretty frustrating.
So theres nothing i can get thats an upgrade and i won't have to change my pc in any way..?

I don't really want to overclock or anything.. my pc isn't really up to it i think and i don't know the first thing about it.

Also, for crysis.. Meh, i won't be playing it all that much so i could get a gcard that isn't in danger of frying my computer

 

[Marine-RX179]

That PSU should be fine for both GTX460 1GB and 5850.

As for overclocking the CPU, Q8200 should have no problem reaching 3.0GHz unless the motherboard is utter crap. If you want help or advise on overclocking your Q8200, you could go over the CPU forums and make a thread asking for help on overclocking the Q8200, and make sure you list your PC spec (mainly motherboard, RAM etc).

As for overclocking graphic, it is really easy and it doesn't involve playing with bios. Just go and download MSI Afterburner, and then overclocking the graphic card is as simple as draging the bars. Here's a pic for the program's interface:
http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/overclocking.htm
One think to be careful is not to touch the voltage settings at first and see how far the card overclock on stock voltage, and you could add voltage little bit at a time to see if it can push the overclock further.

 

[Soulmagika]

That PSU should be fine for both GTX460 1GB and 5850.

As for overclocking the CPU, Q8200 should have no problem reaching 3.0GHz unless the motherboard is utter crap. If you want help or advise on overclocking your Q8200, you could go over the CPU forums and make a thread asking for help on overclocking the Q8200, and make sure you list your PC spec (mainly motherboard, RAM etc).

As for overclocking graphic, it is really easy and it doesn't involve playing with bios. Just go and download MSI Afterburner, and then overclocking the graphic card is as simple as draging the bars. Here's a pic for the program's interface:
http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/overclocking.htm
One think to be careful is not to touch the voltage settings at first and see how far the card overclock on stock voltage, and you could add voltage little bit at a time to see if it can push the overclock further.

Oh goodie. Hmmmm............ Benefits of overclocking? I'm completely new to this.

Also, even though my computer was £800 im guessing my motherboard is utter crap, since i bought it from a.. not-so-great pc company and only realising this after researching. This is why i don't want to tinker with anything. (I realise you're not allowed to name competitors here)

 

[Greebo]

The problem you may well find is that apart from dx11 features £200 on a graphics card running at the resolution you are and the cpu at stock is that you might hardly see any gain in framerates as you will be severely cpu limited.

You may will find a 5770 for £100 would give the same boost and directx features.

You really should overclock that cpu and the guys here are very helpful.

See here:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/cpu-scaling-in-games-with-quad-core-processors/9

As you can see, at low res, cpu speed can boost or cripple your framerates.

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Guides/cpu_bottlenecks/5.html

There are loads more comparisons if you google them.

 

[Marine-RX179]

Oh goodie. Hmmmm............ Benefits of overclocking? I'm completely new to this.

CPU wise, Q8200 at stock speed will bottleneck most above average graphic card in games that are no optimised to use more than two cores. What it basically mean is even if you had a fast graphic card, it will not be able to perform to its best capability, if the CPU that's working with it is not pass data/workload to the GPU at a fast enough rate. Overclock the CPU (especially a low stock speed Quad) would pretty much be guaranteed to see frame rate increase for graphic cards of 8800GT/4850 or above in games that are only using one or two cores.

As for graphic card overclock, see Gigabyte GTX460 1GB for example:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=17042092&postcount=949

At the GPU-Z, it clear listing the detailed info about the graphic card. You can see the "Default Clock", which is the default speed of the graphic card out of the box, but above it you can see the "GPU clock", which is showing the clocks speeds of the graphic card currently at (or overclocked to). The Gigabyte GTX460 1GB has a default clock speed of 715/900/1430, but it has been overclocked to 945/1140/1890 by the user.

The Gigabyte GTX460 1GB at default speed 715/900/1430 it would be pretty much between the speed of 5830 and 5850, but when it is overclocked to 945/1140/1890, it will be between 5850 and 5870 speed, closer to the 5870 end.

Also, even though my computer was £800 im guessing my motherboard is utter crap, since i bought it from a.. not-so-great pc company and only realising this after researching. This is why i don't want to tinker with anything. (I realise you're not allowed to name competitors here)

Pretty sure the model number of the motherboard would be on the motherboard itself, and a quick google on the motherboard model you should be able to find if it can overclock the Q8200 easy enough. If your PC is still under warranty and the case has some sort of seal that will break if you open the case, then may be you can try downloading CPU-Z to see if it tells you what motherboard you got. Don't give up just yet, as my nforce board is known for crap for overclocking, and it still manage to push my Q6600 to over 3GHz. 3GHz should be achievable for your Q8200.

 

[Soulmagika]

On second thought forgot trying to run Crysis guys, i hardly even care about that. this is all too confusing.. i think ill just leave it.

 

[Marine-RX179]

On second thought forgot trying to run Crysis guys, i hardly even care about that. this is all too confusing.. i think ill just leave it.

It's not really that difficult to overclock the Q8200 to 3.0GHz if your motherboard is capable. If you are lucky, you'd probably only need to change the FSB value (just a few numbers) in bios and that's it!
Just managed to find a guide for overclocking the Q8200 from Tom's Hardware:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/overclock-phenom-pentium,2366-12.html

 

[Soulmagika]

It's not really that difficult to overclock the Q8200 to 3.0GHz if your motherboard is capable. If you are lucky, you'd probably only need to change the FSB value (just a few numbers) in bios and that's it!
Just managed to find a guide for overclocking the Q8200 from Tom's Hardware:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/overclock-phenom-pentium,2366-12.html

FSB value? bios?

Erm..

Update: For god sakes i've no idea what the article is saying, i'm such a dumb ****. Honestly, how do you expect me to understand this, or even do this. Its not just a "thats it!" For meJETHW£HWHWHWGHHWHH!DFUCJK

 

[Marine-RX179]

FSB value? bios?

Erm..

Update: For god sakes i've no idea what the article is saying, i'm such a dumb ****. Honestly, how do you expect me to understand this, or even do this. Its not just a "thats it!" For meJETHW£HWHWHWGHHWHH!DFUCJK

Just look around on google an read things that are related to overclocking CPU. I was also at your exact positon didn't have a clue what the hell are those things about 2 years back