GPU Upgrade

[dannyboyee82]

Hi all. I have a decision to make.. which graphics card to go for next. I've used the hell out of my 8800gtx, an amazing card.. it has served me well up until this point and now it is starting to show its age with games like Arma 2 and Empire Total War. The rest of my system is a E8400 clocked at 3.6, 4gb Dominator, 550 or 600 (i forget) OCZ gamexstream, 22in Samsung at 1680x1050 and an Asus P5Q Pro Mobo.

Ive looked around and I'm sure that the 285GTX and above would be overkill for my system, I like the look of the 4870X2 but I'm limited due to only having two 6 pin PCI power cables on my PSU so I'm looking to you guys for some advice. I think I can have a system that will keep me going for a couple more years if I upgrade the GPU and possibly the CPU, if you could point me in the direction of the best QXXXX for overclocking that would beat my E8400 that would be cool.

Cheers, Danny.

 

[SfnX]

how much you willing to spend?

 

[dannyboyee82]

Up to the maximum of £250 for GPU.

 

[Spazzfish]

You don't really need a new cpu if your just gaming. You could get an ati 4890 and a better modular power supply with some change left over.

 

[SfnX]

well tbh the dual cores are still good for the enxt gen as well so wait for a 5850!

 

[Admiral Huddy]

I'm quite surprised that you are experiencing slowdowns with your 8800GTX at 1680x1050 because I have the same card and yet to experience no problems at 1920x1200 let alone 1680?? That said, I do have mine overclocked running on a Q6600 which is at 3.6GHz.

You could try upping the GPU core/memory speeds for a notable gain.

 

[dannyboyee82]

so wait for a 5850!

Good idea, I had only heard a little about the next gen graphics cards.. after looking up the 5850 I will wait.

In the meantime though..

You could try upping the GPU core/memory speeds for a notable gain.

Do you know of any links with a step by step to do this? I have not attempted GPU overclocks before, seeing as I'm gonna be in the market for a new one soon I suppose frying it now won't matter so much!

And one final thing, would you recommend me not getting a quad core and overclocking it or just sticking with the E8400? I'm not sure how the next gen of games are going to be using cores, so if buying a processor that I can clock at the same or higher speed as my E8400 but with 4 cores is going to benefit with primarily gaming and also photography applicaitions (Lightroom/Photoshop), I'd like to try it but if it is just going to be a waste of money and I'll be fine with my E8400 then I'd like to know.

 

[Wakinglimb]

£125 on an HD4890? Or £175 on a 275GTX? That's the kind of upgrade you would benefit from, although the difference between the above two cards varies from game to game, they're about equal (if not the the HD4890 winning tbh).

There are new ATI cards coming out in 2 weeks plus though and although I doubt we'll see any huge reductions in the prices of the above. They'll probably be within your budget but I would say for your resolution, overkill.

 

[AMG]

from what I m seeing the new ATI cards looks rather expesnive...

if the computer can cope with what you want it to do, than wait, if the card is struggling or dying than you have to get now thats how I do things