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Graphics Card Advice

Associate
Joined
7 Dec 2006
Posts
1,632
Right people, I'm after a bit of advice regarding a new graphics card.

Current specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 at stock (2.13 Ghz)
2 x 1 GB DDR2 533 memory
Asus P5NSLI motherboard
Leadtek 256MB Geforce 7950 GT card
HEC 550w power supply

I game at 1440 x 900.
Would I be right in thinking that a 4870 would be a bit overkill for that system and res, and that a 4850 would be the best choice?
(Budget is £150)
Cheers
 
Well I got my E6300 up to 3.3ghz on that board. It's carp for clocking quads, but for low end duals, it should be fine. Give it a go...what you got to lose?

Oh yeah, you = win for being called Father Ted and having a signature referencing the rascism episode. Major lols. You didn't used to play BF2142 did you? There used to be Fathers Ted, Dougal and Jack on there a lot when I was playing, made me grin.
 
Never played BF2142, must be an imposter.
3.3 Ghz on that board? Blimey, I am surprised, all the research I've done suggests that you can't get anywhere near that. Perhaps there is hope after all.
 
Never played BF2142, must be an imposter.
3.3 Ghz on that board? Blimey, I am surprised, all the research I've done suggests that you can't get anywhere near that. Perhaps there is hope after all.

My mate had his E4300 at 3.6ghz in a P5N-E, although it was a near suicide run. I seem to remember it's actually a very easy board to overclock, mainly due to the lack of complicated options, which are usually a hindrance for me - but there's still enough to clock more basic CPUs to the moon. The northbridge will need extra cooling though.

As to your original question...4850 alllllllll the way.
 
Right people, I'm after a bit of advice regarding a new graphics card.

Current specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 at stock (2.13 Ghz)
2 x 1 GB DDR2 533 memory
Asus P5NSLI motherboard
Leadtek 256MB Geforce 7950 GT card
HEC 550w power supply

I game at 1440 x 900.
Would I be right in thinking that a 4870 would be a bit overkill for that system and res, and that a 4850 would be the best choice?
(Budget is £150)
Cheers
4870 has approx 60% faster memory bandwidth than 4850 (116GB/Sec vs 64GB/Sec but when midly overclocked the 4870 has 140.8GB/Sec memory bandwidth which is only 1% less than a stockGTX280) and overclocked the 4870 is only 10% slower than a GTX280 so not overkill for you as the higher minimum FPS will be taken care of by the faster card when newer more demanding games come out later this year. But for now 4850 would be a good upgrade as it can handle most games @ 1920x1200 and you save a bit of money yet still get a big perfromance upgrade from your current card plus 4850/70 both have Shader based AA which means you get AA for little to no performance hit.

I game at a slightly lower res than you on my HDTV (1360x768) and my 4870 is not overkill as I can use max graphics + 24 x AA (Edge Detect mode) and still get very smooth FPS on everthing except for Crysis (which is an anomaly anyway).

Either card will not disappoint you just do a search here for 4850 or 4870 as there are many threads with most of the answers you need.
 
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