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Graphics Card for £200

robaylesbury

robaylesbury

robaylesbury

Associate
Joined
31 Jul 2006
Posts
306
Location
Aylesbury
Hello guys. I have £200 and I'm looking for a GPU. Currently running a 6950 2GB which is just starting to wheeze a bit on the more demanding games. Can you suggest an option for me?

Thanks in advance.
 
Thank you guys. I am a little mindful that my CPU and RAM may bottleneck the card somewhat. Do you have any thoughts on this? And how big a bump do you feel this would provide over my current 6950? Thank you in advance.
 
robaylesbury said:
Thank you guys. I am a little mindful that my CPU and RAM may bottleneck the card somewhat. Do you have any thoughts on this? And how big a bump do you feel this would provide over my current 6950? Thank you in advance.
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Just overclock your CPU a bit.. That'll release more performance

I think people have got that chip to 4Ghz. :)
 
Doomedspeed said:
Just overclock your CPU a bit.. That'll release more performance

I think people have got that chip to 4Ghz. :)
Click to expand...
No. The Q8000 CPU generally can't overclock beyond 3.00GHz because of the low multiplier of x7. Also it has less cache than the Q6600...do despite it is a 45nm CPU instead of Q6600's 65nm CPU, the Q8000 CPUs are actually slower.

I use to have my Q6600 overclock to 3.60GHz and used with my 5850, and even the 5850 get bottleneck in quite a lot of game. With OP's CPU, I honestly don't think it's worth getting anything faster than 5850/GTX470's level.
 
Marine-RX179 said:
No. The Q8000 CPU generally can't overclock beyond 3.00GHz because of the low multiplier of x7. Also it has less cache than the Q6600...do despite it is a 45nm CPU instead of Q6600's 65nm CPU, the Q8000 CPUs are actually slower.

I use to have my Q6600 overclock to 3.60GHz and used with my 5850, and even the 5850 get bottleneck in quite a lot of game. With OP's CPU, I honestly don't think it's worth getting anything faster than 5850/GTX470's level.
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Is it the Q9***'s which can hit 4Ghz then?

Overclocking will still help. :)
 
Marine-RX179 said:
No. The Q8000 CPU generally can't overclock beyond 3.00GHz because of the low multiplier of x7. Also it has less cache than the Q6600...do despite it is a 45nm CPU instead of Q6600's 65nm CPU, the Q8000 CPUs are actually slower.

I use to have my Q6600 overclock to 3.60GHz and used with my 5850, and even the 5850 get bottleneck in quite a lot of game. With OP's CPU, I honestly don't think it's worth getting anything faster than 5850/GTX470's level.
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For £200 the GTX 670 is a great deal. If he buys that then later on he upgrades the rest of his system He can keep the card as it will perform great. If he gets a 5850/GTX470 and later upgrades the rest of his machine he might have to upgrade the GPU as well
 
Doomedspeed said:
Is it the Q9***'s which can hit 4Ghz then?

Overclocking will still help. :)
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Have a more careful read on OP's signature...it is a Q8200. Overclocking would help yes, but only going from 2.33GHz to 2.80~3.00GHz won't make much different. As I said, even my much faster Q6600 at 3.60GHz was bottlenecking my 5850, and OP's 6950 is around 10-15% faster than the 5850.

Drizmod said:
For £200 the GTX 670 is a great deal. If he buys that then later on he upgrades the rest of his system He can keep the card as it will perform great. If he gets a 5850/GTX470 and later upgrades the rest of his machine he might have to upgrade the GPU as well
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The thing is OP already has a 6950 2GB (which would already be bottlenecked by his current CPU quite a bit. With the £200, he would see far better performance increase upgrading to 2nd hand i5 platform while keep using his 6950 2GB, than spending anymore on graphic to pair with his Q8200 2.33GHz which won't see any noticeable improvement I dare to say.
 
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Boomstick777 said:
Go for the GTX 670 OCUK have on special, http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-170-MS, that's a great deal. Nice card, 3 year warranty. 200 notes can't go wrong..
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Other than there will be no gain over the 6950 on his system. Sure he can force games to run 8xAA or whatever, but the frame rate will still be crap because of being limited by the CPU.

I went from Q6600 overclocked to 3.60GHz to i5 2500K overclocked to 4.5~4.7GHz and never looked back. I was sick of the GPU usage dipping to 60-70% and frame rate dropping to low 20s.
 
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