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How much will it bottleneck me?

Cartho

Cartho

Cartho

Associate
Joined
5 Dec 2006
Posts
570
Location
Hampshire
Ok so my system is using a hideous, ancient, prehistoric Pentium D 3.4 GHz. It is a Dell system so a total motherboard upgrade is out of the question, meaning so is a CPU upgrade. I've not got much cash at the moment and am considering upgrading my 8800 GT.

The question is, will I see much of an increase? I know the 8800 GT is pretty old, but is my CPU so bad that anything better won't make the blindest bit of difference?

If I were to whack a GTX 560 or a 6850 into my system, am I going to see any kind of increase over my 8800 GT? Would ramping up anti aliasing etc ease the bottleneck abit? In laymans terms, would replacing the 8800 GT with a GTX 560 or 6850 mean the difference between 20 FPS in The Witcher 2 and 40 FPS? (At low settings)

Or would upgrading the GPU be a total waste of money? I game at 1600 X 900 by the way, if that helps.
 
Save up for a new PC mate or check the members market here for 2nd hand LGA775 parts, Q6600 Or Q9650 or Q9550 for CPU and a P45 motherboard. Also sell what you have there to make some money towards the new parts.

I honestly think you will be upset spending money on a new graphics card on that system.
 
Totally agree......before I upgraded my system I was running an old E6400 Core 2 Duo Dual core, with 4GB of RAM and a GTX 470 and The Witcher 2 ran like a pile of carp....recently upgraded my whole system i7-960 @ 4Ghz, 6GB of Ram, but kept the GTX 470 and the difference was crazy....able to run it on high settings with a steady 40-60fps....that old CPU will definetley bottleneck.

Also is the Dell a Mini Tower? If so im sure you'd find it hard to fit a GTX 560 in there.
 
Cartho said:
Ok so my system is using a hideous, ancient, prehistoric Pentium D 3.4 GHz. It is a Dell system so a total motherboard upgrade is out of the question, meaning so is a CPU upgrade. I've not got much cash at the moment and am considering upgrading my 8800 GT.

The question is, will I see much of an increase? I know the 8800 GT is pretty old, but is my CPU so bad that anything better won't make the blindest bit of difference?

If I were to whack a GTX 560 or a 6850 into my system, am I going to see any kind of increase over my 8800 GT? Would ramping up anti aliasing etc ease the bottleneck abit? In laymans terms, would replacing the 8800 GT with a GTX 560 or 6850 mean the difference between 20 FPS in The Witcher 2 and 40 FPS? (At low settings)

Or would upgrading the GPU be a total waste of money? I game at 1600 X 900 by the way, if that helps.
Click to expand...
Yes, upgrading graphic card for your current system would be a total waste of money, as your Pentium D CPU is ALREADY bottlenecking your existing 8800GT that it is probably not being used pass 60%.

Upgrade your system/CPU before graphic card, so at least you will get playable frame rate for lower graphic settings, whereas if you keep your existing CPU, it won't be playable even at low graphic settings, no matter what graphic card you are using.

If I were you, and only got a limited budget around £150~£200, I'd upgrade to the i3 2100+motherboard+4GB DDR3 ram first and make do with the 8800GT, and then keep saving upgrading graphic next.
 
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Upgrading the Dell is going to be a pain due to it's non standard psu and case. If I were you I would write it off and just save for a new system.
 
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