Need some upgrade advice...

[Naan_H]

okey dokey folks,

its about time i got myself a decent graphics card. My rig is as in my sig (Asus P5Q pro), and i have a corsair HX520 modular PSU. Im using a geforce 8400GS as a stop gap as my 8800GTX died. The SSDs are a new addition, and im in the process of decluttering inside and intend to be left with a 2TB hdd only and dvd drive.

The system runs absolutely fine for me, and im not going to upgrade any other components, unless i need a new PSU off course.

I intend to game at 1920x1200. i have always bought nvidia as they have always seemed to be the best at the time, but i dont care either way.

i like the fact that ATi/AMD generally draw less power, and considering my PSU, i think i am leaning more towards them tbh.

So is my CPU going to bottleneck any of the new (or current) cards badly? im interested, just like everybody else, to see what 6950/70 will bring to the table. i guess money isnt an issue, but if im spending and extra £100 - £200 quid for no perfomance gain then id like to know in advance

ive been away from my pc gaming for far too long, time to give it some lovin'

 

[jewii]

i've heard in the past that the max gpu before bottlenecking is a HD 4870x2, but the HD 5870 is the equilivent. and there are 3 of these V. cheap HD 5870 left: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-147-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1502 i bought one

but the nvidia alternative is midway between 470 and 480. 470 gtx for £200.

anyelse think this is correct^^

p.s. there is a ton of forums on googleing "bottlenecking q6600" may be worth your while or any other keen forum users.

by anycase, you will recieve a huge preformance increase. 8800 gtx = 4850, 5870 = 4870 in crossfire. (ocuk users please don't comment on this statement mainly because i don't care and it's inrelevent)

 

[Naan_H]

Wow, im actually surprised by that. i thought bottlenecking was mainly due to CPU speed, and i know some q6600's can go upto 3.6GHz. im not too fussed if i lose a few fps here or there. i didnt think i5/i7 was much of a performance upgrade that would really stretch the new(ish) GPUs..