New GPU for old e8500 setup

[beardy12]

Hi all, sorry in advance for the length of this and apologies if this should be in the GPU section but it's very likely going to expand into some begging for help for other hardware

I have an old Rig
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz C0 Stepping 6 Model 7
Corsair TX 750W ATX2.2 SLi Compliant PSU
Samsung SpinPoint HD103UJ F1 1TB 7200RPM SATA 3GB/s 32MB Cache
Gigabyte GA-X48-DS4 (Socket 775) DDR2 PCI-E ATX MotherboardIn stock
Corsair Twin2X 4GB DDR2 (2x2048MB) XMS2 Dominator 8500C5Out of stock: 3 days after order placed.£80.85£80.85
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3
Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case (plenty of fans)
Crucial M4 SSD
Western Digital 300GB WD3000GLFS VelociRaptor SATAII 10000RPM 16MB Cache

I'm just playing with overclocking for the first time - got it 3.8Ghz stable but suspect it's the standard heatsink/ fan so being cautious - I will likely start another thread for that if we decide it's worthwhile.

Reason I'm here is I wouldn't have considered replacing it yet I only play a few games and it runs them fine (e.g. Xcom). I'm not worried about getting an 'ultra' gaming rig for
I've a samsung syncmaster (1650x1050) and an old Apple cinema (2560*1600). Would only game on one at a time but think it's helpful to aim for the larger screen/ res if at all possible.

Then Rome TW 2 came out, and it runs like a dog, unplayable. So it's time to upgrade.

I'm conscious it's time to buy something entirely new, but looking at buying a house and wanted to see if I could eek out a little more from this to give me a couple of months of Rome enjoyment buy buying a decent graphics card (which ideally would go into the new rig, possibly with another for SLI/ Crossfire),
To give you an idea of my likely price points, if I was buying the new computer now it would probably be based around the I5-3570K, possibly be convinced to go to 4770K. 8/16Gb sensible ram and decent motherboard for overclocking (I don't tend to cheap out on them)
Part of the overcloing on the current one is to start to understand it, so would definitely look to do it on the new system and join the fold.

So, I'm looking at a temporary 'fix', if sensible, by upgrading the GPU, fully conscious that it will be bottlenecked at the moment. That said it could be some months before the new setup so it may make more sense to buy something knowing I'll throw it away later if the bottleneck will be at something sub £100

I was originally looking at the 7870 or GTX 570

The today only HIS HD 7950 IceQ BOOST 3072MB GDDR5 looks tempting.

Just looking through GPU models has be confused enough for now. I'm thinking up to about £200 with some flexbility
Sure it's hard to answer but any guess of what modern GPU I could go to before I hit the bottle neck?
I'm getting the impression from some forums that SLI is less of a problem than crossfire - is this still the case, or am I seeing old posts?
If in my situation, what GPU would you go for?
Am I being an idiot even looking at the GPU on it's own? Please tell me if I am.
Seems like 2Gb vs 4Gb versions aren't showing the benchmarks you want, but presume people are buying the 4gb mainly now.

Many thanks in advance and sorry again for length.

 

[synixx]

I would definitely get a 7950 at their current prices. The GTX 670s are good too but if you plan to play at 2560x1600 i would get the 7950.

 

[beardy12]

Thanks Snixx (and whoever moved the post)

With Rome TW2 I suspect the CPU will limit me as well. Any guess as to the minimal GPU that I can get without the rest of the system bottlenecking me?

 

[Marine-RX179]

I think graphic wise, for 1680 res if you willing turn some settings down, your 4850 512MB will be fine for most parts. In terms of frame rate, I would actually be more concern about CPU side of things, as the way it is, I can imagine that are parts which the CPU would bottleneck even the 4850 for this game.

IMO you should grab a decent 3rd party cooler and trying to overclock the E8500 to 4.20GHz+ first, and then try running the game with your 4850 first. If your 4850's GPU usage dip to below 99% majority of the time, then it would mean there's little point upgrading the graphic card, as even the slower 4850 is not getting utilized fully due to CPU bottleneck.

For the CPU cooler, get a good one rather than the entry level ones, as you can reuse it when/if you upgrade to Core i5/i7 in the (near) future.

 

[beardy12]

Thanks Marine,

I'll have a look at that and start a new OC thread. Time to go down the rabbit hole.

Thermalright True Spirit 140 seems popular. Any other suggestions. Worth replacing the Thermal compound on that?

 

[Marine-RX179]

Thermalright True Spirit 140 seems popular. Any other suggestions. Worth replacing the Thermal compound on that?

Thermalright True Spirit 140 is a very capable cooler that doesn't break the bank.

I think the paste that Thermalright provide should be good enough, but if you want you could get some Arctic Cooling MX-4...but I would imagine it would probably only shave another 1-3C off at best.