New PSU with new graphics card or not?

Triad-X

Triad-X

Triad-X

Associate
Joined
5 Feb 2004
Posts
123
Location
Scotland
Howdy all,

I have the sudden urge to make a slight upgrade to my PC one last time before shelling out for a whole new system in the future. Currently, I'm still playing World of Warcraft with the usual 14-20 framerates in raid instances...I'd like to increase that slightly by giving my AGP slot one last new resident :) I'm currently using a 'GeForce 6600GT' and have my eye out for a 'Sapphire x1950'. I was wondering if anyone can inform me whether my current PSU would be able to handle a more powerful graphics card. The current specs of my system are below:-

Operating System: Windows XP
Monitor: LG FLATRON L1915S
Motherboard: MSI K8T Neo-FIS2R SKT 754 K8T800
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 Processor 2800+, 1.80 GHz, L1: 64KB L2: 512KB
CPU Cooling Fan: Coolermaster Hyper6 KHC-V81 Cooler
RAM: GeIL 1.5GB (3x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5
Graphics Card: PNY Verto GeForce 6 6600GT AGP8x 128MB GDDR3
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2
PSU: Antec PSU True Blue 480w Blue Led Fan
CD-Writer #1: NEC ND3500 Double Layer Dual 16x DVD R/RW - Oem Silver
CD-Writer #2: Uranus (Rebranded Lite-on) CD-ReWriter 52x32x52x
Hard Drive #1: UDMA Western Digital 7200RPM 160Gb 8Mb Cache
Hard Drive #2: UDMA Western Digital 7200RPM 120Gb 2Mb Cache
Hard Drive #3: Maxtor L14M200 Diamondmax 200GB 7200RPM SATA/150 8MB Cache

Not the most modern of systems as you could probably tell...just over 2 years old for a majority of the components.
 
To be honest, in raids that's your processor struggling with the numbers of people there, not your graphics card.

A new card won't make much (if any) difference at all in those circumstances and will probably be badly bottlenecked by that processor anyway.

You're much better off waiting till you upgrade the system as a whole and getting a more up to date graphics card and processor.
 
That is the lowest A64 cpu that was made for 754 and if i remember rightly it only runs at 1.8ghz so yes it will be bottlenecking your system quite badly. You could try clocking it or failing that it's new build time i am afraid.

**Edit** You could try picking up a better A64 on the bay but you will pay a hell of a premium for a 3400+ or even bigger for a 3700+. Anything less would be a waste of time.
 
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i think an a64 even at 1.8ghz is enough to power an x1950pro. i'm running the same card with my pentium m clocked only slightly faster and it doesn't hold it back at all. :)

i used to run my cpu @ 2.6ghz but recently i've had to cut back to 1.9ghz due to failing ram and it's made no difference in games that i can see. admittedly i don't play any new/cpu intensive games but older stuff like gta:sa, hl2, hl2:ep1, cod2, quake4 run just as well with my cpu 700mhz slower... :)
 
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