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old Grafix upgrade needed :)

disco Stu

disco Stu

disco Stu

Associate
Joined
8 Nov 2002
Posts
929
Im sorting out an old system for a mate, but I've been out of the pc gaming thing for a while and have no idea what Grafix card would help him upgrade.

System:-
AMD FX64 +3500

2 GIG DDR

Nivida 6800 GS


He's only running GTR2 and rfactor but it's needs alittle ZAPP

Thanks for any help :)
 
+1, if you can get it for that price then that'll be great value for money. Might still be a bit overpowered for the system overall but there's no point doing anything else if you can get it that low.
 
What speed is the CPU running, what PSU is it and what is his bugdet? I would say an ATi Radeon 5770 is a good choice to upgrade, or a 5670 if the PSU can't handle it. A second hand 8800GT is a good choice as well.
 
For that system a 5770 might be overkill. An 8800Gt or a HD 3870 or mayB a HD 4850. TBH it might be worth looking at a new system. Can pick up some pretty good stuff pretty cheap at the moment.
HD 3870 = £40
9800GT/8800GT = £40
E8200/E7400 = £50
AMD Phenom II X2 545 3GHz Socket AM3 6MB Cache = £60
2GB DDR2 Ballistix PC 6400 = £25
all you need then is the board, for intel go P45 but I have no idea about the AMD chipsets im afraid. Could build a pretty nifty system for under £200.
I just sol my old system to a friend for £100 and he pretty much got a bargain there. E8200, Asus P5Q pro, 9800GTX+ 512, Antec 500w psu, but he's got the ram and HDD already so he can switch those himself.
 
CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
The graphics card is going to be massively bottlenecked by a single core CPU!
Click to expand...

This is why I was looking at something upgraded without going overboard.

His system at the moment runs rfactor and gtr2 quite well but it just needs abit more of a kick without spending money on a MB/cpu etc and I thought that a better grafix card would be the cheapest way of doing this.(he no likey spendy money)
 
TBH,with the CPU the computer has I would be looking at a secondhand 8600GTS which can be had for under £20 from the famous auction website. The card is bus powered.

However for older games perhaps it would be worth looking at a 7900GS,7900GT,7950GT,X1950 Pro or X1950XT. These will be a big upgrade over a 6800GS and very cheap as they can be had for well under £30. These cards are not bus powered though so I would check that the PSU will be upto the job!!

Here are some reviews of the 8600GTS:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/12285/5

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Twintech/GeForce_8600_GTS

Both reviews are using dual core processors running at above 2.5GHZ though. The 6800GS should be around the same speed as a 7600GT IIRC.

In older games the 7900 series cards and the X1950 series cards will do better AFAIK but in newer games the 8600GTS will do better.

I would also look at either a bus powered HD4670 DDR3 or GDDR3 or the 9600GT and these can be both had for under £35 secondhand form the same place.

However it is most likely that the CPU will bottleneck an HD4670 or 9600GT IMHO. OTH,both these cards have good performance and relatively low power consumption.
 
Last edited:
Wow, yeah i forgot about the 8600 GTS. Legend of a card, absolutely floored the 2600XT even though it had half the memory! Although I remember reading a review that said the 7900GS was almost exactly the same card but had more memory so was a better OC choice. Never had either card coz i bought the 2600XT. DOYLE! That card single handedly destroyed ATI's reputation for me. Didn't have another one till last week! Happy to say the 4870 has restored it.
 
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