spec me a New GPU - 570 or 580 ?

[johnkirkness]

Am looking to upgrade my current 280 GTX to either the 570 or 580 GTX-
Will be playing BF3 'a lot' when it launches end of October so need a card which will run quieter than my 280 gtx and cope with all BF3's settings on high.
Ive just got a new Dell u2412m 24 screen so will be gaming @ 1920x1200.

Ideally would like to spend around £250 but will stretch to a £350 580 gtx card if its really worth the extra.

My PC is almost 3 years old but still decent enough for my requirements-dont really want to begin upgrading processor,RAM,PSU etc...just want to give my PC a graphics boost to cope with the new BF3 game.



my current system is: Antec p182 case,Intel 2 duo [email protected] ghz,ASUS P5Q PRO P45 mobo,4 GB DDR2 RAM,Corsair 750W PSU,BFG 280 GTX OC 1GB

 

[Predicament]

A GTX 580 would be bottle necked by your current system.

I'd go for a GTX 570 or GTX 480 and save yourself the dosh.

The difference between the 570 and 580 is not much.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/305?vs=306

 

[TheRealDeal]

If its for bf3 i would recommend upgrading to a quad core ie q6600 or above and a gtx570. You should be able to pick up these 2 for the same price as a gtx580.

The reason for this being that bc2 ran poorly on dual core compared to quad core. I think frame rates were nearly double on the quad cores.

 

[coupe69]

If its for bf3 i would recommend upgrading to a quad core ie q6600 or above and a gtx570. You should be able to pick up these 2 for the same price as a gtx580.

The reason for this being that bc2 ran poorly on dual core compared to quad core. I think frame rates were nearly double on the quad cores.

Totally agree,

OPs shopping basket should look something like this:

GTX 570
Q6600 (can be had for around £50-60 second hand)
Decent air/water cooling (unless you've already got this?)

Overclock Q6600 to within an inch of it's life* = win

Pointless spending £300-350 on a GTX 580 when you're still running a dual core.


*will be a piece of cake with your current board, any half decent Q6600 should do 3.6GHz with less than 1.4v

 

[Shadow-King]

Totally agree,

OPs shopping basket should look something like this:

GTX 570
Q6600 (can be had for around £50-60 second hand)
Decent air/water cooling (unless you've already got this?)

Overclock Q6600 to within an inch of it's life* = win

Pointless spending £300-350 on a GTX 580 when you're still running a dual core.


*will be a piece of cake with your current board, any half decent
Q6600 should do 3.6GHz with less than 1.4v

hmmm.....this makes me wonder how much of a bottleneck my CPU is causing.

 

[johnkirkness]

Totally agree,

OPs shopping basket should look something like this:

GTX 570
Q6600 (can be had for around £50-60 second hand)
Decent air/water cooling (unless you've already got this?)

Overclock Q6600 to within an inch of it's life* = win

Pointless spending £300-350 on a GTX 580 when you're still running a dual core.


*will be a piece of cake with your current board, any half decent Q6600 should do 3.6GHz with less than 1.4v

Thanks for your help guys- Ok Im a novice when it comes to PC upgrades so bear with me!
Had a look at a processor upgrade-would one of these do the job and be fully compatible with all my other components? http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-281-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=567

Once I have upgraded the CPU I will buy the 570 gtx

 

[Cleeecooo]

Why not wait for BF3 to come out before upgrading?

 

[Marine-RX179]

Thanks for your help guys- Ok Im a novice when it comes to PC upgrades so bear with me!
Had a look at a processor upgrade-would one of these do the job and be fully compatible with all my other components? http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-281-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=567

Once I have upgraded the CPU I will buy the 570 gtx

DO NOT buy Core2Quad at new price. To be honest, if I was in your shoes I'd get the GTX570 and then trying overclocking the E8500 to 4.2~4.5GHz and see how that goes first (provided that you have a decent CPU cooler). It is a crime to run the E8500 at stock speed on that Asus P5Q Pro motherboard.

 

[WingZero30]

As Marine-RX179 has said, don't buy C2Q Q8400 brand new. Afaik the Q8*** cpus are poor overclockers with limited L2 cache which is 4MB for this cpu.

Get a 2nd hand Q6600 G0 (SLACR) and overclock it to atleast 3.2-3.4Ghz. It is capable of overclocking higher than Q8400. Q6600 has x9 multiplier and 8MB L2 cache (gaming benefit) while Q8400 has only x8 multi and 4MB L2 cache.

 

[johnkirkness]

DO NOT buy Core2Quad at new price. To be honest, if I was in your shoes I'd get the GTX570 and then trying overclocking the E8500 to 4.2~4.5GHz and see how that goes first (provided that you have a decent CPU cooler). It is a crime to run the E8500 at stock speed on that Asus P5Q Pro motherboard.

Well I took your advice and Overclocked my e8500 to improve performance.
Gone from 3.16 ghz up to 3.8 ghz with no dramas whatsoever,it could go much higher but would probably require additional cooling for the Cpu? Im just using the stock cooler but its stable&cool atm.

So even with my dual core overclocked would it be a waste to buy the 580 gtx? I have the cash but if its going to be bottlenecked theres no point,Ill get the 570 instead.

 

[iostream]

I would definitely grab a cheap second hand Q6600 and a GTX 570 as others have said. I used to have the E8500 paired with a Radeon 6870. My friend had the same GPU, but paired with a Q6600 and Bad Company 2 ran SO much smoother on his rig. Not quite double frame rates, but close enough.

I'd imagine BF3 will love the extra cores, and you'll do just fine with the 570

 

[johnkirkness]

ok - have ordered the quad 9650 cpu which I intend to overclock from 3 ghz to at least 3.6ghz.
Hopefull this will improve my framerates as suggested in posts.
So now its a toss up between the 570 or the 580 gtx

I want to be playing at ultra or high settings so Im leaning toward the 580 card ,surely with the new quad cpu overclocked installed , my PC will not be bottlenecked?

 

[TheRealDeal]

The 9650 will be fine for a gtx570/580. The beta version of bf3 is showing high memory use so if you want to use the top settings i would go with the gtx580 as it has more memory than the gtx570.