Upgrade Advice - Monitor or Graphics Card?

izzop

izzop

izzop

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Good Afternoon,

I'm considering upgarding either my current monitor or graphics card, but I'm unsure which?

Currently have: -

Monitor - Samsung B2430H 24" Widescreen
Graphics Card - HIS ATI Radeon HD 5850 1024MB​

Considering: -

Monitor - BenQ XL2411T 24"
Graphics Card - HIS HD 7950 IceQ​
I'd like to be able to do both at the same time, however as I'm unable to I thought and ask which others would do first?

I presume I'd see a bigger immediate difference by choosing to do the graphics card first?

Thoughts welcome.

Regards
 
snips86x said:
That is a great selection there! You may want to overclock your CPU a little more, but see how it goes.
Click to expand...

Thanks.

I presume you're referring to the upgrade selection?

Overclock the replacement graphics card?

But, seeing as I'm unable to upgrade both at the same time, monitor or graphics card first?

Regards
 
izzop said:
Thanks.

I presume you're referring to the upgrade selection?

Overclock the replacement graphics card?

But, seeing as I'm unable to upgrade both at the same time, monitor or graphics card first?

Regards
Click to expand...

Sorry, yes.

I'd upgrade the graphics card first and see how it goes. Your CPU may bottleneck requiring an overclock!
 
Hi,

Thanks for the replies.

Might seem like lame questions, but......

  1. How can you check to see if there is a bottleneck (obviously once the new card is installed)?
  2. How easy is it to overclock the cpu, and by how much?

Regards
 
1. Download and run gpu-z or afterburner and check on gpu usage while running a game.

2. It's easy enough to do and i7 920's were regularly hitting 4Ghz with decent coolers.
 
izzop said:
Hi,

Thanks for the replies.

Might seem like lame questions, but......

  1. How can you check to see if there is a bottleneck (obviously once the new card is installed)?
  2. How easy is it to overclock the cpu, and by how much?

Regards
Click to expand...

Overclock that CPU for sure.

Vcore to 1.25
Bclk to 190
Multi to 19

That won't bottleneck the card you're looking at.
At a guess on popular ram at the time do:
Memory (dram bus voltage) to 1.66 (1.65 is max spec, but don't worry)

Select the memory ram divider to 1520mhz.
Test temps with 20min of prime.

Avoid above 85.
 
Hi,

Thanks for the replies, guys.

Is afterburner only for checking the GPU usage?

What is required to actually overclock the CPU?

These might be silly/stupid questions, but out of my comfort zone when it comes to overclocking and don't want to break anything :)

Any advice and tips most appreciated.

Regards
 
You overclock the cpu in the bios.

Afterburner and gpu-z are for monitoring the gpu.

Cpu-z, coretemp and real temp are for monitoring the cpu.
 
Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I've had a look at the Beginners Guide to Overclocking posted by Jokester regarding the overclocking of the CPU.

However, I've installed both MSI Afterburner & Kombustor and when running Kombustor the GPU Load goes straight up to 99% after a few seconds.

Is this normal or is it due to the config of my PC?

Regards
 
Hi,

Yes, it was just with Afterburner running along with Kombustor that had been launched through Afterburner.

Sorry, just to add... It's not happening when just at the Desktop, but when I run Kombustor and I'm seeing the doughnut spinning. I've checked that thread you posted and have had a look at my start-up processes and there's nothing there that shouldn't be.

Regards
 
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