Upgrade Advice

[head5000]

I've been out of the loop for about 1.5years now so need refreshed.
I'm looking to upgrade my graphics card from a 6770 to anything decent around the £200 mark. (7950/670).

Currently using 2x (1650x1050) monitors but only one of these would be used whilst gaming. Possible upgrade to 1x1080p within a year.

Processor is currently Phenom X2 965. I reckon 7950/670 would be bottle necked by the processor but i may be wrong.

Any advice welcome!

Cheers.

 

[gpuerrilla]

I reckon 7950/670 would be bottle necked by the processor but i may be wrong.

More than likely, however instead of getting a weaker card that one could be kept when you do decide to upgrade the mobo+RAM+CPU

 

[kefan77]

HD7950 will do.

I wouldn't worry about the CPU too much, provided it's overclocked, the GPU is still more important.

and are you sure it's Phenom X2? I'd say it's Phenom II X4.

 

[Marine-RX179]

You need to overclocked that Phenom II X4 965 (ideally to at least 3.80GHz).

Even then it would bottleneck cards like 7950. There's nothing be done about only getting frame rate at around 20-50fps since it is a limitation by the CPU, but the good thing about having a 7950 would be there will be tonnes of spare GPU usage not being used (due to CPU bottlenecking), which you can use for forcing games to run at the highest settings at 4xAA or 8xAA even. You certainly won't get constant 60fps, but at least you will be playing of highest graphic settings on 20-50fps.

If you are after upping the actual frame rate though (like minimum frame rate to 50fps+), then there's no other way except for upgrading the CPU.

HD7950 will do.

I wouldn't worry about the CPU too much, provided it's overclocked, the GPU is still more important.

One thing to bare in mind is that these frame rate result are "average" frame rate, minimum frame rate would generally be at least a good 15-20fps lower than the average fps.

If OP can overclock his Phenom II X4 965 to 3.80GHz, its performance should sit somewhere between the FX4100 and FX4320 results above.

 

[head5000]

You need to overclocked that Phenom II X4 965 (ideally to at least 3.80GHz).

Even then it would bottleneck cards like 7950. There's nothing be done about only getting frame rate at around 20-50fps since it is a limitation by the CPU, but the good thing about having a 7950 would be there will be tonnes of spare GPU usage not being used (due to CPU bottlenecking), which you can use for forcing games to run at the highest settings at 4xAA or 8xAA even. You certainly won't get constant 60fps, but at least you will be playing of highest graphic settings on 20-50fps.

If you are after upping the actual frame rate though (like minimum frame rate to 50fps+), then there's no other way except for upgrading the CPU.


One thing to bare in mind is that these frame rate result are "average" frame rate, minimum frame rate would generally be at least a good 15-20fps lower than the average fps.

If OP can overclock his Phenom II X4 965 to 3.80GHz, its performance should sit somewhere between the FX4100 and FX4320 results above.

Cheers all, I have used the auto-overclock from the MB to get approx.3.76.

Based on the advice i reckon I will go 7950 for about a year at least, then start thinking about other upgrades.

No consideration for 670?