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Upgrade from a ATI 4850 with a Q6600 CPU?

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Can anyone advise me what would be a viable upgrade over my old ATI 4850. I am running a standard Q6600 not overclocked and I want to run BF3 without it looking awful.

Is there anyway to make this happen without needing to build a new system. I was looking at the ATI 6950 1GB, but I am unsure. Would I be better of waiting to build a new complete system or is there anyway I can slap a bandaid on my old system and get something decent? I really don't have the money for a new build so I was hoping whatever I get can move on with me in 3/4 months into a new build.
 
if you go for a 6950 get the 2gb version.

wha psu do you have? you want a decent quality(cosair, antech, seasonic etc) 500w+ for a 6950 2gb.

if you haven't done so, overclock the the q6600 to 3-3.4ghz(3.6 if you have a good cooler and the mb/cpu is capable) and it should last you till the your planned new build.
 
if you go for a 6950 get the 2gb version.

wha psu do you have? you want a decent quality(cosair, antech, seasonic etc) 500w+ for a 6950 2gb.

if you haven't done so, overclock the the q6600 to 3-3.4ghz(3.6 if you have a good cooler and the mb/cpu is capable) and it should last you till the your planned new build.

I have a antec 520 bronze high current gamer psu. As for overclocking the quad, I have thought about it but I am not sure how to. I have been told my CPU version is a G0 which apparently overclocks pretty well on air.

If anyone has any advice on what to change in the bios and what memory settings to use to get this overclocked i'd be grateful.

So the 6950 2gb would allow me to play BF3 with my setup, my 4850 is really struggling with it at low levels.
 
Yes, upgrading the graphics card to something like a HD 6950 2GB is a very good idea. You will get a massive performance increase in games, including BF3. Another good option on the GPU front is this MSI GTX 560 Ti 2GB which is currently on weekly deal (offer ends later today).

For either of these cards, a Antec 520W HCG will be fine.

As for overclocking, may I ask what motherboard make and model number you are using?
If it is a good one then it is very possibley to overclocks you G0 Q6600 to 3.5GHz - so long as you invest in a new CPU cooler like this. If you are interested in going down this route, may I also ask what case you are using - so we can recommend CPU cooler that will definitely fit.
 
Yes, upgrading the graphics card to something like a HD 6950 2GB is a very good idea. You will get a massive performance increase in games, including BF3. Another good option on the GPU front is this MSI GTX 560 Ti 2GB which is currently on weekly deal (offer ends later today).

For either of these cards, a Antec 520W HCG will be fine.

As for overclocking, may I ask what motherboard make and model number you are using?
If it is a good one then it is very possibley to overclocks you G0 Q6600 to 3.5GHz - so long as you invest in a new CPU cooler like this. If you are interested in going down this route, may I also ask what case you are using - so we can recommend CPU cooler that will definitely fit.

My motherboard is a Abit IP35V, I honestly can't remember if I bought a seperate heatsink/cooler when I built it a few years ago, I think I may just have the stock one on.

I am not looking to overclock it to something silly, 3ghz would be great. I know you have to change the bus speed, but I am very unsure of what else you need to change in order to get it to work.

At the moment, my temps on the CPU are around 31/32C when idle.
 
The Abit IP35 is a pretty nice board, if you hunt around there should be quite a few overclocking guides for it. 3GHz should be very much attainable - possibly even with the stock cooler.
 
You should easily be able to attain 3GHz with your current mainboard and like cmndr_andi mentioned you may even get away with just using the stock heatsink. For starters bump the FSB up to 333MHz (333x9=2997MHz) for a 3GHz overclock, it may do it on stock voltages depending how good your chip is. If you're getting instability and/or BSODs try a small CPU voltage increase to 1.325v - 1.350v. I doubt you'd have to mess around with any of the speedstep/C1E settings for such a small OC :)

EDIT: What RAM are you using and how many sticks? Make sure the RAM has the correct voltage going through it too, Will more than likely be around 2.0-2.1v if it's half decent stuff but you may have to manually set this.
 
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EDIT: What RAM are you using and how many sticks? Make sure the RAM has the correct voltage going through it too, Will more than likely be around 2.0-2.1v if it's half decent stuff but you may have to manually set this.

How do I figure out the correct voltage?

CPU-Z has my ram listed as two 2GB DDR2 PC2-6400 (400MHZ) CORSAIR. It lists the voltage at 1.8v.

The ram settings confuse me with overclocking, anyone care to explain. I get you need to increase the bus speed and possible give it some more juice bu I have no idea when it comes to the ram.
 
OVerclock the CPU first, find what you can get stable, honestly with a decent cooler its the exceptional Q6600 that DOESN'T hit at least 3.3Ghz. At 2.4Ghz a lot of games will be cpu limited, at 3.3Ghz, you'll get past the required single thread performance required in the vast majority of games around at the moment and most newer games are better coded for using more cores more effectively. When "multithreaded" games started it was almost always one single heavy thread and lots of little ones, these days they are coded better and split more evenly so a Q6600 could last for a while yet in gaming.

If you can overclock and are comftable doing so, frankly anything short of xfire/sli setup would be fine on that CPU. 6950's are good value, but new AMD stuff due beginning of December could mean anything from 70-80% more performance at the same price point, to slashed prices on cards like 6870/6950/6970's and maybe 560ti's/570gtx's.

If you can hold out till then you'd get FAR better value for your money, no matter how much you spend frankly.

If not, a good shorter term option would be a second hand card, 460gtx, 5850, 6850/70 if there are good prices on them, so spend £60-100 now on a second hand card, and look into a slightly more powerful card maybe in a couple months, or when you build a new system further down the line.

Its been a while since I played with memory on an older intel platform, IIRC, you've basically got an fsb/memory divider. Essentially you have the fsb of the chip and to overclock you up the fsb, the intel platform will go stupid high from stock with no problem, but memory is also linked to fsb, as stock its probably say 200fsb/800mhz memory speed, so it will be a 1/4 divider, so if you whack the FSB up to 300Mhz to overclock the cpu, then the memory would 1/4, but at 1200Mhz, and something your memory almost certainly couldn't do. SO there should be a memory divider, it usually lists it as say 400/533/800/1066 as options, so with the higher fsb you select the lower option to bring the memory speed down. To make it easy to start off with, don't try and overclock the memory, either find an fsb/divider that lets the memory stay at 800Mhz, or get it as close as possible.

Its been FAR to long for me to be familiar with ddr2 memory voltage/safe settings for specific mem, but I'd be highly surprised if anything up to 2v was remotely problematic for it, I seem to remember the fastest ddr2 would use in the range of 2.1-2.4v, 2.1v being fairly safe IIRC and 2.4v being in the realm of crazy overclocking memory that maybe wouldn't last long.
 
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Thanks for all the help and replies it's been appreciated. I think I may sit tight and wait until the new range of cards come out and see whats what.

However I am not against paying $100 (I'm in the USA atm) on a 2nd hand card that will boost my performance to respectable standards on BF3. I normally run at 1920x1024 but I have no issue knocking that down to 1600 or something if I can get some playable performance.

At the moment when I run BF3 with my current setup it stutters when say a explosion happens or if I die and respawn elsewhere, almost as if it has to stop to load textures of something.

So out of the cards mentioned (460gtx, 5850, 6850/70) what would offer the best value for me do you think?
 
It really ultimately come down to who is selling what that week. A 5850 is a GREAT card because its the most underclocked of all those cards listed, so many overclock very very well, I think they are 725Mhz stock and many do 900-950Mhz with the stock sink, mine did 1050 easily, silently with a 3rd party cooler which was awesome.

All those cards listed are good and offer fairly similar levels of performance, though you're probably looking at 6870>5850>6850>460gtx in terms of performance. So if you find a 460 and a 6870 for £80 or something, I'd go 6870.

Definately second hand could be a way to tide you over for a couple months. You'd likely be better off with higher res and dropping off some of the more intensive options to be honest, I have a hard time thinking a 6870/5850 won't give you really very decent performance with pretty high quality settings, just not absolutely maxed out.
 
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