upgrade help :S

ajcollins2 · 2 May 2009 at 12:37

I am looking at a new graphics card but am stuck on which to get either the :-
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2048MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI
or
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4890 1024MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI

mind you i may be barking up the wrong tree with either of these.

basically i run fs9 with quite a lot of the addons available. my Nvidia GeForce 5700 512MB card appears to be struggling quite a bit.
Other specwise i have a dual core pentium 3.4 Ghz processor, 4Gig of RAM windows XP Pro. all that i assume that is slowing it down is the graphics card and maybe the PSU as it is only 500W, gonna slam a 1000W PSU in as part of this next upgrade.

thought i'd better add in that my motherboard is a P5VD2-MX. and does anyone know if an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 3.0GHz 12MB-cache processor would work on this m/board.

Any advice would be most appreciated

Target Aquired. · 2 May 2009 at 13:04

Hello,

Could you post some CPU-Z screen shots?

I am also in the same boat. I'm upgrading to run FS9 at its best. Then later next year when FS developers abandon FS9 I'm going to do minor upgrade and go for FSX.

I think a 4870 X2 might be a bit of an overkill for FS9. ATI cards are a bit weak when It comes to clouds in FS. I would look for Nvidia cards 9800 1GB would be good for FS9 and FSX.

Target Aquired. · 2 May 2009 at 13:14

Also how much are you willing to spend for an upgrade?

Cristian · 2 May 2009 at 13:57

if you're even considering a 4870x2 and a q9650 first thing you need to do is to sell your old pc, or at least the mobo, cpu and vga.
then see how much money and you can start thinking about what to buy.
a 500w psu is gonna be more than enough tho, provided it's a decent brand one.

ajcollins2 · 4 May 2009 at 16:48

lol how do i do CPU-z screen-shots???

siumatfung · 4 May 2009 at 17:17

hold alt and hit print screen then paste it in ms paint, upload the image using photobucket/imageshack/tinypic then paste the forum post code

but yeh budget?

ajcollins2 · 5 May 2009 at 11:55

Forum post code????
i know how to do screen shots but have no idea what CPU-z is lol
lol i feel so dumb

Cristian · 5 May 2009 at 12:35

clicky
http://www.cpuid.com/download/cpuz/cpuz_151_setup.exe
open it, install, then open and take screenshot.
basically gives you info about your cpu.

ajcollins2 · 5 May 2009 at 22:02

Is this what you mean?

Cristian · 5 May 2009 at 23:01

yep.
now gives us a budget and we'll sort something for you.
no point in upgrading the vga card with your cpu and mobo.

ajcollins2 · 6 May 2009 at 10:35

well i am thinking that around £1000 for the upgrades. My mobo a bit pants then?

ajcollins2 · 7 May 2009 at 10:28

just as an ammendment my graphics card is actually a GeForce 7900 GS 512mb not the 5700 that i put earlier, god knows where i got that from.

ajcollins2 · 21 May 2009 at 16:34

*OVERCLOCKED* Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 2.66GHz @ 3.20GHz / Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3P Intel P45 Motherboard / Kingston HyperX 4GB 8500C5 DDR2 Bundle

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2048MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail

Corsair TX 750W ATX SLI Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-750TXUK)

How do you guys think that system would stack up?

wbc1 · 21 May 2009 at 16:52

For £1000, you really should aim for an i7 set up.

cmndr_andi · 21 May 2009 at 17:12

If you are thinking of spending that sort of money, here is a solid system. This will be faster than the q9650 and the 4890 is a brilliant graphics card.

user1453 · 21 May 2009 at 17:16

install win 7 RC 64 bit and then buy win 7 when it is released, with this much ram, win xp just doesn't cut it, You can also throw in anothe r 4890 for additional gfx performance.

HDD's are include for putting into a raid 0 array, I'd guess that if you are on a pentium d, your hdds are going to need updating too

ajcollins2 · 21 May 2009 at 20:26

i do have a RAID HDD atm but not to sure if it is RAID 1 or 2 lol, and do i need a new case for the different mobo or should mine be ok?

cmndr_andi · 21 May 2009 at 20:32

The motherboards are all ATX - so they should fit in you old case fine. However, the coolers above are pretty large and may have trouble fitting into thinner cases, what is the case you are using?

user1453 · 21 May 2009 at 20:37

I'd be suprosed if you had raid 2 see this, it's not commonly used. Can you run a hdd benchmarking tool to check the read/write perform,ance of your array?

ajcollins2 · 22 May 2009 at 20:13

sorry i am a bit of a noobie to all this kinda thing, well quite a few years behind would be more accurate lol. how do i do a HDD benchmark? :S
As for the case it is from ************.co.uk and is called The Stylish Sigma Case
425mm x 190mm x 470mm 3 x 5.25 bays | 2 x 3.5 bays | 3 HDD bays 2 front USB ports | Front Headphone and MIC Intel approved cooling vent | Easy access clips | Excellent airflow for cooling.
On the rear the case has a slot for a 120mm cooling fan, and the side of the case has an industry standard Intel TAC 1.1 approved air duct in additon to the cooling vents