Upgrade help...

[Countcussy]

My current system is in my sig.

I am aware that my system is starting to get a little on the old side, but I am not ready for another re-build just yet. Been looking at the GTX460 as a cost effective way of squeezing more life out of my system but I am a little concerned that:

1. My CPU will negate the gfx upgrade.
2. My 520w Corsair may be a bit small.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Vince]

Your good on the PSU front, at least to squeeze a little more out of that rig. I am currently running an overclocked 5850 (1000/1250) and q6600 @ 3ghz on a 3 year old coolermaster 460 (2x18a 12v).

I think the cpu will be holding things back a little so it might be worth keeping an eye out for a second hand q6***, q9*** to breath a few more years into it.

 

[cmndr_andi]

Hi there,

Your PSU looks great - as stated above it will be fine with a good single-GPU graphics card and a quad core.

The GTX 460 is a good choice, very fast and comes in at a great price.

Upgrading to a second-hand Q6600 should cost your around £80 and would be an excellent upgrade since more and more games are now using more than 2 cores. As you would obviously wanting to overclock, you would definitely want to go for a G0 stepping (spec code: SLACR) as they use less power, are cooler and overclock much better than the B3 stepping (spec code:SL9UM). Your motherboard will be A-OK with a Q6600.

 

[Marine-RX179]

Your PSU looks great - as stated above it will be fine with a good single-GPU graphics card and a quad core.

The GTX 460 is a good choice, very fast and comes in at a great price.

Upgrading to a second-hand Q6600 should cost your around £80 and would be an excellent upgrade since more and more games are now using more than 2 cores. As you would obviously wanting to overclock, you would definitely want to go for a G0 stepping (spec code: SLACR) as they use less power, are cooler and overclock much better than the B3 stepping (spec code:SL9UM). Your motherboard will be A-OK with a Q6600.

^This. Exactly what I was gonna recommend.

 

[Freddie1980]

The CPU isn't that bad at 2.8Ghz, dual core on Conroe isn't going to hold him back that much (if at all expect for games like GTA IV) however I would be carefall about how much you spending on the video card as in a year or 18 months time you really ought to be looking at a full system upgrade.

I would say a Geforce GTX460 768mb (1Gb is quicker but do you really want to spend all that money?) or the Radeon HD5770 1Gb would give your PC a new lease of life until such time you decide to do a full upgrade. The PSU is fine BTW.

 

[subbytna]

depends on the OP's screen size for gaming

 

[Countcussy]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Thats good news. I was looking at the 768mb version to keep the cost down anyway, as I will probably give this whole system to my dad in 18 months time. Just needed to make the sure the 460 was not money wasted, even if I keep my current CPU. I am not a huge gamer, but Dirt2 and F1 2010 could really do with a bit more horsepower.

I never intended to hook the 8800GT to a 24" monitor originally. It continues to surprise me.

 

[Marine-RX179]

The CPU isn't that bad at 2.8Ghz, dual core on Conroe isn't going to hold him back that much (if at all expect for games like GTA IV) however I would be carefall about how much you spending on the video card as in a year or 18 months time you really ought to be looking at a full system upgrade.

If he buys a Q6600 2nd hand for £70-£80 now, he would most likely can still sell it for at least £50-£60 in 2~3 years time or at his next upgrade. So paying £20 for "renting" a Q6600 to use for 2~3 years time is not bad at all.

And the 2.8GHz dual-core WILL bottleneck a GTX460 1GB (especially of it's overclock to close to GTX470 speed). There was a thread which someone had a 2.9GHz dual-core pairing with a GTX470 getting a lower score (around 2900) than my Q6600 3.0GHz with a 9800GTX+ 512MB (around 3400) and my friend's Phenom II 555BE at 3.20GHz (unlocked to Quad) with a 4890 (around 3600) running the FFXIV bench on low. He confirmed almost all the moments during the bench which the frame rate dropped like hell was during the time when his CPU usage was at 100%, and I also re-ran the bench and determined that for my Q6600 at 3.0GHz, the CPU usage during the bench was minimum around 35%, average 52-58%, max around 68-72%. And that pretty much ended with the conclusion that the dual-core was definitely holding back the graphic card.

 

[Vince]

If he buys a Q6600 2nd hand for £70-£80 now, he would most likely can still sell it for at least £50-£60 in 2~3 years time or at his next upgrade. So paying £20 for "renting" a Q6600 to use for 2~3 years time is not bad at all.

And the 2.8GHz dual-core WILL bottleneck a GTX460 1GB (especially of it's overclock to close to GTX470 speed). There was a thread which someone had a 2.9GHz dual-core pairing with a GTX470 getting a lower score (around 2900) than my Q6600 3.0GHz with a 9800GTX+ 512MB (around 3400) and my friend's Phenom II 555BE at 3.20GHz (unlocked to Quad) with a 4890 (around 3600) running the FFXIV bench on low. He confirmed almost all the moments during the bench which the frame rate dropped like hell was during the time when his CPU usage was at 100%, and I also re-ran the bench and determined that for my Q6600 at 3.0GHz, the CPU usage during the bench was minimum around 35%, average 52-58%, max around 68-72%. And that pretty much ended with the conclusion that the dual-core was definitely holding back the graphic card.

To an extent the chip will bottleneck and you make a good point about the second hand quad, one good thing about being cpu bound is that you will be able to turn up the details without any framerate hit so effectively free aa and af while you are still cpu bound.


Providing your cpu can deliver 30 - 60 fps in the titles you play you will still get the same but with a much higher level of detail by changing the gfx. As others have said though worst case senario is spending a few quid on a 775 quad.

Also marine what bench was that as some benches that are very gpu heavy will show bearly any diffence between different subsystems using the same gpu.

depends on the OP's screen size for gaming

Ops sig says screen is a 24" lcd so 90% its going to be 1920x1080.

 

[Countcussy]

LOL

I am one of the 10% at 1920 X 1200

I was aware that that my card may struggle as soon as i got the monitor. It scales well enough that I am happy to play at 1680 X 1050. Just be nice to turn some details up.

 

[Marine-RX179]

LOL

I am one of the 10% at 1920 X 1200

I was aware that that my card may struggle as soon as i got the monitor. It scales well enough that I am happy to play at 1680 X 1050. Just be nice to turn some details up.

5850 should be fine for 1920x1200 even with 4xAA for most games (except odd ones like Crysis and Metro2033). If anything, your CPU would be a greater limitation in game scenes that are more CPU demanding than graphic intense.

 

[Vince]

LOL

I am one of the 10% at 1920 X 1200

I was aware that that my card may struggle as soon as i got the monitor. It scales well enough that I am happy to play at 1680 X 1050. Just be nice to turn some details up.

There is always one isn't there .... but yea 5850 is a very capable card right up to silly resolutions.

This is my normal process at 1920x1080.

1)Install game
2)Turn Settings to max
3)Play & enjoy.

 

[Countcussy]

Thanks again for all the help. It really is appreciated.