Upgrading

[sheep500]

Hi All.

Just sank £300+ into a BFG Nvidia 8800 GTX OC graphics card.
games like Call of duty 2 now run incredibly sweet but I have to tone down MOH:Airbourne and now Crysis, the Graw 2 demo wasnt too sweet either. Is it because the card cant handle it -hope not for the money is cost....or is there a 'bottleneck' on my rig.

My rig is....

Athlon 64 x2 dual core 4400+
10,000rpm hdd
2 gig of corsair ddr pc3200 ram
BFG 8800 gtx oc

I am running on the new Beta Crysis drivers.

Any suggestions on what I can do to tweak??
If not, i'd appreciate what advice you could give me on my next hardware upgrade.

Cheers.

 

[Sean_UK]

Is the 4400+ still at stock speeds? If so then overclock it as the rest is decent enough to do the job. At least 2.75 and maybe even 3ghz if your lucky and should help to some degree. Will need to splash around £20 on aftermarket cooling though.

 

[Tom84]

I agree it's your CPU holding you back, I would suggest getting either a C2D or ideally go quadage

Of course that does mean a mobo upgrade as well

 

[sheep500]

Hi, cpu is overclocked using a program (A64) to 2306mhz.
Memory timings also oc'd. Currently running at 2-2-3-7.
It was an Sli system bought from scan a couple of years back so its quite good for fans etc cooling the insides.
Gutted if I have to spend more to be able to play new games with a decent fps. Too darn expensive these days...thought the 8800 gtx would have solved all the problems. Especially reading the reviews.
By the way, my drivers are 169.01, would it be worth trying .02 just out?

Cheers for the help thus far guys.

 

[mame]

Hi, cpu is overclocked using a program (A64) to 2306mhz.
Memory timings also oc'd. Currently running at 2-2-3-7.
It was an Sli system bought from scan a couple of years back so its quite good for fans etc cooling the insides.
Gutted if I have to spend more to be able to play new games with a decent fps. Too darn expensive these days...thought the 8800 gtx would have solved all the problems. Especially reading the reviews.

The ONLY way to overclock is using the BIOS. If you don't know how to do this then just google it. That game runs fine for me on a x2 3800+ and x1950pro. I actually want it not to run fine so i can justify an upgrade but the thing is, it runs great!

You cannot 'overclock' memory timings. You can tighten or loosen them according to the rest of your systems OC. This is usually the final thing you would do when overclocking.

 

[sheep500]

I remembered that that program doesnt do it for you, just simulates it. It was the bios I altered, I simply set it to 5% overclock, it goes up to 15%.

Cheers

 

[Sean_UK]

Thing is, your cpu is more than able to hit 2.75ghz, maybe even 3ghz if your lucky and you should notice the gains from doing so. See pic from an old 939 unit of mine below, going from 2.4 to 3Ghz made a diff gaming wise for me. Learning how to overclock is not hard at all, read, ask questions if you will (after reading basics) and im sure people will assist you further once you read up on the basics.

 

[sheep500]

Thanks mate, will try push more out of it.
I also have an issue with my NForce 4 drivers. A few months back I formatted and when I put the latest Nforce mobo drivers on all my games stuttered even though the frame rates were high. I am currently on an earlier nforce version as I have no stuttering, Im wondering if I need to put the latest ones back on to help......damn u Nvidia (becoming as annoying as EA...thats bad)