Where will I find a bottleneck?

[Lamus]

Hi,
This is a reasonably vague question, but I would like to know approximately what graphics card (nvidia) I can go to with the following setup, before I am no longer properly utilizing the cards potential (i.e. wasting my bucks.)

MB - ASUS P5B-VM
RAM - Corsair DDR2 XMS2 5400 @ 2x512 @ 675MHz @ 4-4-4-12.
CPU - Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 1.86GHz (1066FSB)
PSU - Enermax Noisetaker 370W EG375AX-VE(G) SFMA

Please take note this setup is already in existence, so no telling me to replace mobo or anything like that X)

And reasonably good cooling is in place, so some overclocking can be done, although I have relatively minimal experience, little bit of dabbling here and there.

Tell me what you think... thanks in advance
Lamus

 

[Madwelsh]

Hmm I think if anything will effect your choice of g card, it's probably your psu. Be careful when choosing one that the psu can meet the gards requirements.

 

[Yellowbeard]

Hmm I think if anything will effect your choice of g card, it's probably your psu. Be careful when choosing one that the psu can meet the gards requirements.

Agreed. Now is a good time to buy a 7900 series card if you don't want to plan ahead for DX10 compatibility. I "think" you should probably have a lookk at a 7900GS card but, as suggested above, look over the power requirements before you buy. IIRC, the GS cards pull about 65-75w.

 

[Lamus]

Yeah, I have no qualms about upgrading PSU to fit a new card, but my main question was based around the speed and quality of my other components, I've seen people upgrade in the past to expensive cards with old/shabby rigs from a 5600 or something, and seen basically no performance gain from it.

My question is where am I going to stop seeing an FPS increase, or a viable FPS increase from high end cards?

 

[1mm3]

Depends on:

what resolution and settings you game at

which games you play

Edit: dont know why i bother sometimes

And yes your 8800gtx will be bottlenecked whilst playing minesweeper on that rig

 

[Arge]

Agreed. Now is a good time to buy a 7900 series card if you don't want to plan ahead for DX10 compatibility.

Yellowbeard (or anyone who knows!). why do you say a 7900 card is a good buy if you dont want to plan for dx10 ?

Surely if you get the latest motherboard (680i for example) then you can just upgrade from a 7series to an 8 series gpu when the prices fall/more funds available etc. ?

I ask this as this is what i had in mind for my christmas purchase with the 8 series as an upgrade path in a year or so.

Arge

 

[Lamus]

Depends on:

what resolution and settings you game at

which games you play

What relevence does what I use my graphics card for have to the question? Gaming is the answer. Im not asking what graphics card shall I get for my needs, I'm asking whats the best graphics card I can get before it is bottlenecked by the rest of my system :\

 

[Mon]

What relevence does what I use my graphics card for have to the question? Gaming is the answer. Im not asking what graphics card shall I get for my needs, I'm asking whats the best graphics card I can get before it is bottlenecked by the rest of my system :\

because if you play your games at 640 * 480 then their is probly no point in upgrading

 

[Yellowbeard]

Yellowbeard (or anyone who knows!). why do you say a 7900 card is a good buy if you dont want to plan for dx10 ?
Arge

Because 7xxx series cards are not DX10 compatible.

Lamus, your current system will feed just about any single card made and probably most 7xxx SLI setups. It will do GREAT with any card you buy though and I would not see to much potential bottleneck. It depends on how much you want to OC and how much you want to spend on a card.

 

[Lamus]

OK Thanks a lot for the reply, answers my question nicely. And Mon, I'm no crazy fool, I wouldnt ask questions about whats the best graphics card my system can handle if I was interested in playing at min textures @ 640 now would I?

On another note, between these two, the memory size of the graphics card makes no difference in performance right? Unless the game running uses up more than 256MB or whatever?

EVGA GeForce 7900 GT 256MB GDDR3 HDTV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
- GeForce 7900 GT Core running at 450MHz
- 256MB GDDR3 Extreme Memory running at 1320MHz giving upto 45.4GB/second bandwidth
- 24 Pixel Pipelines

EVGA GeForce 7950 GT KO Superclocked 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
- GeForce 7950 GT core running at 560MHz
- 512MB GDDR3 Memory running at 1450MHz
- 24 Pixel Pipelines

Between these, if I clocked the 256MB one up, these should be basically equal cards except the memory size? What do you think, and what do you suggest for cooling also, retail adequate or not?

Thanks in advance again

Edit:

This looks pretty interesting also..
OcUK Galaxy GeForce 7950 GT OC SILENT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/HDCP/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-OK)

- GeForce 7950 GT core running at 565MHz
- 512MB GDDR3 Memory running at 1430MHz
- 24 Pixel Pipelines