Will my 4870 be a bottleneck?

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27 Oct 2010
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Im buying a new pc,
amd phenom x4 3.2(OC to 3.5-4.0)
4 gig ram
600w
and Im going to transfer my ati 4870 512 ram to the new comp but Im just wondering if it be too weak for newer games but I think it should be fine and not be a hinderence for a while, seeming most new games dont really require more than a 8800gt(my card is about another generation better afiak) and I will have a good cpu. What you think?

Also does playing the game at a "HD" ress make a big difference in quality or is it just a bit sharper?
 
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i personally would upgrade from the 4870 with that system. I would at least have a 4890 in there. I would sell your 4870 and purchase yourself a gtx 460 card. Excellent bang for buck at present
 
I just upgraded from a HD4870 512mb myself and have seen a huge increase. However, it depends on what resolution your planning to play at. I upgraded to a 24" monitor a few days before changing my GFX and that triggered the change really. I could have coped with my HD4870 for a small while longer, but I just wanted to play my games at 1080p as smooth as posisble. A good example is Dragon Age. I used to run it at 1680x1050 with full AA and graphics on my HD4870 just fine, but at 1080p I had to drop my AA because in big battles it started to stutter slightly, now it doesnt. So yea, upto you really.
 
You don't *need* a better graphics card, as you can play basically any games on your 4870- although if you're a max-settings junkie you may be a tad disappointed. The thing that might let you down is the 512mb of RAM, as a lot of games are tending towards the 1 gig mark. The 4870 will be your bottleneck though- the graphics card is nearly always the bottleneck in modern games, and I can't see your CPU struggling with anything.

Basically, try it and see. If you have £150-£200 to spare on a graphics card, then the 460, the 5850 and the 5870 are all top choices where you'll see a big improvement on 1900x1020, but if your resolution is lower than that, you won't see such a jump.
 
keep it - it wont be a bottle neck

only if you play at a high res and want all the eye candy and play all the latest games ect
 
keep it - it wont be a bottle neck

only if you play at a high res and want all the eye candy and play all the latest games ect

It's probably worth mentioning that by bottleneck we don't mean "something that slows it so it won't play properly", but "the slowest part of the system". For example, if you had an i7-980X, 12GB of 2000MHz RAM and a 6870, the 6870 would still be the bottleneck for gaming, as it might become a limiting factor at 2560x1600 with max AA settings on something like Crysis. At 1900x1200 it wouldn't struggle at all, but it's still the bottleneck of the system.

It's still true that you can run most games on high settings on the 4870 though.
 
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