Would a £250 GFX card be overkill on this system?

Goose

Goose

Goose

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I've been out of the loop for a couple of years with all things hardware related and i'm thinking of upgrading since the latest FPS games are a bit poo on my current system (see sig).

I was wondering if buying a new GFX card like a Nvidia 470 would be overkill if i left everything else as it is. Would a 470 only be worth the money if I upgraded my CPU and ram as well? My CPU isn't overclocked (never OC'd anything before) but i have a pretty decent case with good cooling potential so it's something i could look into.

I'm worried my RAM wont be up to the task of OC'ing though since it only cost about £40 when new over 18 months ago.

Anyhoo, any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
You should be fine dropping a 470, most games still only use 2 cores, its becoming more prevalent for them to start using 3 and 4 but most still only use 2, the E8400 is still a cracking chip for gaming and its stock speed is pretty good to, you should still be able to manage a mild OC though if you want, without having to change the RAM, read the stickie in the OCing & cooling subforum
 
Already seen a few examples where 3.0GHz dual-core will bottleneck a GTX470.

Is your E8400 at stock speed or overclocked? If not overclocked, do you think you can overclock it to 3.6GHz+ on your motherboard (if you have a reasonable CPU cooler, not stock)?

If you can reach 3.6GHz+, then you should be fine with the GTX470 (but would probably still bottleneck in games like BFBC2)...if only around 3.5GHz or lower, then the lesser card like a GTX460 1GB or the 6850 that's gonna be released would probably suit you better.
 
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Really? Cant be many examples, Anandtechs granted limited comparison show the e8400 holding its own against the i5 still in all but FC2, and this is at minimal gfx res/settings, crank up the gfx and the difference is even less (less than 1fps, lol)
 
95thrifles said:
Really? Cant be many examples, Anandtechs granted limited comparison show the e8400 holding its own against the i5 still in all but FC2, and this is at minimal gfx res/settings, crank up the gfx and the difference is even less (less than 1fps, lol)
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Em...I think the 3 of the 4 games in the Anandtechs comparisons are NOT written to support the use of more than two cores...in fact, almost all games that pre-date the release of Windows 7 don't. The reason for the huge difference between the Fry Cry 2 results is probably because it does use the extra cores, and not to mention i5 750's architecture is much faster than the E8400.

Found this about Far Cry 2:
http://www.xcpus.com/reviews/121-Far-Cry-2-Single-to-Quad-Core-Scaling-Page-3.aspx
 
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I've never OC'd but i'd be willing to give it a go. I have an Arctic Freezer Pro at the moment so i guess i'd be better off getting something better.

Would buying a Q6600 second hand make any sense in regards to pairing it with a 470?
 
Goose said:
I've never OC'd but i'd be willing to give it a go. I have an Arctic Freezer Pro at the moment so i guess i'd be better off getting something better.

Would buying a Q6600 second hand make any sense in regards to pairing it with a 470?
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Arctic Freezer Pro 7 would be perfectly fine for overclocking the E8400 to 4.0GHz+, since it is only a 45nm dual-core.

If you had some older slower dual-core, I'd probably recommend you get a 2nd hand Q6600, but since you got a top range dual-core, AND a reasonably decent cooler, I say you should have a go on overclocking it to see how high you can go. P43 board should be not too bad for overclocking core2duo, can't say the same for Quad though XD
 
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Thats good to know. Any advice on my motherboard? I've never updated the BIOS and have no idea if doing so would yield better OC'ing results.
 
Goose said:
Thats good to know. Any advice on my motherboard? I've never updated the BIOS and have no idea if doing so would yield better OC'ing results.
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You don't have to update the bios if you don't want to, and it wouldn't have huge impact on the performance, unless your current bios version has serious problems that is affecting the motherboard (which is unlikely).

You could start a new topic...titled something like "Need help overclocking E8400" and list the full spec of your system, then I think people will come and give you advise on what to do.
 
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Im a noob when its comes to overclocking but managed to get my e8400 upto 3.6ghz on the stock cooler when i had mine, i gave it to a freind a year ago and he's never had a problem with it (kiss of death im sure)
 
Marine-RX179 said:
Arctic Freezer Pro 7 would be perfectly fine for overclocking the E8400 to 4.0GHz+
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If he wants to burn the chip yes.

AC7 is lowest end cooler, 4ghz+ is high OC.

I'd say 3.7-3.8 tops on that cooler if you want to keep temps in safe range.

But still E8400 at 3.6-3.8 is nowhere slow, should be just fine, however I'll hold with the GPU purchase just yet.
 
PhoenixUK said:
If he wants to burn the chip yes.

AC7 is lowest end cooler, 4ghz+ is high OC.

I'd say 3.7-3.8 tops on that cooler if you want to keep temps in safe range.

But still E8400 at 3.6-3.8 is nowhere slow, should be just fine, however I'll hold with the GPU purchase just yet.
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Is that your 'opinion' or is that 'facts' from review or experience? It is dual-core not a Quad core or the i5/i7, and it's not gonna burn the chip unless people are using crazy high vcore. I have another PC a E5200 with AC7 overclocked to 3.8GHz on vcore 1.325v, and in prime it doesn't even go beyond 60C ish.

Yes AC7 is not in the same league as the higher range like Titan Fenrir, Akasa Venom etc, but it is by no mean a poor cooler. If I was overclocking my Q6600 to 3.6~3.8GHz using like 1.5Vcore, then I would definitely looking for better cooler; but for a E8400, which I doubt he would need to raise too much voltage to overclock anyway the AC7 would suffice.

Lowest end cooler? It was one of the better cooler back in the day and many people still using today; in a way it is like the 8800GTX of the CPU cooler rofl. Don't bash unless you know what you are talking about. And you are making it sound like it is the high clock speed that kill the CPU...high clock speed doesn't kill the chip, high temp does.
 
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The E8400 should clock to 3.6 Ghz with out any need to bump voltages up at all. You could get that kind of overclock with the Intel stock cooler no problems nine out of ten times - I say that because remember no two CPU's are the same. But as a rule the E8400 was a easy clocker.

Just let temperature be your guide. Test under load and if you do things in small steps all should be good. As to buying a graphic card - yeah the 470 is a beaut and the prices right now are pretty good for that card. Wish I had the squids for one or even two :D
 
^Agreed.

As long as the vcore is kept at no higher than 1.4V, the temp on a dual-core would be nowhere high enough to kill the chip with a AC7. CPU is a tough ******* to kill (unless physically damage or delibrate overheating it); have a friend with his Pentium 4 3.0GHz Idle temp was like 75C and 90C+ under load. When I opened his PC case, I found the "expected" Intel stock cooler, plus lots of goo like stuffs on the heatsink stucked with tonnes of dust (most likely because he's a smoker). Replace the cooler with a AC7 Rev.2, bought the idle temp down to 45C, load temp down to mid 50C~low 60C .
 
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Just thought i'd bump this thread instead of starting a new one.

I didn't mention in any of my previous posts that my monitor has a native res of 1680x1050 and i wasn't sure if that would make a difference in card choice. Also, my PSU is only 520W and again, i'm not sure if that's enough for a 470.

Would a 460 make more sense (and maybe go SLI in the future) or maybe a 6850/70 ?

Thanks
 
To be honest, a GTX460 1GB or 6850 plus overclocking will handle any game you throw at it at 1680x1050 highest details 4xAA (with the exception to Crysis and Metro2033).

At the moment, both GTX460 1GB and 6850 are at around £150 and they offer pretty much identical performance, but with difference features (Physx, CUDA, Eyefinity etc), but the 6850 does consume less power, whereas the GTX460 1GB the Gigabyte and MSI Cyclone comes with a nice custom cooler, plus a free download vouncher for HAWX 2.

If you can however find a good deal on 6870 or GTX470 at around £180, then it might worth stretching your budget a little and get them instead.
 
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I think the only real reason to look at cards like 6870 and 470 instead of their 6850 and 460 counterparts would be if you were either looking to upgrade your monitor or that you would want to take the card with you should you migrate systems and game on a higher resolution in the future.

For your current needs, the latter cards will perform brilliantly.
 
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