worth upgrading video w/ Core2 Duo?

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drbenjamin

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Aug 2, 2007
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Guys
Been out of gaming for a while, but would like to get back in w/ games like Mordor and Far Cry 4. I have an older Core2 Duo (E7300) with a GTX260 that can't play DX11. Is it worth a video card upgrade for this system or will I be held back by the CPU? If worthwhile, what card would you recommend? I"ve been using nVidia since the Riva128 so that's why I'm posting here :)
 
worthless path.. you need to upgrade your entire system.. anything above a GTX 650TI will be bottlenecked seriously by your CPU.. I have a GTX 560 paired with a E8400@4ghz and its bottleneck severely in any recent game (Thanks god she only play web games and sims3.=D)
 
I'm doing pretty good with a x3360, 8gb ram and r9 290 in high or ultra settings.

And since you can get used amd cards for dirt cheap right now, why not? Go for it.
 
you need to upgrade everything. an e7300 will drag you into the 30s, if not lower, in new games.
 
That dual core isn't going to cut it anymore. You won't be getting good frame rates with that CPU regardless of what card you use. If you wish to play newer titles, it's best that you invest in a new system.

If you're on a tight budget, you could consider getting used parts. Take a look at the Trade section, you may find some combo deals that suit your budget. Any decent 4-core CPU would be a huge upgrade for you.
 
Look towards upgrading your CPU to a G3258(OC)/2500K/3570K/4670K/4690K (whatever you can find for a good price new or used).

After the CPU upgrade you'll want to come back and let us know your budget for a GPU. If budget isn't that big of a deal... GTX 970. (A GTX 970 comes with Far Cry 4 as a free bonus)
 
I just upgraded to an r9 285 in my 7 year old c2d. Couldn't be happier. Playing everything. In the middle of Shadows of mordor. Works great, lots of eye candy.
 
While tested with an e6400 rather than an e7300, Anandtech big gaming CPU comaprison indicates that it will be a bottleneck. Almost any CPU you can purchase now will be an upgrade, and if you're only using a single GPU than pretty much any CPU will perform within a few percentage points of each other.
 
EdZ said:
While tested with an e6400 rather than an e7300, Anandtech big gaming CPU comaprison indicates that it will be a bottleneck. Almost any CPU you can purchase now will be an upgrade, and if you're only using a single GPU than pretty much any CPU will perform within a few percentage points of each other.
Click to expand...

and now a game that actually utilizes the cpu, at a resolution that op is actually going to play at

http://i.imgur.com/eUEU8XF.jpg

and any gpu over $200 can put out numbers better than that. big, big bottleneck.
 
I was in a similar situation running an E8400 + HD4890 and made the jump to to an i5-4690K + 970 and am quite happy with it.
 
I saw a i7 920/930 in the FS thread here on [H] for $50 bucks, that might be something to look into and board to match ofc.
 
nope. they did both. notice the one i linked does not say 'alpha.' and your bit-tech link did not benchmark using multiplayer, so it's both useless and irrelevant. bf4, out of all games, scales the MOST with cores and frequency.
 
Thanks all for the helpful replies and for confirming my fears that I need to upgrade the whole system. It's not just the $$, it's sorting through all the new motherboards/cpus! Way more complicated than it was back in the days of the celeron 300! :)

thanks again
 
drbenjamin said:
Thanks all for the helpful replies and for confirming my fears that I need to upgrade the whole system. It's not just the $$, it's sorting through all the new motherboards/cpus! Way more complicated than it was back in the days of the celeron 300! :)

thanks again
Click to expand...

Try using pcpartpicker. It makes the process of finding good deals and warning you of compatibility issues much simpler and faster.
 
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