4850 overkill for my setup?

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tronester

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I have a Athlon 64 x2 running at 2.8ghz with 4 gigs of ddr2 pc-6400 memory. Right now I am using a POS Radeon x1300 for graphics, I was going to get a Radeon 4850 to upgrade. For the CPU I have though would that be too overkill? I plan on playing the new Brothers in Arms and Far Cry games, will this setup have enough steam to run them?
 
you might be CPU limited but it will still be a nice upgrade. you didn't mention what resolution your playing at. if your playing at a higher one the cpu speed matters much less. @ 2.8 you should be fine for most games
 
The x1300 might as well be an integrated piece of crap, the 4850 will be unbelievably faster...and if your playing at 1440x900/1680x1050 or higher, you wont be CPU limited. That CPU is perfectly fine.
 
nissanztt90 said:
The x1300 might as well be an integrated piece of crap, the 4850 will be unbelievably faster...and if your playing at 1440x900/1680x1050 or higher, you wont be CPU limited. That CPU is perfectly fine.
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I second that.
 
Thanks for the info guys. Actually I will be running games at 1280x768 (LCD TV) so resolution wont matter. I suppose the 4850 would let me crank AA and AF up pretty high though, right?

This is actually a secondary rig. I have a Core 2 Duo running at 3.2ghz but its motherboard is about to go out for RMA and probably wont be back for awhile. I plan on transferring the 4850 to it once I get it back, I suppose it will match up better.

I just bought the x1300 as a temporary measure because I wasnt playing any games at the time I built the setup (and it was only 19 dollars).
 
At that res you should be able to use 12X or 16X Edge aa, Adaptive AA, 16X AF etc. which will make the graphics look great even at the lower res.
 
At that res you might be cpu limited. You still have a very capable cpu. You wont be bottlenecked very much, if at all. If your actually bottlenecked by the cpu, the game will be running fast enough it wont matter if the cpu is bottlenecking anyway.
 
I'd invest in a new CPU... especially with how cheap they currently are.
 
Lenny_D said:
I'd invest in a new CPU... especially with how cheap they currently are.
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pretty good idea...since hes on a ddr2 platform....just mobo and proc upgrade

whereas if i were to attempt this i would end up with a total overhaul ><
 
tronester said:
Thanks for the info guys. Actually I will be running games at 1280x768 (LCD TV) so resolution wont matter. I suppose the 4850 would let me crank AA and AF up pretty high though, right?

This is actually a secondary rig. I have a Core 2 Duo running at 3.2ghz but its motherboard is about to go out for RMA and probably wont be back for awhile. I plan on transferring the 4850 to it once I get it back, I suppose it will match up better.

I just bought the x1300 as a temporary measure because I wasnt playing any games at the time I built the setup (and it was only 19 dollars).
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at that resolution it will play most anything maxed out. in fact it is overkill unless your playing crysis. in fact if anything your going to need to v-sync it
 
WEll, the 4850 is a few order of a magnitude better than your current one, and your computer will be overwhelmed by the raw performance offered by your new card, which would create a bottleneck. So upgrade your CPU to something slightly faster than that at least.
 
Thanks for the info guys. Actually I will be running games at 1280x768 (LCD TV) so resolution wont matter. I suppose the 4850 would let me crank AA and AF up pretty high though, right?

This is actually a secondary rig. I have a Core 2 Duo running at 3.2ghz but its motherboard is about to go out for RMA and probably wont be back for awhile. I plan on transferring the 4850 to it once I get it back, I suppose it will match up better.

I just bought the x1300 as a temporary measure because I wasnt playing any games at the time I built the setup (and it was only 19 dollars).
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let's see $19 video card vs. $150 video card....... well they say you get what you pay for and by these numbers I'd say so.
 
4850 is probably overkill so answer your question, im sure you know you could upgrade for a pretty low price, but it isnt for everyone. My dad still has the some computer from 2002 >_<
 
faudau said:
let's see $19 video card vs. $150 video card....... well they say you get what you pay for and by these numbers I'd say so.
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Well I know its going to be A LOT better than the x1300 ;)

I ended up buying it from Best Buy, they have a Visiontek for 179 with a free 10 dollar gift card. I bought it from there mostly because I had gift cards I needed to use.

I'll let you guys know how it performs when I get it.
 
Your CPU is fine. Yes they are cheap now, but they will still be as long as AMD is still around. Either one will be good value as one as there is competition. If you can invest in a 22 inch screen for a more luxurious gaming experience!
 
Well I got the card today and installed it. I am able to play Crysis at 1024x768 with all settings on very high, with acceptable framerate, so I am quite happy.
 
Hey theres always old 90nm opterons with 2mbs cache on newegg around $80. If hes got a good am2 mobo a 3.0 oc is guaranteed, right?
 
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