Considering upgrade.

[Trashman]

My co-worker was having problems with his MSI RX3870 OC, so I swapped him for my 8800 GTS 320 and some cash. I was planning on upgrading soon anyway, and am leaning towards the 4870 1 GB on special at newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150394

My current specs are:
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R
Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 @ 2.13 Ghz (stock)
4 GB Patriot DDR2 800
Corsair HX 520

My question is, with my current rig, how much of a performance increase can I expect to see by moving to the 4870 and will I have to OC the CPU? Will I have enough power to run the rig under load if I do OC?

 

[kirbyrj]

I made a similar upgrade and I saw a big jump in performance. I couldn't get COD:WAW to play at anything more than say 1280x720 with my 8800GTS, but the 4870 would play it fine at 1920x1200. I think you'd be fine powering that card and doing some OCing with that power supply. I'd think you could probably push that combo close to 3ghz.

 

[Coaxial]

The 4870 is a great card. But yes, your CPU will hinder you *a little*.

Todays cards are very fast, once you hit 3.4ghz or so the CPU stops holding the card back. I'm not saying you need to be at 3.4 to notice a difference in performance as you'll likely notice it right away; but I'd say try to hit 3ghz as the above poster said and you'll see some very nice improvements.

 

[kirbyrj]

3Ghz is pretty reasonable with C2D's. You can shoot for higher, but you might or might not get that high depending on the cooling, luck of the draw with CPU's, etc. Your PSU shouldn't be the limiting factor though.

FWIW, I had a E6600 and it ran 3Ghz all day, but if I tried to get it to 3.4Ghz, it wouldn't do well. 3.3Ghz was really the top end for it without a lot of voltage. 3Ghz was rock solid with reasonable temps/voltage.