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Matching GPU with my system

S

superkdogg

Gawd
Joined
Oct 14, 2004
Messages
743
I'm still running a s939 system due to having two young kids and a single income family right now.

My Opteron 144 (single core) is running 2.9 Ghz on my A8N32-SLI with 1.5 gigs of ram.

It's about as quick as anything single-core can be, but obviously showing its age.

Obviously, there's the possibility of going SLI if that's the cost-effective thing, but I kinda doubt it.

As of now, I'm thinking 4850, some flavor of 8800 or 9800 GT or ???

Would my platform be able to get most of the performance out of those cards? I've seen some scaling comparisons, but nothing uses modern cards with a CPU as old as mine.
 
with any of those gpus your cpu will prolly hold you back. I would go for like a 3850 512mb or even a 9600gt
 
well, a 3850 would be the way to go and they are cheap too but with a 4850 there is the possibility of turning up the eye candy with some aa/af without a drop in fps (depending on the game)
 
you will do fine with a 4850 but you will be CPU bound. They do have some really good deals in the hot forum on a 9600GSO. if your budget is that tight. I was this same situation a while back (tight budget), and bought a 8800GTX to go with 939 chip and ASUS A8NE motherboard. It was an excellent purchase. And I was able to carry it into my next system. It was mismatched yes but I could run all the eye candy I wanted and everything was more playable. 4850 is around that and a LOT less then what I payed for my 8800GTX. for 140 dollars http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814261027


Also remember that even a low end cheap motherboard and CPU, and memory can be had for 150 dollars that would greatly increase your performance. I built my current box (minus graphics card and 4GB of the ram) for 235 with the after market heat sink. you can do even better getting a new AM2 board and cpu, some are down to 35 dollars
 
I would get this EVGA 9600 GT. It's a dual slot cooling solution, which is nice, and after rebate it's only $80. Also, around Christmas time maybe you can get another one and do SLI or use the EVGA trade up program to go to something bigger. I know SLI or anything bigger would be overkill, but I'm sure at some point in the future you'll upgrade the rest of your system and at least your GPU will be ready for the task.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130360
 
Thanks for all the good advice all.

I'm currently rocking a HD2600XT, and I know the CPU is not holding me back with that one. The upgrade budget is tight because I'm saving for a $1k new build so I don't want to chip away at the savings.
 
superkdogg said:
Thanks for all the good advice all.

I'm currently rocking a HD2600XT, and I know the CPU is not holding me back with that one. The upgrade budget is tight because I'm saving for a $1k new build so I don't want to chip away at the savings.
Click to expand...

then my advice is this, buy the card you want for your new build or wait a until you do it. right now a 4850 would be good and a second one latter with the new build or the Nvidia equivalent. All kinds of options right now.
 
Wait it out until you have that 1K. Time and time again I've thought about how much I've spend on upgrades and how much of a kick ass new computer I'd have if I didn't.
 
Wait it out for the 1k. You could upgrade your entire pc though for under 500 though to something so much better. You dont need an awesome CPU/motherboard/ram what-so-ever....you can get very decent performance platformwise for under 200, and have plenty left for a decent PSU and GPU.


BFG Tech BFGEGTX260896E GeForce GTX 260 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

$45.00 Mail-in Rebate
$284.99

CORSAIR CMPSU-550VX 550W ATX12V V2.2 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Retail

$15.00 Mail-in Rebate
$97.99

Crucial 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model CT2KIT12864AA667 - Retail

$29.99

Intel Pentium E2200 Allendale 2.2GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80557E2200 - Retail

$79.99

GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Item #: N82E16813128337

$84.99

Subtotal: $577.95 - 60 from MIR and thats 517. You can even OC the E2200 a good bit. I am also assuming you have HDDs, opticals drives, and a case to use. Its not quite under 500, but youve got more power than you probably need in several places which could be cut down even further to get it under 500 initially. Anyway you can see the platform upgrade is about 200 as well. This is also just something i threw together real quick, if you shop around and do your research you can probably find some components to better suit your needs.
 
^^^ Is pretty similar to what I'm hoping to build.

My actual wishlist at newegg is about $900, and that includes a new burner, HDD, and a $200 22" widescreen monitor. Otherwise the prices match up pretty well. I had a Q6600 in my build too.

I just thought of another reason to wait too- waiting for a non-nVidia board that supports SLI opens up more possibilities.

Thanks again for the advice
 
I agree, no need to spend $1k on a new build unless you want bragging rights and the highest 3DMark score.

You can always buy something like a 4870/GTX260 now and then keep it when you upgrade. But if you delay the upgrade too long, ATI and Nvidia will have faster and cheaper cards out which would be kind of annoying.

The other option is to simply learn to live with having a slower videocard/CPU for now and then upgrade everything when you can. Some times during our lives, we need to prioritize other things than gaming and computer hardware, which are really just toys.
 
I'm thinking I reached a decision on this.

Here's where I'm leaning, please let me know what you all think....


I'm thinking I'll get either a 8800GT or a 4850 and the monitor as soon as I can come up with the first $350 (currently I have a 12x10 17" 4:3 monitor and my HD2600XT actually does ok without AA/AF on many games).


Either of those can go into the rest of my system when I get it put together, and then paired to have graphics that will be pretty good for another year or two.

Thoughts?
 
I personally wouldn't get anything pricier than a 9600GT on a single core CPU. Remember that getting a bigger/higher res monitor does not put less stress on the CPU, it just simply puts more stress on the GPU, so you'll still be CPU limited pretty severely.

I went from a x1900xtx to a 8800GT and noticed very little improvment, and that was when I was running a X2 4400+ @ 2.6GHz. Once I upgraded to my C2Q, I saw a very noticable difference between the two cards.
 
RamonGTP said:
I personally wouldn't get anything pricier than a 9600GT on a single core CPU. Remember that getting a bigger/higher res monitor does not put less stress on the CPU, it just simply puts more stress on the GPU, so you'll still be CPU limited pretty severely.

I went from a x1900xtx to a 8800GT and noticed very little improvment, and that was when I was running a X2 4400+ @ 2.6GHz. Once I upgraded to my C2Q, I saw a very noticable difference between the two cards.
Click to expand...

I have kicked that around, but ultimately I don't want to mess around selling a 9600GT later on to fund a new card as opposed to stepping up for SLI/Crossfire by simply grabbing a paired card which would be under $100 by that time. Even though I may not benefit from it that much right away, I'm still leaning that way but I do understand the counterpoint.

The only decent data I found was here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-gpu-upgrade,1928.html

I know it's Tom's, and I know comparing a E2160 (1.8) to a 2.9 GHz A64 single-core is totally apples to oranges. That being said, the charts show that @ 1680 x 1050 with eye candy turned up there's often a decent difference between a 9600GT and a 8800GT (20%-40%) even with a 1.8 C2D. Obviously the faster CPU's can get more from a GPU, but there's only a few instances where a 9600GT and fast CPU beats a 8800GT and slow cpu so for me that plus less hassle when I do upgrade my platform makes the cost difference money well spent.

I'm not arguing with the guys giving advice, btw. I'm just explaining my PoV for any future readers in case there are others with a situation like mine. I do appreciate the advice and everybody has given good suggestions.

It's looking like probably Christmas before I get the $$$ together, so by then I can hopefully find a nice 4850 deal for around $100 or $120. Hopefully.
 
superkdogg said:
It's looking like probably Christmas before I get the $$$ together, so by then I can hopefully find a nice 4850 deal for around $100 or $120. Hopefully.
Click to expand...
Hopefully we'll see some great deals on the 4850 on around the "Black Friday".
 
One last update. While shopping around for the best deal in my price range (cheap), I stumbled into a $75 AR 9600GT. That's $35 cheaper than the 8800GT's I found and with OC could perform pretty similar although a bit lower than a stock 8800GT. $75 now and maybe $50 after I upgrade my platform and go SLI???? Yes, please.
 
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