Need an upgrade for Dragon Age...

T

Tzzird

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
May 9, 2006
Messages
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With this highly anticipated game coming out in almost a week, I feel that my 3 year old system (in sig) is going to need a little upgrade. My 8800gts 320mb has served me well over the last few years, but it started to feel its age when I upgraded from a 22" to a 24" with the 19x12 resolution setup.

I find that I have to lower my resolution to 16x10 and sometimes even 13x8 for certain games. Just today I downloaded the Risen demo and had to do that to get a recent framerate.

Haven't been to the video card subforum for quite some time, but it seems like the 5850 is the talk of the town now. Unfortunately, these are all sold out at the egg. With my Corsair 520, what are my best alternatives? Should I just wait until they're in stock again?
 
Corsair 520 will be more than enough for any single card out there right now

If you're at 22" thinking of going to 24", the 5850 is definitely the price/performance king right now but if you can't wait and/or have a little more money to spend, a 5870 will do nicely for a 24" as well
 
If you can find a 4870x2 used for $200 or less then speaking from experience that will blow through just about anything at 19x12. If you're dead set on DX11 though I'd wait for a deal on a 5850, 70, or x2 when they come out later this year.
 
From what I remembered, a 4870x2 recommends at least 550 watts. Is that true?

I wouldn't imagine the 4870x2 to be much cheaper than the 5850's $260 price.
 
Risen is really harsh on my system. Not sure how much is CPU and how much is my gtx 260, but at 1920x1080 I have to really turn down the eye candy. If Dragon Age is similar, your going to need a significantly stronger card than a gtx 260, so I would say 5850 is your best bet.
 
The recommended specs from Bioware call for an ATI 3850 512mb or greater or a Nvidia 8800GTS 512mb or greater. I think a gtx 260 is more than adequate.
 
Wait for some Dragon Age forum or review information and make a decision then. Not long to wait, and will avoid wasting money.
 
I wouldn't buy anything less than a 5850 if I were matching it with a 19x12 monitor.
 
I don't think the 2GB of ram is going to do you any favors either, especially with vista and new, more demanding games.
 
If you need something now how about the GTX 285? Better than the 5850 on some games but of course it costs $60 more.

A little more budget oriented, the 4890 is going for $190 shipped right now. Very powerful card. Wont let you crank up to max graphics on Crysis at 19x12 but should be easily playable and smooth without AA and graphics set to high.
 
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