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New Video Card ....... Old Computer

D

Detox11

n00b
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
27
I have an older computer (socket939 motherboard) and currently running an 8800GT card.

Is it possible to upgrade a GTX680? Or will my computer be to old spec wise.

AMD Athlon X2 4600+
Asus A8N-E SLI Deluxe mobo
2GB RAM
EVGA 8800GT

Yes, I do plan to upgrade the entire computer this year, but was thinking of a video card right away.


Thanks
Detox
 
What PSU do you have?

To be honest your CPU would bottleneck the HD 6850. Maybe even HD 6770. So the GTX 680 would be a waste.
 
a gtx680 would never even be 50% utilized with that old cpu. there is no point in getting anything like that until you upgrade everything else. check back after you do that and also mention your res when it comes to time to actually get a new card.
 
I would agree that you would put that GTX 680 in and maybe get 40 or 50% of the performance out of it.. But that should still be leaps ahead of your 8800GT.

Maybe start with a solid state, you can take that with you to your next build to offset costs now.
 
i would just upgrade your computer all at once later on this year, but if you want some extra juice

SSD...then probably a Hyper 212 to overclock the cpu some (both can be reused on the next build)...then maybe get a cheap used 8800GT and another 2 gigs of ddr2 to hold you over until then
 
OK, what about Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.00GHz? I have a P5KC mobo and 4GB of Hyper-X DDR3 RAM. Will my system bottleneck the GTX 680 much?
 
Goodcoin said:
OK, what about Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.00GHz? I have a P5KC mobo and 4GB of Hyper-X DDR3 RAM. Will my system bottleneck the GTX 680 much?
Click to expand...
a gtx680 would still be really held back. you don't buy a $500 gpu if the rest of your system cannot let you actually utilize it. sell all that other stuff and buy a more appropriate platform first instead of just trying to get the fastest gpu out there.

and would you please list the resolution that you are going to play at since that always needs to be known.
 
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cannondale06 said:
a gtx680 would still be really held back. you don't buy a $500 gpu if the rest of your system cannot let you actually utilize it. sell all that other stuff and buy a more appropriate platform first instead of just trying to get the fastest gpu out there.

and would you please list the resolution that you are going to play at since that always needs to be known.
Click to expand...

Resolution is 1920x1200.

I was kinda forced to buy this card. I urgently needed a DisplayPort for calibration purposes and I didn't want to upgrade from GTX 460 just to some video card with a DP, I wanted the upgrade to be worth it. I think GTX 680 is definitely worth it in terms of future investment. I am planning to upgrade the whole system, including the case, in a month or two, so this is just a temporary situation.
 
I put my 6950 into my kid's computer which has an AMD Athlon X2 6400+ and it could not push the GPU over 50%. You might could push a GTX 680 up to 25%, if you're lucky. If you're planning on upgrading the rest later, then, yes, a 680 would be an investment in the future, but a waste today.
 
definitely do a SSD, that will be a major leap, then look for a used 4870 or 5830/5870 they are still around $75-80 which will give you enough to hold over for a while and save for your next build. the GTX 460 has been onsale a bunch of places even a 560/580 you can get, but might not utilize the full potential until that processor and mobo gets replaced.

If you live near a microcenter, you can get a Motherboard at a $40 off discount when purchased with a processor, in some cased the mobo is FREE after MIR.
 
You know, I have heard this a lot- old CPUs etc will bottleneck a video card. However, my experience doesn't jive with that.

I'm using a overclocked (3.8 ghz) E8500. Yes, you read that right- it's a Socket 775. Since it was time to upgrade my entire computer, I bought a 30" HP zr30w (soooo worth it) and a Sapphire Dual-X 7970 OC (for $430- woot!). I have the 7970 overclocked to a regular playing frequency of 1250 on the core and 1650 on the VRAM. And guess what? When I play Skyrim, which is what I mostly play, my video card utilization goes up to 100% sometimes, on both the core AND the VRAM. I have measured this with both GPU-Z and MSI Afterburner, so I don't think I'm getting false readings. The card sure acts like it's working. I should also mention that I am playing at 2560x1600, and I have LOADS of mods- about 150, with a lot of those being graphics improvement mods. I also play with 8x AA, etc.

So how does that stack up with the idea that my CPU is supposed to be totally bottle-necking my high-end GPU? Especially since everyone says that Skyrim is such a CPU intensive game. I'm going to upgrade to a z77 mobo and a 3570k as soon as I find a good deal on them (no MC around here, grrr), but I don't think my fps in Skyrim (which runs at about 55-60 fps) will suddenly double when I put in my new stuff.

Oh, and to top it off, I have 4 GB of DDR2 800 RAM. Lol.

System specs:

30" HP zr30w
Sapphire Dual-X 7970 OC at 1250 on core and 1650 on VRAM
Biostar T-Power i45 socket 775 mobo
E8500 CPU oc to 3.8 Ghz
4 GB of DDR2 RAM
128 GB Pyro SE SSD
shloads of regular HDDs
 
I tried my GTX 570 in my 4ghz i7 860 and in my 4.6ghz i7 2600k. In 1 benchmark it was hitting 105fps average, in the 2600, it hit 148 fps. Not completely equal because of the clock difference, but you get the idea. An AMD cpu would be much slower than either of these. I dont hate on AMD, as you can see in my sig, but they cant hold up performance wise. They are great bang for buck cpu's.
 
mobhill said:
You know, I have heard this a lot- old CPUs etc will bottleneck a video card. However, my experience doesn't jive with that.

I'm using a overclocked (3.8 ghz) E8500. Yes, you read that right- it's a Socket 775. Since it was time to upgrade my entire computer, I bought a 30" HP zr30w (soooo worth it) and a Sapphire Dual-X 7970 OC (for $430- woot!). I have the 7970 overclocked to a regular playing frequency of 1250 on the core and 1650 on the VRAM. And guess what? When I play Skyrim, which is what I mostly play, my video card utilization goes up to 100% sometimes, on both the core AND the VRAM. I have measured this with both GPU-Z and MSI Afterburner, so I don't think I'm getting false readings. The card sure acts like it's working. I should also mention that I am playing at 2560x1600, and I have LOADS of mods- about 150, with a lot of those being graphics improvement mods. I also play with 8x AA, etc.

So how does that stack up with the idea that my CPU is supposed to be totally bottle-necking my high-end GPU? Especially since everyone says that Skyrim is such a CPU intensive game. I'm going to upgrade to a z77 mobo and a 3570k as soon as I find a good deal on them (no MC around here, grrr), but I don't think my fps in Skyrim (which runs at about 55-60 fps) will suddenly double when I put in my new stuff.

Oh, and to top it off, I have 4 GB of DDR2 800 RAM. Lol.

System specs:

30" HP zr30w
Sapphire Dual-X 7970 OC at 1250 on core and 1650 on VRAM
Biostar T-Power i45 socket 775 mobo
E8500 CPU oc to 3.8 Ghz
4 GB of DDR2 RAM
128 GB Pyro SE SSD
shloads of regular HDDs
Click to expand...
so you have a $500 video card and $1000 monitor but cant get a new cpu/mobo/ram? sure at 2560x1600 any gpu will start to be the limitation with the right settings. a 2500k would provide a much better experience with a 7970 than an E8500 would and that is a fact. there are differences even between current cpus and nobody would even bother to test an E8500 since it was already slower than cpus from 3 or 4 years ago were. I had an E8500 at 3.8 and would be laughable bottleneck for a 7970 in some games. even a gtx470 was no better than my gtx260 in cpu heavy games while using the oced E8500.
 
cannondale06 said:
so you have a $500 video card and $1000 monitor but cant get a new cpu/mobo/ram? sure at 2560x1600 any gpu will start to be the limitation with the right settings. a 2500k would provide a much better experience with a 7970 than an E8500 would and that is a fact. there are differences even between current cpus and nobody would even bother to test an E8500 since it was already slower than cpus from 3 or 4 years ago were. I had an E8500 at 3.8 and would be laughable bottleneck for a 7970 in some games. even a gtx470 was no better than my gtx260 in cpu heavy games while using the oced E8500.
Click to expand...

I don't know if you read the whole thing, but I said, "I'm going to upgrade to a z77 mobo and a 3570k as soon as I find a good deal on them..." I haven't bought a new mobo/cpu yet, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to. I know some people have to get everything new all at once, but I don't feel that way. I just collect things over the course of a few months when I find out what I want, and when I can grab a good deal on them. Saves me a few hundred bucks.

I find it interesting that you say, "sure at 2560x1600 any gpu will start to be the limitation with the right settings." I don't think I've ever heard that before, although some people may have said that . The only thing I have heard is that an old CPU will bottle-neck a top-end GPU- end of story. From what I've seen, there are definitely exceptions.

If my Skyrim fps goes up by more than 10% with my new mobo/CPU/RAM thrown in, I will be surprised.
 
OP, you will be wasting a lot of the 680's potential but it will still perform much better than a 8800GT. As long as you have a CPU upgrade planned I'd go for it.
 
Xeth said:
OP, you will be wasting a lot of the 680's potential but it will still perform much better than a 8800GT. As long as you have a CPU upgrade planned I'd go for it.
Click to expand...
yeah and even a modern $150 gpu will also blow away his 8800gt. there is no point in getting a $500 graphics card when it will not even come remotely close to being utilized for what could be well over 6 months. by the time he gets an appropriate cpu/mobo/ram setup, we could have newer cards to choose from and a gtx680 will no longer be 500 bucks. considering even a $150 gpu would be severally held back and he has no concrete timeframe for upgrading the rest of his pc then he should not even be considering a gtx680.
 
cannondale06 said:
yeah and even a modern $150 gpu will also blow away his 8800gt. there is no point in getting a $500 graphics card when it will not even come remotely close to being utilized for what could be well over 6 months. by the time he gets an appropriate cpu/mobo/ram setup, we could have newer cards to choose from. considering even a $150 gpu would be severally held back and he has no concrete timeframe for upgrading the rest of his pc then he should not even be considering a gtx680.
Click to expand...

Maybe the OP doesn't like buying/selling video cards all the time? A new 680 won't drop below $400 by the end of the year. If he buys a $150 card now he MUST sell it when he upgrades and he can easily lose $50-100 on depreciation, seller's fees, and shipping.
 
Xeth said:
Maybe the OP doesn't like buying/selling video cards all the time? A new 680 won't drop below $400 by the end of the year. If he buys a $150 card now he MUST sell it when he upgrades and he can easily lose $50-100 on depreciation, seller's fees, and shipping.
Click to expand...
lets be realistic. look what the OP has now and has made it this long. it would be beyond silly to use a gtx680 in a Windows XP pc with just 2gb of ram and a pokey cpu like that. a modern $150 gpu would be 2.5-3 times faster than his current card. he is already going to bottleneck the crap out of a $150 card for many months if he actually does decide to upgrade at all. heck we do not even know his resolution which I am guessing is probably not a modern one such as 1920 or even 1680. the OP needs to be realistic and get a decent pc first instead of daydreaming about a top of the line gpu with hopes of upgrading the rest of his outdated pc later this year.
 
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If I had the money I would get a Pentium 4 CPU with 1 GB of DDR RAM and quad-SLI 4 GTX 690s in it, then post pics of it all over the forums. Then I would spend the next 6 months licking up the sweet, sweet tears of anger and bitterness of everyone who rageposted about it.

Lol. Seriously, though, let the kid do what he wants with his monies. Even if it's dumb (and I'm not convinced that it is) it still doesn't hurt anyone.
 
mobhill said:
If I had the money I would get a Pentium 4 CPU with 1 GB of DDR RAM and quad-SLI 4 GTX 690s in it, then post pics of it all over the forums. Then I would spend the next 6 months licking up the sweet, sweet tears of anger and bitterness of everyone who rageposted about it.

Lol. Seriously, though, let the kid do what he wants with his monies. Even if it's dumb (and I'm not convinced that it is) it still doesn't hurt anyone.
Click to expand...
the OP came here to ask for opinions it seems and at least some of us are trying to be realistic. the OP does NOT have a concrete time frame for upgrading the rest of his old pc so getting a gtx680 is foolish. what modern games do you think he will be able to play adding a gtx680 to that system that he cant already play? 2gb of system ram and that cpu dont even make the cut to play modern games at decent settings so whats the point in getting a $500 gpu that is going to do nothing but devalue while he waits for no telling how long to upgrade everything else.

if the OP is serious about getting a new pc the he should do that FIRST instead of getting a gtx680.
 
I'd get a 7850 and have a nice day..there is one now at newegg for 219 and free racing game


i'm not kidding you..I upgraded from a e8400 dual core and it was nothing much but new video card made a huge difference.
 
ZoNe said:
I'd get a 7850 and have a nice day..there is one now at newegg for 219 and free racing game
Click to expand...
do you mean in general or only because he supposedly plans on upgrading the rest of the pc? in general that would still be silly because he would never come close to getting even what the 7850 could do with just 2gb of system ram and a 4600 X2. to me there is still no real point in getting any new gpu until he gets a modern pc.
 
ZoNe said:
Thats because you're stupid. Run BF3 on old cpu and new gfx. then new cpu and old gfx and get back to me. ive done it new gfx every time.
Click to expand...
I am stupid? his 4600 X2 would be just as much the limitation in many games as the 8800gt would be. hell a 4600 X2 does not even meet the minimum requirements for many newer games including BF 3 yet his 8800gt does. :rolleyes:
 
no. not at all. sorry. but what u said is. new graphics cards is always exponentially better compared to cpu on limited budget

I can prove this if you want. I got an old e 8400 here and a gtx 260 and 2500k and 448. Guarantee you 8400 w 448 will beat 2500 w/ 260 in every game.
 
ZoNe said:
no. not at all. sorry. but what u said is. new graphics cards is always exponentially better compared to cpu on limited budget
Click to expand...
read my edited post. his 8800gt probably meets the requirements for more newer games than his 4600 X2 will. if your gpu is too slow then just lower the res and graphical settings where with the slow cpu there is nothing you can do. your BF 3 example shows I am certainly not the one who is making stupid comments.

a 4600 X2 is not even in the same league as an E8400. again a 4600 X2 does NOT even meet the minimum requirements for games like BF 3. please check yourself before having the audacity to call me stupid.
 
Let me know how far to down clock 8400 to equal whatever he has and prove u wrong - ill bet anything 448 is twice as fast as 8800 in bf3 no matter processor
 
ZoNe said:
Let me know how far to down clock 8400 to equal whatever he has and prove u wrong
Click to expand...
I don't trust anything you say. your above comments show how out of touch you really are. you argue about getting a faster gpu for BF 3 when his cpu does NOT even meet minimum requirements. BF 3 in multi player would not even be playable with his cpu so why get another gpu?

and I owned a 5000 X2 for two years and upgraded to an E8500 at the end of 2008 because the 5000 X2 was already becoming a noticeable limitation back then in some games and would hold back the gtx260 I had. its not the least bit logical to use a modern fairly high end gpu with a 4600 X2 from 2006 that will not even meet requirements for many newer games.
 
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ZoNe said:
Just tell me #'s or STFU
Click to expand...
remember I am the stupid one here according to you so maybe I cant figure it out. :rolleyes:

I do love how you still ignore the fact that his cpu is below minimum requirements for that game. lol
 
Goodcoin said:
Resolution is 1920x1200.

I was kinda forced to buy this card. I urgently needed a DisplayPort for calibration purposes and I didn't want to upgrade from GTX 460 just to some video card with a DP, I wanted the upgrade to be worth it. I think GTX 680 is definitely worth it in terms of future investment. I am planning to upgrade the whole system, including the case, in a month or two, so this is just a temporary situation.
Click to expand...

never use the word investment when it comes to high end video... thats one of the fastest dropping things you can buy.

Intel CPU's sure do hold their value... I have bought a CPU for a good deal so many times just to use it and sell it a year later for the same I paid or close enough.
 
mkrohn said:
never use the word investment when it comes to high end video... thats one of the fastest dropping things you can buy.

Intel CPU's sure do hold their value... I have bought a CPU for a good deal so many times just to use it and sell it a year later for the same I paid or close enough.
Click to expand...

Neither is mid range video. Mid range probably drops even faster than high end in terms of percentage. If you need a decent card NOW and a high end card within a year there's nothing wrong with buying 1 high end card rather than buying a mid range card, selling it, then buying a high end card later.
 
Xeth said:
Neither is mid range video. Mid range probably drops even faster than high end in terms of percentage. If you need a decent card NOW and a high end card within a year there's nothing wrong with buying 1 high end card rather than buying a mid range card, selling it, then buying a high end card later.
Click to expand...
in the OP's case its ridiculous to spend 500 bucks on a gpu. he has no idea when he will actually upgrade the rest of the pc to actually take advantage of modern gpu anyway. he accomplishes very little putting a gtx680 in a 6 year old pc with 2gb of system ram and a 4600 X2. his cpu is just as likely to be the limitation as his 8800gt is for modern games. in fact his 8800gt actually meets or exceeds minimum requirements for every game out there where is cpu does NOT and will struggle to even be playable in many games. no video card upgrade is going to help there plus most settings impact the cpu too so he wont be able to increase hardly any settings besides resolution and AA without actually making things worse anyway.

TBH the OP might be just daydreaming anyway and never even come back to this thread. if he really is serious then I hope he will actually get a modern pc first before deciding on a high end gpu.
 
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ZoNe said:
Let me know how far to down clock 8400 to equal whatever he has and prove u wrong - ill bet anything 448 is twice as fast as 8800 in bf3 no matter processor
Click to expand...

Even though the 560Ti may be far more powerful than the 8800GT, the CPU has to be powerful enough to process the game AI and graphics drivers to send and process the information to the GPU properly.

You're not understanding, that ancient 939 4600+ X2 isn't even in the same league as that E8400, which is, by today's standards, a dated processor.
That 4600+ would have to be OCed to about 4GHz+ to even begin to handle BF3 correctly.
Remember, processors are not clock-for-clock the same.

The OP may as well pair that GTX680 with a 1.4GHz Pentium 4, it will do him as much good.
imo, he needs to fully upgrade his entire system, then think about a GPU that will be proper for his situation and needs.


TBH the OP might be just daydreaming anyway and never even come back to this thread. if he really is serious then I hope he will actually get a modern pc first before deciding on a high end gpu.
Click to expand...
It would be nice if he would respond back so at least we will know where to help him from there.
 
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Wow, wasn't expecting this much of response. Looks like an interesting debate has started.

Maybe to clarify a few things.

I absolutely plan to upgrade (read as build a new rig), within this year. The problem is that this will take time to research, build the PC, install the OS etc, so I need to set aside a serious amount of time. For those of you with young children you know this is a challenge in it's own.

So my thought was maybe I could just buy the video card I want now, and finish the rest of the overhaul. Part of the reason for purchasing the new video card now, is that the GTX 680 supports three monitors, and I currently have three nice IPS monitors in PLP setup on my desktop. (30" is 2560 x 1600, and two 20" at 1600 x 1200). I can barely run two monitors hooked up to my 8800GT right now. If I try to play WoW in window mode on the 30" and surf a web page on the 20" the entire system crawls to a halt.

I am fully aware my computer sucks :p Hence the desire to upgrade, just wanted an immediate fix until I can get around to choosing all the parts and assembling them. The GTX670 is coming out soon and that looks like a decent choice also.

Thoughts,

Thanks
Detox
 
My thoughts are you might as well get the video card you want now and it will still be good even if it takes you a year to upgrade the rest of your rig..
 
I say just buy a pre-built PC since you have no time to do it yourself and your current rig makes me sad. :)
 
Runt. said:
Or buy this guy's used 4870x2 @ http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1689712
For that price and if your PSU can support it, I'd be all over it for an aged system.
Click to expand...

That's old tech and absolutely not worth it, considering he will be getting/building a new rig soon.
That GPU, though high-end for it's time, is from 2008; the seller also says it artifacts occasionally, so it's dying on top of it.

The OP will get much better results with a new single-GPU graphics card than an older dual-GPU graphics card that can't even run DX11.
 
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