Upgrade options for highest MW2 fps

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SupraSaiyan

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Apr 11, 2008
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I've been beating this to death for the past couple of days.

Aside from building a new rig, I want to go budget as possible to play MW2 at highest details at 1920x1200.

I'm thinking I will need a 4890 but then my cpu will be a bottleneck. I found a Q8400 for cheap and was thinking of picking that up for $20 more than my original plan of buying a E5200 and clock that to 4ghz. Is that a good idea?

Would I benefit much from the 4890 vs the 4870 for MW2 at my native resolution?
 
I'd go quad core man for COD. COD is able to utilize and take advantage of multicore cpu and will give you higher fps than the dual core cpu. Looking at your sig, a Q8400 quad + Radeon HD 4870 1gb will give you solid gaming performance in COD even at 1920 x 1200 res. But, if your budget allows, get the Radeon HD 4890 1GB. Since you already have a dual core cpu, I would not bother buying another dual core cpu again just to go higher on the O/C. O/C the Q8400 to 3.5+ghz speeds. You should be able to. The Q8400 has a multiplier of 8 which is better than the Q8200/8300 with only 7 and 7.5. Also, when more games utilize multi core, the higher clocked dual core cpu won't stand a chance. A good example is the game UT3 which does utilize multicore. A Q6600 cpu at 2.4 ghz will still come out a little faster than a higher clocked Dual Core E8400 cpu at 3.0ghz.
 
Das alright, it certainly won't bottleneck the 4890 video card. Also, since you already have a dual core cpu, I wouldn't bother with another dual core cpu. Plus, he said he can get the Q8400 quad cpu for just $20 more than an E5200 cpu, that's actually a really good bargain.
 
HardwareGuru said:
... Plus, he said he can get the Q8400 quad cpu for just $20 more than an E5200 cpu, that's actually a really good bargain.
Click to expand...

... or one overpriced E5200, lol.

Hm... is it the gimped cache on the E2160 that would bottleneck the HD4890? It shouldn't bottleneck it too much. I'd hold off on the CPU upgrade until after you try the HD4890 without a CPU upgrade.
 
CoD4 (unlike the source engine) is not CPU bound. Get the best video card within your budget (4890) and overclock the CPU you already have to lose some of that bottleneck. There is not reason to get the quad unless you play source games or other CPU applications.
 
Yeah COD is not CPU bound at all.

agreed with xanvincent, upgrade your video card, dump the most into that. In a year, go for the cpu! :)
 
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