Upgrade GFX Card for AMD64 3400+ or upgrade CPU for my 7950gt

[revol68]

Well basically I'm looking to upgrade my whole system, however I won't have all the money at one time to do it, so I'm wondering if I should get a gfx first then the upgrade or upgrade the mobo, cpu, and ram first and stick with my 7950gt for the moment.

Basically will a new gfx (i'm thinking of buying a 4850) card be rendered pointless by my CPU bottleneck or will it provide a bigger performance than sticking with the 7950gt and upgrading the cpu(atleast a DualCore 7200), ram (4gig DDR2 6400) and mobo (standard 50-70 quid model).

I'm interested in gaming performance and will be using a 19inch 1440x900 display.

Cheers.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would probably upgrade the motherboard,cpu and ram first IMHO. You can get also 8800GT 256mb for under £50 from Ebuyer or a HD4670 for under £60. Both will be good temporary cards and will show a good increase in performance too!

[revol68]

thanks, if I upgraded the cpu, motherboard and ram and stuck that 8800gt 256mb in it would I be able to play Crysis, Far Cry 2, Fall Out 3, Stalker Clear Sky, and the upcoming e-peen erector Empire:Total War on it maxed out at 1440x900?

[revol68]

just checked a review and the benchmarks for the 256mb version of the 8800gt are pretty dire in Crysis, below even the 3850.

[revol68]

Okay a bit of research and this is my plan.

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E7200
Mobo: MSI P45 Neo-F
Ram: Corsair 4GB (2x2 gigs 6400)

Graphics Card: Ati 4850

Now it's a toss up between buying the 4850 first and putting alongside my AMD 64 3400+ and 2 Gig of DDR or buying the E7200, MSI P45 Neo F, 4 gig DDR2 6400 and putting it alongside my 7950gt.

What do youse reckon, at the moment I'm hooked on Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl, so which would better increase performance for the 4 weeks or so it takes me to actually complete the full upgrade?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Out of interest are you overclocking the cpu or not?? If not I would go for something with a faster clock or even a quad core if you intend to not upgrade for at least two years. Supposedly Alan Wake will take advantage of multiple cores!

[cptwhite_uk]

If I remember correctly wasn't the 3400+ for Socket 754 systems only. This would be one of the first 64 models. Personally I'd get the graphics card first then the rest of the system further down the line. I think for the month interlude you'll get a nicer experience in STALKER with a graphic upgrade. The core system should be enough to play the game, although it will hold FPS back a fair bit.

Tricky decision for sure.

[Ralthen]

if u gonna upgrade your cpu and motherboard u may want to consider doing it after Intel releases there new i7 chips as should bring the older cpu models down in price some more

[revol68]

Yeah I've been thinking about waiting abit before upgrading the cpu and mobo.

I just realised my board is Socket 939 and so was wondering if it would be worthwhile to get a AMD x2 (939) to put in my current system, saving me money on a new motherboard and ram?

Is there much difference games performance wise between say a x2 4400+ and a core duo e7200? How much of a difference does DDR2 ram make in gaming?

I'm guessing the x2 would be grand with most games if teamed with a 4850 to play at 1440 x 900 and since I like to crank all the eye candy (AF and AA) up I imagine that would make it less bottlenecked?

[rootjuiceUK]

Good luck with finding a new x2 socket 939 they seemed to have produced very few of them and then moved on to socket AM2.Some are around but are way way over priced Look at this http://www.love-electricals.com/amd-...ion-1405-p.asp are they having a laugh!! £539 lol. Overclockers have one too, yours for £234.99. I'm in the same boat as you stuck on a socket 939 with no route for upgrading apart from new motherboard, CPU and memory. You could always try Ebay to find one but I personal don't trust buying from people on Ebay. I think I'm just going to get a new graphics card and buy or try to build a new system when this one won't play a game I like or wanna try.

[cptwhite_uk]

I just realised my comments above were very stupid. Since socket 754 never supported PCI-E *blushes*

I thought the Athlon 64 series on socket 939 went 3000 (1.8Ghz), 3200 (2Ghz), 3500 (2.2Ghz), 3700 (1Mb, 2.2Ghz), 3800 (2.4Ghz), 4000 (1Mb, 2.4Ghz). Apparently there was a 3400 released on the 939 platform, according to Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...icroprocessors

Same as the 3500+ but with a HT multiplier of x4 (as opposed to the 3500+ with x5). That's the only difference it seems.

Given this, and assuming your motherboard has PCI-E I'd still go with a HD4850 for now, then upgrade the cpu/ram/mobo next month. This should cost you in the region of £200, and the HD4850 will set you back about £100. Here's the best priced card i can find: http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=883439

[The Asgard]

Okay a bit of research and this is my plan.

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E7200
Mobo: MSI P45 Neo-F
Ram: Corsair 4GB (2x2 gigs 6400)

Graphics Card: Ati 4850

Now it's a toss up between buying the 4850 first and putting alongside my AMD 64 3400+ and 2 Gig of DDR or buying the E7200, MSI P45 Neo F, 4 gig DDR2 6400 and putting it alongside my 7950gt.

What do youse reckon, at the moment I'm hooked on Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl, so which would better increase performance for the 4 weeks or so it takes me to actually complete the full upgrade?

I would probably go for the Graphics card first and overclock the AMD. There's a new E0 stepping thats starting to work its way through the channels. In 4 weeks it might be freely available.

Basically E0 = better overclock with less voltage. Less power and cooler running. Some E8600 are running 4.5 Ghz with about 1.35 volts which isn't bad. Not sure about the E7 series but its now starting to appear on the quads.