E6550 - would this bottleneck a 4870/90?

[funke_munke]

I'm currently looking at purchasing a 4870 or 4890 (haven't quite made my mind up on that one yet), my system is to the left in the specs drop-down. I've OC'ed my E6550 to 2.8 ghz, but I was wondering if this might bottleneck the new card? This is basically an interim upgrade before I go Core i7, but I really don't have the cash for all that now. Also this is mainly to play Empire: Total War all blinged up to the max, as currently I'm pretty much running it on medium at 1650 x 1080 with one or two settings whacked up to max. I do alot of other gaming too but this is the main game I'll be playing for a while. Does anyone have any idea if it's worth the upgrade with my current system or should I hold off for a complete rebuild?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

An HD4870 512mb or either of the GTX260 versions available(the 192 shader or 216 shader version) would be a significant upgrade over an 8800GTS 640mb.

Of course if you could sell your 8800GTS 640mb and then get a cheap HD4870 or GTX260 it would mean be you would be still spending around £100 though. In theory it would last you the rest of the year(hopefully) and your overclocked E6550 will still do the job well.

TBH I would save the money towards a full system overhaul if you can bare playing some of the newer games at reduced settings though.

[scaryjim]

Good lord no. A 6550 @ 2.8 should be more than enough to feed a 4870/90. I've seen reviews of Celeron 1200s churning out decent framerateswith top end cards! You should see significant improvement in framerates over your 8800GTS @ 1650x1080 - and of course it's never going to be a waste of money because it can go in your new system when you build it.

[funke_munke]

Cheers guys, that's good news. I'll be parting with my card to a friend which should cover a bit of the cost, also decided to go for the 4870 1gb now, just found one for £150! Cheap as chips really, and like scaryjim said, it can go in my new set up when I finally get the cash to go for it .

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

There is also this GTX260 for £151 too:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?GW-265

The HD4870 1gb costs a few quid more:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...html?SAP-48701

The GTX260 should be slightly faster than the HD4870 1gb. However they are very close IIRC!