hd 5850 bottleneck?

[morda8]

would an athlon II 240@3ghz with 4gb drr3 1333 badly bottleneck an hd 5850 on 1680x1050 resolution?

[MSIC]

It would depend on the game, however a 5850 would be extreme overkill for a 1680 x 1050 resolution - my current 3870 laughs at most games at that resolution.

[Blaineoliver]

I would say that it could marginally bottleneck, cant you push it closer to 3.3ghz?

[morda8]

i dont yet have the 240 but i was thinking to downgrade my cpu so id be able to get an hd 5850 and have ddr 3 and am 3 for future upgrades

and i just wanted to know if the 240 would be too much of a bottlneck, if yh id move up and get an athlone x3 tripple core

[Blaineoliver]

You could get enough money from selling your current system to get an x3 720.

[morda8]

You could get enough money from selling your current system to get an x3 720.

i could but i dont want to spend money on high end cpu yet cos im gona wait 6-12months and then upgrade to the best quad core am3 cpu cos amd in q2 2010 is gona release new variants of the current phenom II

[scaryjim]

At that resolution you're very unlikely to see even minimum framerates dropping much below 60fps (unless you play Crysis, that is ) with a 5850 - in the Hexus review it ran at 73 in HAWX, 80 in Far Cry 2, and ~ 120 in everything else (if you discount the card-killing Crysis, where it only manged 27!). Given that your monitor probably has a refresh rate of 60Hz, it's actually impossible for your monitor to keep up with higher than 60fps.

You won't get the same performance from an Athlon X2 that you would from a top-end Core i7 machine, of course, but in real terms it's not going to detract noticably from your gaming experience. Indeed, as MSIC says, a 5850 is massive overkill and you'd get subjectively the same performance (for a considerably lower initial outlay) from a 4870, or a 5770 if you're after a DX11 part specifically. While these cards won't pump out as high a framerate as a 5850, they should be able to keep your framerate up around the magical 60 mark (why 60? Most tft monitors have a refresh rate of 60Hz, so they can only change what you see on the screen 60 times a second anyway! Dont forget that TV and most recorded visual material only play at ~ 25fps...).

EDIT:
OK, just looked at your current system. You must have a seriously bad upgrade bug. Your Q6600 @ 3GHz will be good for years to come, and you already have a 5770 which is perfectly adequate at your gaming resolution (staying at least in the 50s for all but Crysis in the Hexus review). Why are you so eager for a 5850 when you must only just have bought a new GPU anyway?!?

If you *must* upgrade, then don't do it by halves: get a Phenom II X4 965 (currently £142 at Scan). Your Q6600 and DDR2 RAM should sell reasonably well to help finance it (DDR2 800 has shot up in price recently).

[Blaineoliver]

As long as you pick a motherboard that can unlock cores, you may get a quad core out of the dual core, depending on the batch.

[morda8]

At that resolution you're very unlikely to see even minimum framerates dropping much below 60fps (unless you play Crysis, that is ) with a 5850 - in the Hexus review it ran at 73 in HAWX, 80 in Far Cry 2, and ~ 120 in everything else (if you discount the card-killing Crysis, where it only manged 27!). Given that your monitor probably has a refresh rate of 60Hz, it's actually impossible for your monitor to keep up with higher than 60fps.

You won't get the same performance from an Athlon X2 that you would from a top-end Core i7 machine, of course, but in real terms it's not going to detract noticably from your gaming experience. Indeed, as MSIC says, a 5850 is massive overkill and you'd get subjectively the same performance (for a considerably lower initial outlay) from a 4870, or a 5770 if you're after a DX11 part specifically. While these cards won't pump out as high a framerate as a 5850, they should be able to keep your framerate up around the magical 60 mark (why 60? Most tft monitors have a refresh rate of 60Hz, so they can only change what you see on the screen 60 times a second anyway! Dont forget that TV and most recorded visual material only play at ~ 25fps...).

i currently have hd 5770 and i can max out everything in crysis warhead but i must reduce AA to zero to get 21-32 frames heres a gameplay vid of it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TJHXiU5jl4

would a 240 bottleneck a 5770?

do u thnk its worth sticking with 5770 cos if yh ill get phenom 2 955

[scaryjim]

do u thnk its worth sticking with 5770 cos if yh ill get phenom 2 955

If you're looking for a card that'll play Crysis smoothly with those settings, you're going to be waiting a couple of years at least. Even a 5870 will struggle to it 50fps average.

An X2 will increasingly bottleneck games as more games become heavily mutlithreaded, taking advantage of multicore processors more. If I was you'd I'd stick with everything you have at the minute, but if you really want to get into AM3 then I recomend the Phenom II X4 955 (the 965 isn't worth an extra £15 just for 200MHz; since the 955 is a black edition too you can just bump up the mutlipler and get a 965 for free ), a 790X mobo (I have an ASUS EVO-series mobo (and 785G one) and they're rock solid with loads of tweaking options), and 4GB of reasonable DDR3. You could then upgrade your 5770 in a few months when NVidia have released GT300 and there's been the inevitable "price-realignment"; OR you could buy a second one for crossfire fun with your 790X mobo

[morda8]

If you're looking for a card that'll play Crysis smoothly with those settings, you're going to be waiting a couple of years at least. Even a 5870 will struggle to it 50fps average.

An X2 will increasingly bottleneck games as more games become heavily mutlithreaded, taking advantage of multicore processors more. If I was you'd I'd stick with everything you have at the minute, but if you really want to get into AM3 then I recomend the Phenom II X4 955 (the 965 isn't worth an extra £15 just for 200MHz; since the 955 is a black edition too you can just bump up the mutlipler and get a 965 for free ), a 790X mobo (I have an ASUS EVO-series mobo (and 785G one) and they're rock solid with loads of tweaking options), and 4GB of reasonable DDR3. You could then upgrade your 5770 in a few months when NVidia have released GT300 and there's been the inevitable "price-realignment"; OR you could buy a second one for crossfire fun with your 790X mobo

id be getting the upgrade baisically for free because a friend would give me £300 to build him a system i would just give him my current stuff and get my self an amd system

would this board and this memory be ok (memory is listed as compatible with the board)

https://www.pricelover.com/product/90-MIBAP0-G0EAY00Z/

http://www.blahdvd.com/Hw/Kingston-V...ct.htm:stupid:

and the 955 of course:

https://www.pricelover.com/product/HDZ955FBGIBOX/

[scaryjim]

I'd personally go for a more fully featured motherboard than that: this one is the like the one you linked but in a full ATX form factor, and this one is the one I linked to at scan, but at pricelover (if that's where you normally get your stuff from). I'd strongly recommend the second of those two, as it is designed to be an enthusiast board so it will give you a lot more options for overclocking, tweaking etc, and it support full crossfireX so it's more expandable, graphicswise (since you seem intent on going for ATI graphics). If you're selling your old system to your mate for ~ £300 I'd recommend you consider keeping the 5770 and slapping in something like a 4770 or a 9800GT, which can both be had for about £70 and would match very well with the standard of the system - that would leave you about £230 for your upgrade which you can build around your 5770.

The RAM you linked to would do, but it would in many respects be the weak link in the system. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it though, and it's a reasonable price for a 2GB module.

I have to say you've found some good prices for those components too - I hadn't heard of pricelover before: might have to give them more of my time

[morda8]

I'd personally go for a more fully featured motherboard than that: this one is the like the one you linked but in a full ATX form factor, and this one is the one I linked to at scan, but at pricelover (if that's where you normally get your stuff from). I'd strongly recommend the second of those two, as it is designed to be an enthusiast board so it will give you a lot more options for overclocking, tweaking etc, and it support full crossfireX so it's more expandable, graphicswise (since you seem intent on going for ATI graphics). If you're selling your old system to your mate for ~ £300 I'd recommend you consider keeping the 5770 and slapping in something like a 4770 or a 9800GT, which can both be had for about £70 and would match very well with the standard of the system - that would leave you about £230 for your upgrade which you can build around your 5770.

The RAM you linked to would do, but it would in many respects be the weak link in the system. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it though, and it's a reasonable price for a 2GB module.

I have to say you've found some good prices for those components too - I hadn't heard of pricelover before: might have to give them more of my time

does the EVO mobo have xfire x16?

and see wot 4gb ram would u recommend then?

and are u saying tht i can xfire 5770 with 4770?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

TBH,I would stick with what you have ATM as the Q6600 is still a decent CPU though.

OTH,if you want to go the AMD way I would suggest getting an X2 545. It has the potential to be unlocked to a quad core and even as a dual core has 6MB of L3 cache which is useful for gaming purposes.

Also you may want to consider this motherboard for under £50:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/MSI-7...dio-GB-LAN-ATX

It has got a good review although it only has 4+1 phase power regulation:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/mot...board-review/1

This motherboard is also very good value for money, if you do not need Crossfire, and it also has 8+2 power regulation:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/GIGAB...770T-UD3P-MOBO

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The HD5770 cannot be crossfired with an HD4770 as they are different chips.

This is the cheapest AM3 Crossfire motherboard AFAIK:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...SATA-3Gb-s-ATX

I would look at getting this RAM:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-%...ered-CAS-9-DHX

I would look at running the RAM at 1333mhz using lower latencies.

[scaryjim]

does the EVO mobo have xfire x16?

The two slots negotiate to x8 / x8 in crossfire mode, but since they're PCIe 2.0 that's still plenty of bandwidth

and see wot 4gb ram would u recommend then?

I'd got for this 4GB Kingston HyperX Kit - it's got low latency (i.e. it takes less time for the system to access it) and it's matched for better performance in dual channel modes.

and are u saying tht i can xfire 5770 with 4770?

I think you can do that, but it wasn't what I was suggesting... I was suggesting that, rather than sell your mate the whole of your existing system, sell him the system but with a new, lower-spec graphics card like a HD4770. You then keep the 5770 to put into your new AM3 system, giving you the choice of buying a second 5770 later to run in crossfire. Or do you already have a spare graphics card that you'll be selling to your mate?