worth a graphics card update? or close to bottleneck already?

Hi guys

specs are as follows

e6600 (c2d) @ 3.5GHz
4gb DDR2 ram @ DDR 870MHzish 5-5-5-15

currently rocking a HD4870 @840MHz core + 900MHz DDR5 Vram

so ive looked at dropping a 45nm quad in there, but the 2nd hand prices do not justify this....

so my question is, would i see a genuine improvement with a better graphics card with a c2d @3.5GHz, or is my 4870 about as good as i can do without being bottlenecked by the cpu?

if anyone thinks it IS worth an upgrade, then how high can i aim without wasting money on minimal improvements?

Thanks

In what situation?

Quite a few games tend to do better with three to four cores nowadays,but,it really depends on what games you are playing. Some won't show much improvement.

A Q6600 should not be more than £60 to £70 secondhand and even my high VID example hit 3GHZ with a SFF PC CPU cooler.

However,what motherboard do you have as this can limit your overclock and what PSU do you have too??

TBH,with price of DDR3 being so low,you could always get a Core i3 2100,8GB of DDR3 and a Z68 based motherboard for around £200.

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Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH

Quite a few games tend to do better with three to four cores nowadays,but,it really depends on what games you are playing. Some won't show much improvement.

A Q6600 should not be more than £60 to £70 secondhand and even my high VID example hit 3GHZ with a SFF PC CPU cooler.

However,what motherboard do you have as this can limit your overclock and what PSU do you have too??

TBH,with price of DDR3 being so low,you could always get a Core i3 2100,8GB of DDR3 and a Z68 based motherboard for around £200.

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running a ga-ep45-ud3lr (p45)

ive had in running 490MHz fsb, and im sure i was limited from going further by ram

i was looking at the 45nm quads as i didnt like the idea of dropping my single thread preformance, but perhaps i should rethink this. i dont know how well my cpu would sell on a popular auction site as its lapped lol.

and as for what purpose? to keep me playing games which catch my eye for that little bit longer.

cs:go and diablo 3 will defiantly be played.

and to put this back on topic it was mainly the graphics card i wanted an opinion on

Thanks for the replies so far

edit - psu was replaced last year with some kind of antec high current gamer type thing. i think 520W? which while low is good quality i belive

Quote:

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Originally Posted by new boy

cs:go and diablo 3 will defiantly be played.

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Then it's not worth it - you're existing card will already be playing these at pretty much maximum so you won't gain anything noticeable by upgrading.

I'd say wait it out for now, at least until those games are released. Your always going to get a better bang for your buck the longer you wait.

I'm not sure why, but Ive put my cpu + cooler, motherboard, gfx card and ram on the bay lol.....

I'm sure your advice was sound but when u have the itch......

i was really surprised at the value of some of my stuff to be honest..... well the ram and the motherboard may well go for more than i payed for them new :O don't talk to me about the cpu and gfx card prices though.

going to try and hold off til ivy before i upgrade. we will see how that goes though. :D

again sorry for ignoring your advice, i fully understand the upgrade is not logical. :P

well if he is a CS player he will need to be pusing 1000fps through a 60hz monitor ;)

but on a serious note its a low end modern card on a middle of the range system running old games, stick the money in a new pc pot and do a proper upgrade of a new system when the time comes.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GoNz0

well if he is a CS player he will need to be pusing 1000fps through a 60hz monitor ;)

but on a serious note its a low end modern card on a middle of the range system running old games, stick the money in a new pc pot and do a proper upgrade of a new system when the time comes.

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ummmm like i said its on ebay lol.

thanks for the advice though.

meh who knows, perhaps ill like bf3 more than cs:go lol. be nice to be able to try bf3 and some other modern games anyway :P

ps

300 fps would be nice.... in sink with 60hz for the monitor and in sink with a 100 tick server (mostly joking but a part of me isn't :D)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by new boy

ummmm like i said its on ebay lol.

thanks for the advice though.

meh who knows, perhaps ill like bf3 more than cs:go lol. be nice to be able to try bf3 and some other modern games anyway :P

ps

300 fps would be nice.... in sink with 60hz for the monitor and in sink with a 100 tick server (mostly joking but a part of me isn't :D)

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i used to think that way until i understood how a monitor works :)

and at 37 i don't have the reactions to need more :p

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GoNz0

i used to think that way until i understood how a monitor works :)

and at 37 i don't have the reactions to need more :p

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bunyhopping is much easyer when you have an 100 tick server with fps in some kind of multiple of 100. but yeah im sure i could like with 100 lol.

off topic but i hear they have killed bhoping in cs:go by adding stamina :(

*way to de-rail my own thread :rolleyes:

Triple buffering FTW.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2794/1

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix

Triple buffering FTW.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2794/1

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That still doesn't need triple the frame rate ;) And it doesn't work with DX due to the render queue. High FPS is handy for render ahead buffer in DX, but the difference is probably too small to be noticeable in all the other latencies.

Depends what games you currently play really, if you're happy with how they run I think you're fine.
As mentioned already - with more using 2+ cores you could benefit from an upgrade, but personal preference.