My PC has been able to run nearly every game on highest settings till now. Suddenly now its struggling on medium and even low on some games! Its not many so far....Bioshock has to be medium, Rainbow Six Vegas (UT3 engine) has to be Low-Medium, and Crysis MP Beta has to be all Low. Which basically means my 2 favourite upcoming games, Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3 are going to run poorly on my computer, not to mention other upcoming games. I was planning on building a complete new system in january/febuary, but with so many fantastic games coming out before xmas, its really pushing to me get my current PC as best i can. It may seem like im spoilt and i'm a graphics whore, which is partly true. Ive been able to financially keep my PC cutting-edge up until about a year or 2 ago (probably pushing 2). I love PC games and part of that is seeing what amazing new graphics developers can achieve. It kinda annoys me to think that when Crysis and UT3 comes out, it will end up looking no better than say HL2 on my PC. Anyway enough ranting and making myself look like a spoilt graphics-obsessed geek My current system: X1800XT 512MB Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 2GB RAM Until the complete replacement to switch over to Core 2 Duo, do you think an 8800GTX will help significantly run these upcoming graphics intense games at high settings (i dont care for Anti-Alaising, its just a bonus when it can be turned on, so it doesn't need to be able to cope with that)? I'm worred that it will be held back quite a bit by my poor CPU and RAM (they were good for their time, but DDR1 RAM is old and slow now (except the timings, they are better than DDR2/3), and a S939 2.2Ghz CPU is nothing to boast about). Thanks
1680x1050. Soon to be 1920x1200, though if i continue to use this card until junuary, i will run games at 1680x1050.
Aye i know i'll definately need it for that resolution but like i said, i wasn't going to use it in upcoming games anyway. I'm more concerned with getting atleast medium-high settings, preferably high, not including AA. I just down want to dump down £340+ to only see a 10fps improvement from my current system, or only able to go from Low to Medium in say Crysis and UT3 due to my old CPU and RAM. How about a 8800GTS 640MB instead? Not quite as powerful, but might keep me going at a little higher than medium settings on those upcoming games till january? Or would that extra £100+ spent on a 8800GTX bring a quite big improvement in performance on my current system? Thanks
According to this review it looks like a Radeon HD 2900 XT would be a better choice than a 8800GTS. Still the choice of whether to go for one of them or a 8800GTX though.
well my ultra handles bioshock maxed out at 1920x1200 just dandy. i'd assume a GTX would do that without too much complaint too.
im using a 8800gts 640mb, amd 4800X2 and 2gig ram with a monitor at 1680x1050 and at the moment bioshock & moh airborne plays on highest settings, will let you know about crysis next week when the demo comes out
The bioshock demo run on a GTX at 2560*1600 just fine, no lag at all for myself. It might be that the rest of the system would bottleneck a 8800gtx. Sam
4800X2 is AM2 but theres nothing in it as the performance difference is minimal. I would say the Gfx card is letting you down. a GTX is dandy.
Aye, fastest cpu for s939 would be either an Opteron 185 or an FX60, both featuring a 2.6 GHz clock speed and 1MB of Level 2 cache per core.
Would you recommend upgrading to an Opteron 185/FX60 then in addition to the graphics card? I've got the cash for that. Before you think why not just go Core 2 Duo/Quad, its because the additional cost of a good motherboard and a new set of *good* RAM is quite a lot extra, which i cant quite afford. I can just about budget the gfx card and CPU. Thanks
Not realy much point upgrading the cpu, just Oc it. Also DDR2 is dirt cheap now, and a full upgrade can be had for £200-250 mark without gfx card. Geil's DDR2 6400 2Gig kit is on sale for £45 this week, fecking cheap.
I'm looking to getting the best C2D though in january which is what, about £170? Then i'm looking at a high end motherboard, about £100-150. Then theres the RAM, which i'll want some fast ones to compliment the rest of the system. I've got my 4200 overlocked to 2.43, but cant push it any further, like with my old 3500. Something is messed up with my motherboard, i can change every damn setting, all voltages, latencies, frequencies etc, it just will not push the FSB past 220Mhz no matter what CPU or settings, and my memory is damn good. So a 400Mhz faster CPU with 1MB more L2 cache isn't really going to make much of a difference for next gen games?
Have a look at this athlon 64 with a 8800gts/gtx review from firingsquad. It's a little old and based on socket am2 cpu's but will give you a rough idea. I think you'll see a big leap in performance. Maybe not quite upto what the gtx can do in a few games but far better than your x1800xt.
mmm, well I tried the demo and at full settings (apart from AA) at that reso with my x1950pro and it played okayish, some parts were a crawl at best though
Thanks for the firing squad link, thats just what ive been looking for! He concludes that with a GTX you should get a Core 2 Duo for best performance, which is true, but it looks like even with a 4200+ i will get high FPS with max settings on every game pretty much. Stuck on what to do here....should i get a 8800GTX and then upgrade to Core 2 Duo/Quad in january, or upgrade to that now but go for a slower CPU, RAM and MB. It'd be nice to run Crysis and UT3 on max settings but who knows how my PC would handle with a 4200 and 8800GTX.
