8800 GTS 640mb to ATI 5850?

[thewalrus34]

Would this be considered a worthy upgrade, or should I merely try to over-clock my 8800 to squeeze out another year? My other option would be to upgrade my HDD to an SSD, but I've been worried about performance degradation. (I built my system around 07-08 and I wanted to upgrade a major component so as I don't have to upgrade the entire rig later on)

Current Specs:
QX6700 @ 2.66GHz
Abit FP-IN9 SLI
640MB GeForce 8800 GTS
Seagate 500GB @ 7200 RPM
8gb Gskill DDR2 @ 399MHZ; (5-5-5-15)
MS Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

 

[toyota]

what res are you wanting to play at? a 5850 would be a very big upgrade especially at higher resolutions.

 

[thewalrus34]

1680x1050

 

[toyota]

well you certainly want to oc that cpu a bit to fully push the 5850 especially at just 1680x1050.

 

[thewalrus34]

I thought my CPU was still relatively powerful, even for that hardware, still need to OC then?

 

[toyota]

I thought my CPU was still relatively powerful, even for that hardware, still need to OC then?

your cpu is no match for an i5/i7 quad in the more cpu intensive games. at just 1680 a 5850 would certainly be held back from its full potential with your stock Q6700. in fact you would probably get the same performance at 1920 in most cases.

 

[thewalrus34]

should i save up for both an i5 and the 5850 or just OC my Q6700? I'd need to do the motherboard too though, and the RAM...

 

[toyota]

should i save up for both an i5 and the 5850 or just OC my Q6700? I'd need to do the motherboard too though, and the RAM...

I would just oc the Q6700 a bit. theres no need to get an all new cpu/mobo/ram upgrade just for a 5850.

 

[thewalrus34]

Alright, is there software you would recommend for that?

 

[repoman0]

I'd just get the video card and OC the 6700. That will still be a very solid performer at 1680x1050. It may not be a match for i7, but if it gets high enough frame rates at your resolution with high settings, who cares?

edit: oops, beaten. Don't use software, use the BIOS for overclocking.

 

[toyota]

Alright, is there software you would recommend for that?

bios is the only way I would do it. I hope you arent using the stock Intel heatsink though.

 

[thewalrus34]

Alright, thanks I'll poke around the manual a little.

 

[Maximilian]

I thought my CPU was still relatively powerful, even for that hardware, still need to OC then?

Its still a great cpu, i5/i7 isnt all that more powerful, plenty of people are still getting along just fine on their good old Q6600's and what you have is a bit better. I think it would be a massive waste to upgrade now, that quad is still very powerful and will remain so for quite some time. I wouldnt bother upgrading it until 8 core CPU's are mainstream or until it cant play what you want.

I doubt it would hold back a 5850.

 

[toyota]

Its still a great cpu, i5/i7 isnt all that more powerful, plenty of people are still getting along just fine on their good old Q6600's and what you have is a bit better. I think it would be a massive waste to upgrade now, that quad is still very powerful and will remain so for quite some time. I wouldnt bother upgrading it until 8 core CPU's are mainstream or until it cant play what you want.

I doubt it would hold back a 5850.

you can doubt all you want but at stock 2.66 speeds it most certainly would hold back a 5850 a bit especially at 1680. of course every game would be playable at stock speeds but there would be some wasted performance that might be helpful in the more cpu intensive games and with min framerate in general. yeah going to an i5/i7 quad would certainly be a waste in this case since all the Q6700 needs is a little bit of overclocking.

 

[f4phantom2500]

if you're going to overclock your cpu anyway, why not just overclock your current cpu and gpu before replacing anything? if you get satisfactory performance at that point, might as well hold off on the upgrade til 5850-class performance comes down in cost.

 

[toyota]

if you're going to overclock your cpu anyway, why not just overclock your current cpu and gpu before replacing anything? if you get satisfactory performance at that point, might as well hold off on the upgrade til 5850-class performance comes down in cost.

an 8800gts 640mb is pretty slow for modern games and I doubt he would see even 1 fps improvement by overclocking his Q6700 while using it. in other words his cpu is not even close to being a limitation at 1680 while using an 8800gts 640mb.

 

[Ayah]

A GPU grade would be good, and overclocking your CPU would be more than enough to feed it.

 

[happy medium]

A GPU upgrade would be good, and overclocking your CPU would be more than enough to feed it.

Yea, I agree. You have a sli board..might be worth waiting for a gt 460?

 

[rgallant]

Alright, thanks I'll poke around the manual a little.

-if you have not OC that mb\cpu you might want to check that mb site in the forums
for a OC guide for your board-someone has likely listed their OC. bios settings-what is a safe voltage for chipsets ,cpu, memory and so forth.
-what you can expect as far as heat on the nvidia chip sets. you might have a add a fan or two,
-you can get your card now then slowly learn about the over clocking later
-btw ,what is your psu?

 

[Ovven]

Why don't you just wait for a good deal on 5770 or get a used 4870 for cheap instead of going for 5850. At 1680res 5850 would be overkill, it'd be much better to pocket the savings and get the equivalent of 5850 in a year or so with those savings, not to mention that a new card like that would use a lot less power and support newer standards.

 

[f4phantom2500]

an 8800gts 640mb is pretty slow for modern games and I doubt he would see even 1 fps improvement by overclocking his Q6700 while using it. in other words his cpu is not even close to being a limitation at 1680 while using an 8800gts 640mb.

is the 8800gts not worth overclocking, though? i mean, if he's about to shell out for a new card he'd might as well see if his current one has anything else to give.

 

[toyota]

is the 8800gts not worth overclocking, though? i mean, if he's about to shell out for a new card he'd might as well see if his current one has anything else to give.

well any card is faster when overclocked but an 8800gts 640mb is hardly a high end card anymore. even current lower mid range cards like a 5750 or 5770 are way faster. if he isnt happy with the performance of it stock then its likely a couple more fps in the more demanding games isnt going to help.

 

[Scali]

I think the GPU is the best upgrade you can do, assuming we're talking about gaming.
I had an 8800GTS 320 myself, and a Core2 Duo E6600 (also 2.66 GHz, just dualcore, but I run it at 3 GHz, which your Q6600 should also be able to do quite easily). I already ran my 8800GTS at maximum overclocked settings... and when it died, I decided to get a Radeon 5770 as a temporary replacement.
I was pleasantly surprised with how much faster the 5770 was (I didn't really expect it to be all that much faster, I just bought it because it was cheap and low on the power consumption, while offering DX11. At the time nVidia only had GTS250 or GTX260 on offer, which wasn't as good a deal), and my CPU didn't seem to be a bottleneck. Crysis went from 20-25 fps to about 30-35 fps average with all the detail maxed out in DX10 1280x1024. AND on the 5770 that is with 4xAA. I couldn't turn on AA on the 8800GTS (could be the 320 mb).
So I think the Q6600 (perhaps with a small overclock) should do fine, and a 5850 is going to be quite an improvement over an 8800GTS in terms of performance.

 

[hawtdawg]

See if you can pick up another 8800 GTS, seems like it wouldn't be too far behind a 5850.

 

[richierich1212]

See if you can pick up another 8800 GTS, seems like it wouldn't be too far behind a 5850.

I'm sure it would still get smoked.