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card upgrade or just time for a new system?

C

CVSiN

Diamond Member
E8400 Wolfdale
4 gigs of DDR2
on a Gigabyte board
Nvidia 8800 GTS 512
Antech truepower 500 watt

runs well just starting to show it's age. Had it for years and has worked great.
new games are starting to push it pretty hard and games like the DCS A-10C beta are just a slideshow at anything other than low settings.

wondering if a new card upgrade on this older proc would do any good or be instantly CPU capped.

looking at staying Nvidia and most likely a single card solution as my current board does not support SLI.
 
A 460 GTX would breathe new life. Overclocking your CPU would help too. I would hold out on a CPU upgrade as 1156/1366/AM3 are dead platforms.
 
So I'm not CPU capped yet huh? I would see at least some improvement with a 460?
I would like to wait for the SB procs and MBs before going all out on upgrade.
 
E8400 at stock speeds? If so you have MUCH more life in it by overclocking. My CPU is older then yours and I am going to get a new card by the years end, and nothing else.
 
CVSiN said:
1920x1080 on a pair of LG 22s
Click to expand...

So basically pushing the same amount of pixels as a 2560x1600 monitor. You are almost entirely GPU limited (aside from a handful of strategy games, and certain games that respond well to multi-cores such as Dragon Age Origins and Resident Evil 5). Feel free to get the fastest videocard you can afford for that resolution.

Keep in mind AMD is launching HD 6000 series within a month. So you may want to wait to see what performance they bring to the table and what happens to current prices. If you prefer NV, GTX460 or GTX470 fit the bill nicely without going overboard with GTX480's power consumption.
 
RussianSensation said:
CVSiN said:
1920x1080 on a pair of LG 22s
Click to expand...
So basically pushing the same amount of pixels as a 2560x1600 monitor.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure I understand. Isn't he limited to a single 1080p monitor when he's actually gaming? Now, I don't know much about eyefinity, so maybe I'm wrong. I thought that the point of eyefinity was to "combine" multiple monitors to act as a single large display to make gaming (or whatever else) on multiple monitors possible. Without something like eyefinity, isn't he's stuck on a single 1080p display for gaming?
 
fffblackmage said:
Without something like eyefinity, isn't he's stuck on a single 1080p display for gaming?
Click to expand...

I don't think so. Eyefinity is for running more than 2. I am pretty sure you can run the two monitors in a Horizontal Span. The taskbar should cross both monitors. If the 2 monitors are running at the same refresh and resolution and if the game supports it, then you should be able to play a game across 2 monitors.

So you'd have (1920 + 1920) (horizontal) x 1080 (vertical).

Most games only run on the primary monitor as you said, but you may be able to stretch the game across multiple monitors in windowed mode (if available). I am pretty sure you could also use the video card's span mode (cinema mode, etc.) if available. In that mode the game will see a single wide monitor instead of 2 monitors. For this to work the game needs to support widescreen resolutions, for example 2048 x 768 if you have two 1024 x 768 monitors. Some games do support multiple monitors, like Microsoft Flight Simulator lets you put views on different monitors.
 
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RussianSensation said:
I don't think so. Eyefinity is for running more than 2. I am pretty sure you can run the two monitors in a Horizontal Span. The taskbar should cross both monitors. If the 2 monitors are running at the same refresh and resolution and if the game supports it, then you should be able to play a game across 2 monitors.

So you'd have (1920 + 1920) (horizontal) x 1080 (vertical).

Most games only run on the primary monitor as you said, but you may be able to stretch the game across multiple monitors in windowed mode (if available). I am pretty sure you could also use the video card's span mode (cinema mode, etc.) if available. In that mode the game will see a single wide monitor instead of 2 monitors. For this to work the game needs to support widescreen resolutions, for example 2048 x 768 if you have two 1024 x 768 monitors. Some games do support multiple monitors, like Microsoft Flight Simulator lets you put views on different monitors.
Click to expand...

Eyefinity is merely the technology used to be able to display on more than 2 monitors. The ability to use multiple monitors as a single monitor is a software thing, I believe you can do it in drivers, I think ATI's always had Hydravision or w/e that was called to do that.

But the OP stated that he plays at 1920x1080. Even with dual monitors, he's only going to be playing on one. An 8 series graphics card will definitely be your main bottleneck playing at that resolution. As other people have said, I would upgrade your graphics card and overclock the crap out of your CPU, no point in eliminating one bottle neck just to create another. I'm pretty sure even your overclocked CPU will still prove to be a bit of a bottleneck for a 460 but it's going to be your best bang for your buck, especially once ATI releases their 6 series graphics cards and Nvidia shifts the price of their cards down to compete. Though even now you can find 1GB 460's for like $170ish which is still quite a good price.
 
Good info guys thanks alot!.

guess first order of business is buy a new fan and OC a bit and buy a new vid card.

then upgrade the rest of the system when SB comes available.

great advice thanks crew.
 
Ok things have just changed... my boss gave me a HD 5870 and a Intel Extreme 2.6 QX6700 and ASUS P5E3 Deluxe MB to upgrade my system.
I'm usually a Nvidia die hard so dont know much about this card. what generation is it compared to Nvidia? 1 gen old?
 
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CVSiN said:
Ok things have just changed... my boss gave me a HD 5870 and a Intel Extreme 2.6 QX6700 and ASUS P5E3 Deluxe MB to upgrade my system.
I'm usually a Nvidia die hard so dont know much about this card. what generation is it compared to Nvidia? 1 gen old?
Click to expand...

Wow, you were given a 5870.😉 I would just stick that in and not the rest and see how things go first. Save yourself the time of doing an entire OS install etc. I still feel your E8400 overclocked would work amazing and save you the headache.
 
yeh I'm an IT guy by trade and my boss is a huge gamer that had some surplus stuff at the house
he brought in 2 of those MBs and chips 2 8800GTs for SLI a GTX260, and 2 of these 5870s and another ATI which I almost got it was the generation behind the 5870 but it was a 2 card on 1 board setup. another coworker took that one.

Sometimes its nice to have an boss that is a die hard tech freak gamer..
he came to me yesterday and said dont buy anything tonight I have some stuff I'll bring in.
 
CVSiN said:
yeh I'm an IT guy by trade and my boss is a huge gamer that had some surplus stuff at the house
he brought in 2 of those MBs and chips 2 8800GTs for SLI a GTX260, and 2 of these 5870s and another ATI which I almost got it was the generation behind the 5870 but it was a 2 card on 1 board setup. another coworker took that one.

Sometimes its nice to have an boss that is a die hard tech freak gamer..
he came to me yesterday and said dont buy anything tonight I have some stuff I'll bring in.
Click to expand...

Is your boss hiring? I will work just enough to come in take a 5870 and quit. :twisted:
 
Your CPU is fine (I have it too)

Just get a new video card. I have a 4870 and thinking about upgrading to 6000 series (assuming half way DX11 game comes out soon).

Hoping Crysis 2 will be it....cause COD or MOH is not a game worthy of a GPU upgrade.
 
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