Contemplating upgrade on an older PC...

[sjetexas]

I am currently running a C2D e6750 (OC'ed to 3.4), 4GB RAM, and a 4830 512MB. Running 1920*1200. Have dual monitors, but never use more than one to game. Win7 64.

I recently started playing Rift, and while performance isn't bad running medium-ish settings, I am looking to get more out of it and maybe bump my settings up some. I realize my CPU is pretty dang old, but I am not really wanting to upgrade until LGA 2011 comes out.

1) Would it make any sense to upgrade my video card now to a 6870 or 6950? I'm well aware I wouldn't be making the most of it, but would still I see significant gains?

2) Or should I just wait until I upgrade my CPU and see what the video card market looks like then? If my budget is $150-200ish for a video card, will my options be that much different around the time LGA 2011 is out?

3) I'd like to play in windowed mode (mainly so I can use my 2nd monitor for desktop stuff)...currently that kills my framerate to almost unplayable levels, pretty much have to go full-screen. Would a new vid card help this or is this more a CPU and/or RAM thing?

4) Can my current Seasonic 520w power supply handle it?

thanks!

 

[nanaki333]

a 6850/6870 wouldn't be a bad upgrade at all. you won't be too choked up by your cpu at that res.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Your power supply can handle the cards in your price range.

You should see a good increase in performance at your resolution.

Rift's recommend requirements only list a dual core at 2.2 GHz. So this game must not be terribly multithreaded to take advantage of quad cores. As such I think your current processor is enough for this game, but this is just my guess based off the requirements.

After reading some user opinions, you are probably both CPU and GPU limited. So if you upgrade the video card, you'll probably see a small improvement, but your processor is going to hold you back still. My guess was wrong and Rift looks to take advantage of quad core processors.