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CPU or GPU upgrade?

R

rno

Junior Member
I was wondering which upgrade one will give me better results, mostly in gaming.


CURRENT SPECIFICATIONS:

ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0 mobo
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 CPU @ 2,4
2 x 2 GB DDR2 Kingston @ 667
ATI Radeon HD 3850 AGP

My current motherboard allows both AGP and PCI-E (however, capped with x4 mode) cards, but it should still be slightly better than AGP.
I was aiming for Q6600 CPU upgrade vs nVidia 8800GTS GPU upgrade. Motherboard upgrade is currently NOT an option so I have to choose between those two.

So I'm looking for your opinions and recommendations 🙂

thanks,

rno
 
GPU is almost always the best upgrade for a gamer, but I'd get a new board too as soon as you can afford it.

4x PCI-E is a limiting factor.

But if you could overclock that CPU to about 3Ghz, that would also help.


If it ws me, I'd be getting a cheap P35 board first and overclocking that CPU. But that's me.
 
The 4x pci-e slot will start to bottleneck at 6800ultra (5%), 7900gt/1950pro speeds ( 15%). I would not try anything faster then a 3850 agp with your pci-e x4 slot. It will be slower. I think I read this at Tomshardware.com a while back.

Your 3850 is now your bottleneck with your current cpu.
In my opinion you system is maxed out.
 
Thanks for all your replies so far.
So Q6600 would be better option? I thought myself that I won't benefit so much from GPU upgrade.
I guess going to quad will be more "future proof" because for example there's lot of UE3 games out there today that can utilize four cores.
 
No, GPU upgrade would appear to be the better option. Bottom line (and I say this yet again), is that gamers *almost always* benefit most from upgrading GPU.

Googling around the net, it seems PCI-E x4 suffers an average performance loss of 15% compared to PCI-E 16x, which isnt as bad as I thought.

But even still, I myself would not be overly happy about sticking a 16x card into a 4x slot, unless I knew I was getting another board soon.


Do you not have a friend who has a modern card that you could borrow? At least then you'd have an idea about whether it's worth chucking a new card in there.
 
Your cpu is perfectly fine for now, especially if you overclock it a little. For gaming purposes, it would cheaper and more effective for you to change your motherboard to one that supports pci-e x16 and upgrade your video card.
 
Originally posted by: mancunian
This might help you decide.
Click to expand...

Thats testing pci-e 2.0 x4 not pci-e 1.0 x4 like his motherboard has.
pci-e 2.0 has twice the bandwidth. He has pci-e 1.0
x4.

I found the article with pci-e 1.0 x4 on Toms site.

They test Call of duty 2 and Quake 4 with a 8800gts (g80) and a 1900xtx.

Call of duty 2 loses about 40% with a 8800gts 640mb.
Imagine the loss you would get with a 4850 and Call of Duty 4!!!!!
I'd say at least 50/60%.

Like I said DO NOT put a card faster then a 3850 in a pci-e 1.0 x4 slot.
It's a waste of money.


http://www.tomshardware.com/re...g-analysis,1572-8.html
 
I know you said it's NOT an option but ,you really should sell your motherboard and 3850 agp (about 120.00$) and buy a pci-e x16 board. Then go and get yourself a 8800gts and you'll see a 30% increase easy.
Keep the same cpu and overclock it for even more fps.
 
Originally posted by: happy medium
I know you said it's NOT an option but ,you really should sell your motherboard and 3850 agp (about 120.00$) and buy a pci-e x16 board. Then go and get yourself a 8800gts and you'll see a 30% increase easy.
Keep the same cpu and overclock it for even more fps.
Click to expand...

Your opinion was my first one:

Originally posted by: mancunian
If it ws me, I'd be getting a cheap P35 board first and overclocking that CPU. But that's me.
Click to expand...

And I still think it was the best.
 
Asus P5Q Pro for $100AR + coupon code
Asus 4850 for $150AR

...and you're good for most games to 1920x1200 with mild AA.
 
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