HD 4850 and Pentium D 3ghz @ 1280x1024

[yuklunc]

Hello.

I've been thinking of getting a new gfx as my current card has been struggling with newer games. I know that my cpu will most likely bottleneck(planning to switch to core 2 duo after nehalem has been released) a 4850 but how much faster is it compared to a 7900gs oc?

Also, is this a good deal (UK site) link

Thanks in advance.

 

[LW07]

4850 is tons better than your 7900gs.

 

[error8]

Yup, 4850 is much faster then your 7900 GS. Great deal on that card you linked there. It has a Zalman cooler on it, 1 gb of ram (even though it doesn't matter that much) and it's the cheapest out of all 4850s on that site. Go for it, it's not going to last there unsold at that price.

The cpu will bottleneck you, but it's not going to kill your games.

 

[yuklunc]

There's also one even cheaper, but I couldn't find any reviews about how the cooler performs. link Has anyone seen it before?

 

[error8]

Keep in mind, anything is better then the stock cooler on a 4850. It's impossible for a card like this, that has a non reference cooler on it, to have higher temperatures on the components then the stock one. This applies only to 4870 cards, that usually have overheating problems at the power circuit, when that is not cooled properly with aftermarket coolers. But this isn't an issue on 4850 cards.

 

[yuklunc]

Ok, thanks.

 

[daveybrat]

I doubled my performance in games just going from a 7900GS to an 8800GTS 320MB card. I'm sure you'll be very pleased with that upgrade!