HD Radeon 3870 in new Build. Bottleneck?

[Commander Ooka]

Im looking into building a new pc sometime in the next month or two. I have a general idea of parts Im going for and a price range of around $400. No monitor, no peripherals at all.

The general build Im going for here should be at this New Egg wishlist, Wishlist.

In short Im looking at:
E5300 2.6Ghz (Probably overclock it later)
GIGABYTE GA-G41M-ES2L LGA 775 G41 Micro ATX
2 x 1GB DDR2 SDRAM
WD 160GB 7200RPM HDD
Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 512MB

I chose the motherboard as it has the ability for me to upgrade to a quad-core later if needed and I can upgrade to 8GB of RAM later too.

I'm going to be using it for gaming, and while for the price Im not expecting anything amazing, I would like it to be able to run some of the latest FPS and MMO games at good graphics. I currently play LoTRO and Im pretty sure this could run that at the highest graphics no problem, and it would be good if it could run like the new CoD when it comes out.

Im pretty much set on every thing except the video card, so imput on that would be good. If you have any ideas please let me know.

Thanks!

 

[nemesismk2]

The 3870 is a bit old, the 4770, 5770 and 5750 will all outpace the 3870.

 

[Commander Ooka]

Alright cool. Now, if I were to get the 4770 (as I cant find the other two mentioned) what would be most likely to bottleneck the system?

 

[toyota]

your cpu is not an issue at all with a card of that level but why on earth would you be looking at a 3870 thats now 2 generations behind. do not get just 2 gb of ram. go ahead and get 4 since 2 is already not enough in a couple of games. theres no point in having hitching in a game when you can just get ram from the start.

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: Commander Ooka
Alright cool. Now, if I were to get the 4770 (as I cant find the other two mentioned) what would be most likely to bottleneck the system?

what res are you playing at?? I would probably just get a 5750 since they will be out next week at about the same price as the 4770. your cpu at stock will still be okay with that but you could certainly pick up some more fps if you oc it. also I would definitely go with 4gb not 2 for that system.

 

[ET]

Commander Ooka, have you really done enough checking on what you buy? I checked Newegg, and the 250GB Caviar Blue costs just $1 more than the 160GB one you want (and has free shipping, which isn't mentioned for the 160GB drive). The 320GB is just a couple of bucks over that -- still under $50. The 500GB is $57. You get more than 3 times the storage (and a larger disk cache and probably more speed) for $13 more (or less than that, since the 160GB doesn't have free shipping).

The other stuff seems better value for money, but still, a little more money can get you something a lot more usable. I agree that 4GB will be better, and a better graphics card won't add too much to the cost (Newegg has a 4850 for $100 with a $10 rebate on top of that). Though as toyota said, waiting a few days for the 57x0 cards will be a good idea.

 

[Commander Ooka]

Thanks for the suggestions. I was wondering whether or not to go for 4Gb or not. Now I will. And Ill definitely check out the 5750 when it comes out.

ET, As to the Harddrive, I really didnt put that much effort into looking into that area since I was just trying to get a general idea of the setup and price. I appreciate the suggestions and I will most definitely do a little more research in that area.

Thanks!