Upgrade Suggestions

[doug63]

Greetings,

This may well have been asked and answered a dozen times already, so my apologies if my initial search of the forums was inadequate.

A few years ago I built a system with the following core components:

Intel Q6600 2.4Ghz Core 2 quad
3 gb DDR2
GeForce 8800GT

I'm getting ready to install Windows 7 professional and want to upgrade a few things first.

I'll be getting a newer hard drive and video card right away. Adding more memory will come a bit later.

What I'm mainly concerned about is which video card is a good upgrade choice. I recently upgraded my old (VERY old) 19" LCD to a 24" ViewSonic 1900x1080 monitor and the 8800GT just can't keep up well anymore.

I'd really like to keep the price under $200 for the card, but could see going as high as $250-300. I won't really be doing any hard-core gaming, but I do like to play Crysis now and again, and would love to take a look at Assassin's Creed 2 someday. I also tend to run though my old Orange Box games once in awhile.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

Doug

 

[RussianSensation]

Hey doug63,

Welcome to Anandtech!

3GBs should be plenty for most games. I probably wouldn't consider getting more DDR2 ram just yet. You may want to get an aftermarket heatsink and overclock that Q6600 to 3.2-3.4ghz (assuming your motherboard is decent - specifications?)

The cards I would recommend are 5770 for $150, 5830 for $215. Next level up would be 5850 for $310 or GTX470 for $350.

You can find a review comparing these cards here:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/xfx-radeon-hd5830_6.html#sect1

Your other alteratives would include a used 4890 or a GTX275/285.

 

[doug63]

Thanks very much for the quick reply. The mobo is a P35 chipset board, the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R. Overclocking scares me a bit and I'm really not too concerned about the CPU at this point. My main choke points are the older/slower/smaller hard drives and the GPU.

I'll check into those cards. Thanks again!

 

[RussianSensation]

That's a great board for Q6600 overclocking. So should you ever choose to overclock, it's not too hard:

- Make sure you upgrade to the latest BIOS from the website
- Set PCI express frequency to 100
- Set FSB to 356-379 (3.2 - 3.4ghz)
- Set MCH voltage +0.1V
- Set FSB voltage +0.1V
- Set CPU:Ram ratio to lowest --> 2.0
- Increase DDR2 voltage +0.2V (to 2.0V from stock 1.8V on the mobo), relax timings to 5-5-5-15 or lower depending on the rating. You can always lower it later depending if you have DDR2-533, 666 or 800 ram.
- Disable all power saving features such as EIST, C1 states
- Disable CPU spread spectrum
- Enable Load Line Calibration if you have that option
- Increase CPU voltage to 1.425 - 1.45V.

You'll want an aftermarket heatsink.

 

[blanketyblank]

5770 or possibly 5830 if it's under 200.
5850 if you're stretching your budget to 300.

5770 is about 50% faster than a 9800GT at 1920 x 1200 so it should be pretty good for most games though you'll want the 5850 (about 120% faster) for heavy titles like metro 2033.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_5770_PCS_Plus_Plus/29.html

Found a better review.

 

[Sylvanas]

Pretty much been said already the only cards worth considering in your price range are 5770 or at the upper end 5850. Depends on what games you play but really the 5850 is the only card that will run Crysis respectably at 1920x1080.