What gaming performance & resolutions can I expect out of this computer build?

[Red Hawk]

My dad's office is getting new computers, and he gets to bring home one of the old ones. My question is, what kind of performance can I expect to get out of it in video games? What is the highest resolution I should expect playability at?

Intel Core 2 Duo 6600 2.4 GHz
4 GB DDR-2 RAM
Windows XP Professional
It has a Radeon X1300 Pro inside already, but I'm taking that straight out and replacing it with a Radeon HD 5670.

Here are some of the games I plan to play on it:

Empire: Total War
Mass Effect 2
Dragon Age Origins
Dragon Age 2 (not released yet)

Also: How would upgrading the computer to Windows 7 affect performance?

 

[RavenSEAL]

Not a lot.

Wrong forum btw.

 

[Red Hawk]

Well, this has to do with hardware, right? Or should it go in PC gaming?

 

[RavenSEAL]

http://forums.anandtech.com/forumdisplay.php?f=4

 

[happy medium]

What is the highest resolution I should expect playability at?

1400x900 or mabe 1600x1050 with some games.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

I played Dragon Age with a C2D E6550 and a GeForce 9500 GT, and had to turn everything down to the minimum and had not fun loading times. The 5670 is better than a 9500 GT, but will it help loading times, I don't know.

Dragon Age 2 could hurt...

 

[betasub]

Empire:TW has some nice graphics touchs, so you can play around with the settings to suit, but mainly depends on single-threaded CPU performance for large battles. E6600 is fine, but overclocking would help if you prefer larger/huge unit sizes.

 

[nanaki333]

if you're getting the 5670 strictly because of budget reason, grab the 4830 from newegg for even cheaper http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131381

 

[Red Hawk]

I already have the 5670, and I avoided older yet higher-end cards because I was unsure if the computer's several years old 375 watt power supply could make full use of them. The 5670 is quite power-efficient.

 

[MisterDonut]

This is like trying to win a horse race with a turtle . Seriously though, don't expect much. ME2 is hard enough to run for most mid tier machines, and AFAIK, DA:O is a more dependant on the CPU (right?). You're probably looking at a res of 1400x900 unless you upgrade the GPU to a 460 or so...the E6600 should have a little life left...

 

[Avogadro]

I have pretty much the same computer (CPU, RAM and OS), although my GPU is an old 8800GTS 640 meg. I play games at 1680x1050 and performance has been fine with "older" or less-demanding games: WoW, Aion (yea I admitted it but let's not talk about it any more, OK?), Dragon Age: Origins, ES: Oblivion, Civ4, stuff like that.

You're going to have a more up-to-date GPU which will probably help (EDIT: just looked at the Tom's Hardware charts and comparing the 5670 to my 8800GTS 640, it looks like you can expect pretty similar performance to what I get) , but you are also looking to play more demanding games than I have tried, which probably won't help.

You already got the advice I got, which was to try overclocking the CPU for better performance. I say drop the 5670 in there, OC the processor, and give it a shot. It sounds like you are getting all the hardware for no money, so what have you got to lose?

 

[KIAman]

Also: How would upgrading the computer to Windows 7 affect performance?

With your setup, yes, it will hurt gaming performance.

Also, off topic, how did you decide on your forum handle? I'm curious because I know some things or two about Red Hawk.

 

[Doggiedog]

I have/had a C2D E6600 OCed to 3.2Ghz w/GF 8800 GTS 640, 6GB DD2, Win7 and played at 1920x1200. I could handle L4D2 with textures on high but everything else turned down. It was easily playable. Civ5 killed it though. It would chug as the tiles refreshed. Dragon Age got a bit slow as well as Mass Effect 2 when there was a lot going on. I got a Radeon 5870 and all of the problems went away. Then my PC died two weeks later.

 

[-Slacker-]

At 1280*1024 or 1440*900 the 5670 will deliver fluid frame rates at the highest details in DAO, provided that you'll overclock your cpu, because this game is cpu intensive. Not sure if this works on bigger resolutions though.

Edit: well, looking at the posts above, a dual core might not be enough, but you should still start at overclocking it to ~ 3 ghz.

 

[mnewsham]

this is an office pc I assume, im also assuming its a dell (or similar prebuilt) and thus will NOT be able to overclock (no advanced bios options). You can still OC your gpu somewhat to try and eek out some more frames.


Sent from my droidX

 

[emblem]

I have a
E2200 @ 2.9ghz
2gigs ram
HD 3850(256MB version)

and can play Dragon Age easily at 1680*1050 at like medium settings or something.

 

[blanketyblank]

Can you change an x1300 pro? I think these cards were available in AGP as well so you should look into it to see if it is even possible to swap a new pci express card into that thing. 5670 is probably close enough power wise though so that should be ok.

 

[Skurge]

He'll be fine.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2917/5

Just ask all the 9600/9800gt users.

 

[Red Hawk]

You already got the advice I got, which was to try overclocking the CPU for better performance. I say drop the 5670 in there, OC the processor, and give it a shot. It sounds like you are getting all the hardware for no money, so what have you got to lose?

The fun part about this is, I'm practically being paid to get this computer. I'm formatting the drives of all the old computers and reinstalling XP so that they can be given away to employees, including my dad (and effectively, me). The only part I've had to pay for myself is the 5670.

How would I overclock the processor?

With your setup, yes, it will hurt gaming performance.

Also, off topic, how did you decide on your forum handle? I'm curious because I know some things or two about Red Hawk.

It probably has nothing to do with what you're thinking. I used to play Unreal Tournament as a kid at my dad's office (the same one) and would always play on the red team and have the name Red Hawk.

Can you change an x1300 pro? I think these cards were available in AGP as well so you should look into it to see if it is even possible to swap a new pci express card into that thing. 5670 is probably close enough power wise though so that should be ok.

I checked, the X1300 Pro is plugged into a PCE-E x16 slot.

 

[nanaki333]

if these computers are like an HP, dell, etc; then you won't be overclocking it.

 

[Red Hawk]

It's a Dell.

 

[nanaki333]

sorry to hear that.. i hate breaking that news to anyone. it's like telling a child there's no santa clause

 

[Red Hawk]

Good news! (for me) My dad and I ended up taking home two computers from his office, one which had a GeForce 9800 GT already installed. The computer with the 5670 will stay home with my brothers, while I am taking the one with the 9800 GT back to college with me.

 

[happy medium]

Good news! (for me) My dad and I ended up taking home two computers from his office, one which had a GeForce 9800 GT already installed. The computer with the 5670 will stay home with my brothers, while I am taking the one with the 9800 GT back to college with me.

Is a 9800gt faster then a 5670? Is that good news?

edit: yes it is, about 5% faster, good luck.

 

[Red Hawk]

Yes, it's a little faster, but the best part about this is two computers instead of one. Originally the single computer was going to stay with my brothers.