I have an older AMD x2 3800 CPU in an Asus a8n-sli deluxe mobo with 2mb of corsair ram. I want to see if it makes sense to upgrade my Nvidia 7800 GT video card for something newer. I want to be able to run Call of Duty WAW and COD4. I also have Crysis and it would be nice to be able to run those too. I know Modern Combat is just around the corner and I wonder if there is a card that can run it with my setup. What would you guys buy under $200. Can I use the new PCI-E 2.0 cards? Can I sell my 7800GT? Whats it worth? Is Nvidia still the best or has ATI stepped up??
I ran an older rig very similar to that and had an 3870 512mb (I used a 3200+ to run crysis) which ran crysis extremely well with a very high DX10 tweaked config under xp, it also looked superb. a 4850/4870/4890 could be a good option for your rig, sure you could pick one of those up for around under 200 now, hope that helps.
Have a look at this thread, djtroy: 8800GT wont bottleneck amd athlon x2 3800+ at all etc http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=250830 Seems like even a 8800 GT (= 9800 GT) or 8800 GTS (512 MB) are going to be bottlenecked by your CPU. Imo, it's not really worth to upgrade just the GPU. Sure, you might get a few more fps, depending on at what resolution you play at, but imo it's better to save a bit more/longer and get a complete new system.
I was gonna run out and grab this at Best Buy. What do you think? http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...cat182300050008&type=product&id=1218102780717
What if I spend $130. Im only looking for 10-20FPS more. Remeber I just want to run COD 4-5 on 1900x1080
I would highly recommend rebuilding the rig. A socket 939 is heavily outdated. I recommend this: Athlon II 240 ($60) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103688 GIGABYTE GA-MA770T-UD3P ($79.99) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128392 G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-10600CL8D-4GBHK ($79.99) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231180 XFX HD-485X-YDFC Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card ($114.99) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150337 Subtotal: $334.97 All prices stated in US Dollars. All shipping and taxes extra. This should offer a lot more performance than that Socket 939 build as the HT 1 in combination of DDR1 wouldn't offer enough bandwidth. I know for sure people with Socket 754 would have issues for powering a Radeon HD 3650 for sure. My brother had that issue that's why I urged my parents to authorize a new rig for him which I assembled during the summer break. EDIT: I have an Athlon X2 4200+ on an AM2+ motherboard for my media centre and I still find it butt slow. This processor was in my main rig while I waited for the Phenom II 810. I can't even game on it properly. I was so glad to ditch it for my HTPC build 'cuz I don't mind a lil' slower HTPC rig but for gaming and virtualization, I need the speed. deltatux
Holy crap things are cheap these days. I just bought a Geforce GTS 250 1gb ddr3 vid card. I have a good case and PSU so ya I guess ill slap in a new mobo and ram. My hard drives are sata and ones a rapto 10k rpm so i think all i need is a new mobo cpu and ram. Wouldnt it be better to build a Intel core 2 duo rig?
if u want a cheap yet effective rig, I'd stick with AMD. Of course, if you want to spend more than what I quoted, you can go with the AMD Phenom II 550 BE, which also gives you an option to unlock the cores (basically you might get 4 cores for the price of two, you can't get this with Intel. Of course unlocking stable cores is not guaranteed) and couple it with a GIGABYTE GA-MA790X-UD4P motherboard for better overclocking. I think AMD still beats Intel regardless in performance per dollar especially in the dual core field. It's really up to you, I have used a Core 2 Duo on my friend's rig and it's pretty good as well. It's also a preference thing. I support the competition and it's one reason (next to the price) I went AMD after the Pentium 4 blunder. deltatux
Yeah i agree AMD could be the best option and are usally much cheaper than what intel have to offer when it comes down to the price/performance ratio. I didnt really see that huge of a difference when going from a dual core AMD 64 (Opty 185) to an intel dual core E6850 sure the benchmark scores improved significantly but games were roughly about the same. The amd dual core ran crysis very well at the time, was a very good chip overall.
