I was actually thinking that its smarter to upgrade to gpu before your upgrade your cpu. The argument made by people would be because of bottleneck issues. Though at the right resolution it shouldn't matter to much. Id upgrade the gpu then move on to a larger upgrade in the future. Edit: You may be able to get more performance in games with a better cpu but I highly doubt itll be the same improvement you can get a with a HD5770 for example.
or add 2gb ddr2 ram on that and chose 275gtx 1.7gb oc version instead for ~280€($), it has more ram and its around 5% faster than 285gtx.
Play a bot match with the maximum amount of bots and use Fraps to record average FPS. And FlawleZ, I agree with you I'm just pointing out that it won't cut it for much longer.
Ok, here are the results: - UT3, ShangriLa Map, 32 bots (using fraps): 1680x1050: Min: 17, Max: 38, Average:32.150 640x480: min: 23, Max: 42, Average: 33.733 - Dirt 2 (Using ingame benchmark tool) 1680x1050: <results samples="2641" min_fps="26.144108" av_fps="31.303951" min_fps_ms="38.249535" av_fps_ms="31.944849" /> 640x480: <results samples="2970" min_fps="28.039619" av_fps="35.833096" min_fps_ms="35.663822" av_fps_ms="27.907162" />
Yep, definite bottlneck with UT3. I couldn't even play the game on my 4200+ without getting minimums of like 15. In comparison, a Amd 720 X3 gets 96 fps average in UT3 with a 4770. UT3 is a very CPU demanding game. Those DIRT 2 benchmarks dont look right though, I got 36 fps average on a 4200+ at 2.5Ghz.
Those benchs are from the full game, it's the first track you play when you start your career and it's very demanding. On the demo, I avg 39, 40fps on 1680x1050. So I think this means I better replace the CPU... Which video card did you use with your 4200+?
The 4850 is just a step faster than the 8800, they are quite close. However, those FPS look low. I'd replace the CPU with something better. I'm still saying you're not getting the most out of the K10 architecture until you have an HT 3.0 capable board. deltatux
@ OP, I would listen to deltatux. Identify a board and cpu that you would like. Buy the a board that supports AM3&AM2 that has HT 3.0 like deltatux said. So buy the board first, try it with you current cpu and video card (you may get better overclocks on the new board aswell, you never know) it might make a huge difference. That way if the FPS still sucks, all you have to do is then order a new AM3 chip, whether it be a quad or triple core.
Not really, the 4850 is miles ahead of an 8800GS and quite a bit faster than even the 8800GT or 9800GTX.
Is it? There's a difference between the GS and GT? I'm not that in tune with NVIDIA cards as I use to. deltatux
Whoa! Um...no. The 4850 is a ~10%+ faster than an 8800GTX. It varies depending on the game. The margin keeps growing when you compare to lesser cards such as 9800GTX, 8800GT, 8800GS, etc. From the 8800GS, the HD 4850 is almost twice as fast. Doh, you just replied that you didn't know the difference. The 8800GS has 64 SP if I remember correctly. I'll check now. Its something like 70% the power of a standard 8800GT.
lol, it's ok, but yeah, I'll need to do more research, I didn't know that, now I do. I think the OP should upgrade both the CPU and then eventually the GPU because the K8 architecture won't fly for heavy multimedia use like gaming anymore. His GPU will soon show its age and will need to be replaced as well. deltatux
There's 2 versions of the 8800GS/9600GSO. One with 96 SPs and a 192-bit GDDR3 memory bus. And one with 64 SPs and a 128-bit DDR2 bus (essentially a 9600GT with half the memory bus). The 96 SP model is close to 85% of the performance of a 112 SP 8800GT and will easily surpass it through overclocking (stock core clock is 550MHz for most 96 SP models; ~200MHz OC potential). The 8800GT is around 15-20% slower than the HD4850. So, at stock, the 8800GS 96 SP model is close to around 25-30% slower than the HD 4850, but with overclocking can close the gap to around 10-15%. The 64 SP model is a different story, of course. My intention was to clarify that there's a much higher performance variant of the 8800GS out there. On the topic of the 64 SP model (usually on a 128-bit DDR2 bus as mentioned above): let's just say it's a lot slower. I don't know the performance figures off the top of my head, but guesstimating puts FlawleZ numbers pretty close. You could easily get one of these for $35 though, so it was a good deal anyways, even if it was slow by an 8800's standards.
I did some more tests with Prince of Persia and I got the same Average frame rates in 1680x1050 and 640x480. I think my cpu is definitely holding me back. I've read several posts in different forums (Sorry, I should've have bookmarked them) saying that the HT downgrade doesn't make a lot of difference so I'm going to take my chances. I'm thinking about getting the Phenom II X4 810. But is having a 2 MB L3 cache hinders the performance compared to a Phenom II X3 that has 6 MB cache?
I'm kinda in the same boat as the OP and this^^^^makes the most sense to me. Will most likely see a boost from new board and then as your budget allows you can upgrade your cpu, gpu and ram.
Nah, right now, I'll probably just upgrade the cpu and we'll see about the rest, Not about to build a new system just yet. Btw, using GPU-Z, I was able to know the average usage of the video card while I was playing Prince Of Persia, the average was 70%, plenty of power to go with a new CPU.
Don't bother with the 810, the 925 is literally $1 more expensive and has the full 6 megs of L3 cache. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...656&cm_re=phenom_2_925-_-19-103-656-_-Product
