trying to upgrade without bottlenecking

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jonass21

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Jun 1, 2011
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My older radeon hd 4870 is starting to die, throwing tons of artifact during game and picture editing, I have tried deleting and reinstalling the drivers multiple times but I think it is just at the end of its life, I am looking at this card as an upgrade Powercooler 7850 2gb GDDR5
My question is is I am using this with a phenom xii 965 quad core clocked at 3.4ghz and 8gb ram, on this classy old MOBO will the gpu be overkill? Should I get something less substantial like in the hd 6000's?

Also, I understand the idea of bottlenecking, but when comparing a cpu and gpu what do I look at to determine where the bottleneck will be? Anyone have a good article they could share explaining?
 
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VincentP

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Oct 18, 2013
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Your processor isn't too bad. You could easily justify a HD 7850, even better if you want.
In games the processor will limit you to a certain frame rate.
If your graphics cards and graphics settings would allow a higher frame rate then you could call the processor a bottleneck, but if you turn the graphics settings up further than you can make full use of the graphics card.
The same works in reverse, if your graphics card is limiting frame rates you can lower detail settings.
A better graphics card always allows higher detail settings. There is no down side to it other than cost. You have to make sure your power supply is up to it of course, but the HD 7850 should have similar power usage to the HD 4870.
 
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jonass21

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so it sounds like it is very game dependent, whether you need more gpu vs cpu? I was hoping for some kind of nice linear relationship that showed you how to scale your gpu:cpu or something. I'll look at the 6000's see if they are worth saving some money, most games I play are more cpu intensive I believe, total wars/dragon age/fable, thanks for the answers
 
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swifty_morgan

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Feb 10, 2006
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he has a 965. a socket 775/q9550 was a faster cpu. when I reached the point where I put a 6950 on it it was pointless to go any bigger. just added undue expense to an under performer. Anything more will be cpu bound........... ( bottleneck ) crappy word, yes?

can he put a titan on it, yes. does it make sense, NO!
 
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