worth an upgrade to a 3850 or 3870?

I want to be able to play ut3 with better framerates than I am getting, plus better framerates for all games.

I have a p4 w/ HT 3.0 ghz and a x1950 pro and am wondering if I would really get the expected performance gains by getting a better card like the 3850 or 3870, or if the cpu would bottleneck the system.

I know that getting a 8800gt would be a waste of money because my cpu would just squelch its potential, but I heard that ati cards rely less on the cpu.

The reason I am not getting a new build is because I am waiting for nehalem, and also just don't have the money for a new computer

Thanks in advance for any input

is your board AGP or PCI-E? The 1950 pro comes in both flavors.

Also, like Indigofungus said, see if your board supports a e21xx series CPU. Some of those boards will take the upgrade. What board do you have?

My chipset is 925x express, and even though its a high end chipset its an old one and as far as I can tell from intel's website, it only supports p4 and p4 extreme edition.

Yeah then you are better off waiting to get a new board and CPU. Anything higher is going to bottleneck like mad.

Thanks guys I really appreciate the responses. Perhaps my old p4 is even bottlenecking my current card (the x1950pro) haha.

So from all your advice the conclusion is to get a new system. If I didn't have a dell, it would be pretty cheap to just grab a new motherboard and cpu, but since I knew nothing about computer hardware 4 years ago I bought a dell. So I'd have to get a new case and new OS too.

So rather than do all that now and then replace the motherboard for nehalem in a year I may just wait. (although the case and OS I would recycle through other systems but I'm hesitant whether to get vista or xp).

An alternative choice would just be to go ahead and get a new system and not upgrade until the refresh of the new architecture (32 nm afaik)

@truromeo4j uliet: Yes I love ut also, a few of us at UnrealPlayground play ut99 ctf on friday nights http://www.phanz.com/NOP/html/ . I remember when ut99 was the popular game and you could really have a lot of fun playing.

My card is PCI-express, but it feels nice to know that I may get some more juice out of my current card if I do get a new system. What is this Government Economic Stimulus Package Check you speak of?

does it matter that I am still a dependent?

awesome, thanks for the information jay

My main reason for getting a new card would be so ut3 is playable. Right now I get 30 fps or below, and it is not smooth at all even on the lowest of settings. Other games like cod4 and bioshock I get 50-60 fps, so I think getting a new card for ut3 will not help much because it seems cpu related. I'll most likely get a new rig and use my current card first before I get a new one.