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New Video Card?

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newt070   01-14-2009 at 04:15:29 AM

Ok guys/gals I have a question regarding either to upgrade my video card (and power supply) or wait to upgrade my pc (could be a long time).

I currently have a 6600GT, AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+, and 2 gigs of ram. I mostly play WoW and that is about it. With the recent upgrade to WotLK I have started to get some lag with video animations. So my question is; should I upgrade to say a 9800GT and get a new power supply or will that not even fix my problems? I have around $200 dollars to spend or I can save it and wait. If I get the video card it could be a really long time to get the rest of the parts for a new PC.

So basically, will I see a big difference between a 6600GT and a newer card around $100?


Thanks in advance for your help.

Edit:

I like to play the game at 1680X1050. Is my video card the bottleneck here or is something else holding me down?


Message edited by newt070 on 01-14-2009 at 04:25:54 AM
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ohiou_grad_06   01-14-2009 at 05:00:10 AM
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I definitely think you'd see a benefit. I know I personally went from a 7300LE card to a 9600gt and saw a huge performance jump.

This would definitely be pushing it, but because you say it may be a long time before you can upgrade again, you might take a look at an ATI 4670. They run about 80 bucks on newegg, though I saw one for 69.99 recently. But it's probably on average just a little slower than a 9600gt, though in some benchmarks it's said they trade punches.

Nice thing about the 4670 is power consumption. What do you have as far as a PSU right now? With a 4670 if you have say a 400 watt power supply or better, even a cheap one, you should be able to run it, as it does not even have an external power connector on the card. So it's made more for low power applications.

That said you could take your cash maybe grab that, and then if you have a 64 bit OS, grab a little more ram and maybe overclock your 4200+, or even do a chip upgrade. Couple of ideas for you to go with. But I would say your video card is your biggest bottleneck at this point. Remember, at higher resolutions, your cpu is actually needing to work less. So if memory serves, if you ask guys on here, they'd probably tell you the same.

Reply to ohiou_grad_06
newt070   01-14-2009 at 01:32:38 PM
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For my PSU I have about a 400 watt. I can't remember off hand but I am sure that it is nothing larger and only a 32 bit OS.

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Bronze Graphics badge jay2tall   01-14-2009 at 02:50:09 PM
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What kind of 400w PSU do you have? is this a home build machine or a brand name? Either way if you want a cheap upgrade and want to keep your PSU, hands down the 4670. I installed one of these in a build for a guy who just wanted a nice card. It does NOT have a pci-e power connector and takes all the juice from the board. It is equivilent to about a 9600GT card.

 

If you are looking to upgrade your PSU with an older system like that I would suggest the 4850. My buddy has an AMD 4800+ at stock and he just got an HIS 4850 1GB card. It runs REALLY well.

 

This is the card I installed: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814161252
It is ridiculously quiet and well worth the extra few bucks.


Message edited by jay2tall on 01-14-2009 at 02:54:44 PM
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newt070   01-14-2009 at 03:05:34 PM
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This is a home build machine and I am also looking to upgrade my PSU as my current one is on the fritz.

I will have to take a look at the VGA charts and look to see which ones I like that come back and ask for help choosing.

Reply to newt070
Bronze Graphics badge jay2tall   01-14-2009 at 03:48:30 PM
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If you aren't looking for a crazy PSU you could get a good 500w PSU and it would run your system and pretty much most cards you want to run.

OCZ 500W is a good deal: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817341016

HIS 4850 is a good price: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814161259

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newt070   01-14-2009 at 03:57:02 PM
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Is PCIe 2.0 backwards compatible with PCIe? I could not find it anywhere on the product description of the card.

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newt070   01-14-2009 at 04:29:32 PM
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I answered my own question.

Reply to newt070
Bronze Graphics badge jay2tall   01-14-2009 at 05:16:53 PM
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I have a 4870 card runnin in my 975x motherboard which is PCI-E 1.1. I think there is minimal loss in running a 2.0 card on 1.1.

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