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oldman169   06-08-2009 at 05:04:14 AM

Thanks everyone for your help. I am an old computer geek from the 486 days who has a little trouble in learning the modern ways. I have done a lot of searching to see if I can actually answer this myself and that is how I came apon this site.

Here is my motherboard and the GTS 250. My current cart is the Geforce 7600gt.


Geforce GTS 250

http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-01G-P3- [...] 174&sr=8-1


a8n-sli deluxe

http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx? [...] odelmenu=1


Processor - Amd Athlon 64 X2 dual 3800+ 2.01 ghz

Memory - 2 gigs


I know my power supply 450W(peak 500w)


what SHOULD I actually look at when deciding if the card will work, and if you can help me directly I'd appreciate that too.

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ct1615   06-08-2009 at 05:28:06 AM
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assuming your PSU is made by a decent brand, you should be good to go

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AKM880   06-08-2009 at 05:29:11 AM
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That CPU might bottleneck that card, can you possibly overclock it?

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Bronze Graphics badge mousemonkey   06-08-2009 at 05:54:56 AM
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AKM880 wrote :

That CPU might bottleneck that card, can you possibly overclock it?


Sli'd 8800GT's choked my 939 3800x2 @ 1680 x1050 with all eye candy maxed out (lessens the CPU load) so I think you may be pushing it a bit close to the edge, what resolution do you intend to run at?

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efeat   06-08-2009 at 06:14:46 AM
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oldman169 wrote :

what SHOULD I actually look at when deciding if the card will work, and if you can help me directly I'd appreciate that too.

 

The main thing you need to look at is the 12v rail on your PSU. Nowadays, almost everything runs off 12v power, so if your old PSU has half its power dedicated to other voltage rails, then your 12v rail is going to be overloaded and will break. The next thing you need to look is the power draw of your system and graphics card. Keep in mind that power requirements given out by ATI and Nvidia are usually way off base, and you should check reviews (such as this one) to see what they actually use.

 

To see if it would be even feasible, you need to look at the rest of your system and determine if the new GPU would be far stronger (comparitively speaking) than the rest of your system. It's hard to find raw data on new GPUs matched with older CPUs, but Tom's did a review several months ago that included an athlon 4200+ X2. Very similar to yours, so you can kind of use that as a guideline. The GTS 250 is about the strongest card you should be considering (unless your monitor is REALLY big) and you could probably save some money and pick up a slightly lesser card without hindering your performance since your CPU is going to be the weak link.


Message edited by efeat on 06-08-2009 at 06:14:57 AM
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oldman169   06-08-2009 at 03:08:39 PM
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Thank you for the replies so far. I appreciate all the help. One thing I will say is that I will only have one of the cards, not two.

 

in terms of overclocking my cpu, I think I could do it, although I've never done any overclocking before.

 

I have an lcd monitor Rosewill r912e http://www.newegg.com/product/prod [...] 6824021019

 

and I usually run resolutions at 1280x1024, which is pretty much the recommended resolution for that.

 

so If i drop the GTS series and go with the 100 series or 9 series will it actually be THAT much more performance to be worth it?

 


and just to give you guys an idea, I usually upgrade computers when I can't play the newest games period, I very very rarely play any games maxed out on all settings. I've usually managed to keep about a 4-5 year cycle of changing computers. so the max settings and all that don't matter to me, as long as I can play the game smoothly.

 


oh btw I'm sure it matters so I'll add it in, Im running windows xp with service pack 3 and direct x 9


Message edited by oldman169 on 06-08-2009 at 03:42:14 PM
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Bronze Graphics badge mousemonkey   06-08-2009 at 03:32:05 PM
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At that resolution a 9800GT or 8800GT would max out the eye candy and be cheaper to boot. Some CPU OC'ing may still be required though.

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Irish   06-08-2009 at 05:57:31 PM
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Hey old,

I have the same set up now, same MOBO, same GPU and same Proc. I do have 4 gigs of ram though but that is mostly for CS3. I get very good numbers out of that GPU but I think the group may be correct it may bottle neck with the CPU. I used to have a 7800gtx and I get about the same performance from both cards.

I have tried OCing the proc with little luck. It locks up on me at all percentage increases, but I have never tried a voltage adjustament while doing the OC.

It is still a very good system and does what I need it too.

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