Tom's Hardware > Forum > Graphic & Displays > Graphics Cards > Video card upgrade or not

Video card upgrade or not

Forum Graphic & Displays : Graphics Cards - Video card upgrade or not

Tom's Hardware: Over 1.4 million members in 6 different countries available to answer all your high-tech questions. Sign up now! Its free!

Related content

See all topics related to "video card upgrade"

Ask the community Add a reply

Bottom Search this thread

:pfff: hear are my specs
vista home premium
amd x2 7550 @2.5
evga 9800gt 512
3gb ddr 2

i went to a cyber cafe today t kill some time they had a few games set up so i started to play left 4 dead and runs better on there computers, now hear are the specs of there comuter

intell e5200
4gb of ddr 2
ati 4770
windows xp

now i know the 4770 is better then the 9800 is it the video thats holding me back or the cpu, the 7550 is a bit faster from what i read and sould i use windows xp or stay with vista, or get a new video card

Add a reply

The reasons might be -
1. Their 4GB RAM might be running in Dual-Channel and your is not...
2. Did you check out the resolution @ which you play at your home and the resolution there at the cyber cafe ?
3. You might be running the game @ DirectX 10 and they @ DirectX 9...
Games would run faster @ DirectX 9 but looks better @ DirectX 10.
4. The 9800GT is not a correct match to the HD 4770.

Reply to gkay09

i think that if game running fine on your machine then you don't need to upgrade your card unless you like to play at very high resolution plus everything is set to the max (but still it depends on what games you're playing) . one thing to remember when upgrading the graphic card you may need to upgrade your PSU as well.

Message edited by renz496 on 09-16-2009 at 10:15:09 AM

Reply to renz496

The 4770 isn't much faster than the 9800GT and the E5200 if its at stock speed is not really any faster than your 7750.
A single 4770 will be bottlenecked by your cpu, so anything faster than the 9800GT would be limited by your cpu.

Have you tried overclocking your cpu?

Message edited by zipzoomflyhigh on 09-16-2009 at 05:13:49 PM

Reply to zipzoomflyhigh

i don't thinks that the case my old computer before some one broke into my home and jacked it had an x2 4800+ and 9800gtx+ superclocked and had no probs playing games and the 7550 is faster then the 4800 and the 9800gtx+ superclocked would kill the 4770,

Reply to peter2004

The 9800GT and HD 4770 perform almost the same, but the 9800GT is just a tad better, so your video card isn't the problem.
I think the difference can be explained by the lack of dual channel in your machine, combined with the difference between XP and Vista and probably different in-game settings.

------------------------------ CPU: Intel Core i7 920 @3.2Ghz, MOBO: Asus P6T SE, RAM: 3x 2gb OCZ Platinum OCZ3P1600LV6GK, GPU: Sapphire HD 5870, PSU: Corsair HX520W, HDD: Seagate ST31000528AS 1Tb 32mb, COOLER: Scythe Mugen (S775 version), CASE: Coolermaster CM690
Reply to Gulli

How do you know he doesn't have dual channel? Likely its a pre-built with 2 -1gb sticks and 2- 512 sticks, IN DUAL CHANNEL.

I think just the extra 1gb or ram in general would make it perform a bit better. He has yet to tell us what resolutions he's comparing.

Message edited by zipzoomflyhigh on 09-16-2009 at 10:04:06 PM

Reply to zipzoomflyhigh

Knowing intel, they probably overclocked it a bit.

You can only do 2GB of dual-channel, because I'm assuming you have a 32-bit OS. Unless dual-channel still works if you can only use 1.5GB of a stick.
See if you can tune up your CPU a bit (overclock), and if you see noticeable differences in FPS, than your GPU is bottlenecked.
Also, a 9800GT should be playing L4D seamlessly. Maybe not 16/16/UHQ/19x12, but it should get you pretty far.

And yeah, what settings are you running at compared to the Cyber?

Message edited by shadow187 on 09-16-2009 at 06:41:42 PM

Reply to shadow187

Exactly, thats why pre-builts with 32bit os's only come with 3gb of ram, IN DUAL CHANNEL, because the os wouldn't utilize 4gb in dual channel.

Yes and I'm sure those E5200's are overclocked.

Message edited by zipzoomflyhigh on 09-16-2009 at 08:02:42 PM

Reply to zipzoomflyhigh

no the e5200 is not overclocked i checked it's at 2.5 and my computer is prebuilt, it's 32bit os, well left 4 dead runs well but just seems better at the cyber cafe, also maybe i should get a new card because an 4850 is the same as an 9800gtx+ and a 4770 is 5% slower then a 4850, because when i had my 9800gtx+ i would play lost planet and my fps would be 110 and now it'a only 63fps which is still good but as you can see the was an huge drop in fps with the 9800gt, so how can an 4770 and a 9800gt be even i really don't understand i am a noob and also i tried to play WOLFENSTEIN 2 and it seemed like it ran slow

Reply to peter2004

Some games favor Nvidia cards and some favor ATI cards, thats just the way it is. It also depends a lot on what resolution your video is set to in the game and what level of settings your using.

Maybe they turned off AA or AF to improve the performance on the other machine and yours is running AA or AF, that would make a big difference too.

Message edited by zipzoomflyhigh on 09-16-2009 at 08:59:00 PM

Reply to zipzoomflyhigh

i found this i was right the diff between the 9800gt and 4770 is like night and day so i am not why others were saying that they were even dosen't look like it to me

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/HD_4770/12.html

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to peter2004

peter2004 wrote :

Sure you can always go look for one game where there is a huge difference but if you open that link of yours and read through all the benchmarks you get a totally different picture.

Why do you keep dancing around the question? You still have yet to tell us what resolution your using and what resolution the cafe uses or if you were using AA or AF. So how can you even compare one to the other if they are different?

Did you even read the article you linked? lol, besides thats only one game, which is known to favor Nvidia cards by the way. Not to mention every one of them is a different resolution and some have AA on and some dont.

Only 2 charts show the 4770 winning and thats because its low resolution (1024x768 and 1280x1024) Most gamers dont use resolutions that low.

That chart shows the 4770 and 9800GT dead even at 1680x1050 with 4xAA does it not? It also shows the 9800GT a mile aghead of the 4770 at 1920x1200 with 4xAA does it not?

Message edited by zipzoomflyhigh on 09-16-2009 at 10:17:10 PM

Reply to zipzoomflyhigh

1400x900 res or 1280x900

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to peter2004

peter2004 wrote :

1400x900 res or 1280x900

I honestly think your so clueless, that you cant possibly compare the two systems. If you have no idea about aa or af and your not even sure what resolutions your comparing then you cant compare anything. End of discussion. The 4770 clearly gets owned by the 9800GT at high resolutions with aa and af.

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to zipzoomflyhigh

zipzoomflyhigh wrote :

Eh?

Reply to jennyh

What the hell garbage am I reading here?

Since when was a 9800gt better than a 4770? Have you lot gone mad or what?

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to jennyh

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid [...] s/?page=10

When you add 8xAA, the 4770 pulls even further ahead of the 9800gt, which cannot cope with it.

EDIT :- In no way would upgrading a 9800gt to a 4770 be worth it. The difference is nowhere near enough to justify it.

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by jennyh on 09-17-2009 at 03:24:22 AM

Reply to jennyh

jennyh wrote :

What the hell garbage am I reading here?

Since when was a 9800gt better than a 4770? Have you lot gone mad or what?

I was looking at the chart the OP posted for FarCry, didn't you even read the OP before responding?

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/HD_4770/12.html

Message edited by zipzoomflyhigh on 09-17-2009 at 04:10:50 AM

Reply to zipzoomflyhigh

jennyh wrote :

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid [...] s/?page=10

When you add 8xAA, the 4770 pulls even further ahead of the 9800gt, which cannot cope with it.

EDIT :- In no way would upgrading a 9800gt to a 4770 be worth it. The difference is nowhere near enough to justify it.

Nobody including the OP mentioned anything about upgrading a 9800GT to a 4770. I think you need to read the actual post before you reply.

Reply to zipzoomflyhigh

I think you need to read it again zipzoom, because it sure looks like you aren't making much sense to me in this thread.

The OP linked a review showing the 4770 owning the 9800gt in just about every benchmark, yet you say only 2 charts show it winning? The 4770 owns the 9800gt in most games at any resolution, higher resolution and AA doesn't actually change anything in fact the 4770 is a much better card with or without it.

I have no idea wtf you are going on about frankly, what I do know is that the 4770 never gets 'owned' by the 9800gt at any resolution.

Reply to jennyh

Also, the OP is clearly under the impression that the reason his pc is dragging behind is due to the graphics card.

The 9800gt is part of the reason, it's maybe not *all* the reason but it is part of it. That's why I said it wasn't worth upgrading.

Reply to jennyh

so is the 4770 10% faster then the 9800gt so would it be wroth upgrading to the 4770 or how about if i overclock the 9800gt

Reply to peter2004

Overclock your cpu and gpu and it will help a little. What others are trying to say is simply buying a better graphics card isn't gonna help a huge amount, especially not when it's an upgrade as small as a 9800gt > 4770.

Left 4 Dead shouldn't be running badly on your machine anyway.

Reply to jennyh

ok question if i would to upgrade from my x2 7550 to an Core 2 Duo E7200 how much faster would this cpu be

Reply to peter2004

Not worth it. If you upgrade the CPU, go for a Core 2 Quad/ Phenom II X3/X4 / Core i5/i7. A Core 2 Duo won't justify it.
If you upgrade the GPU, go for an ATI 4870, or GTX 260, or an ATI 5000 series GPU (thay'll be out next week).

Reply to sanchz

Ask the community Add a reply

Tom's Hardware > Forum > Graphic & Displays > Graphics Cards > Video card upgrade or not

Go to:

Help |
Forum rules

There are 1159 identified and unidentified users. To see the list of identified users, Click here.

Related content

See all topics related to "video card upgrade"

Page generated in 0.479 seconds

Focus On

Video card upgrade or not

Forum Graphic & Displays : Graphics Cards - Video card upgrade or not