What card and will it bottleneck?

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Yaky Peanut

Yaky Peanut

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Hi all,
I've got lots of questions I'm afraid so here goes:
My 8800 GTX is dieing very quickly and I need a replacement asap. I've done a bit of research but the naming system by nVidia and ATi is so random its hard to tell what's best.
My main ideas are a 285 or 275 GT, I would say a 295 but I think they're discontinued for the new 400 series.
I've also been advised that the Radeon 5000 series is good. I was thinking 5770, 5850 or a 5870?
How do the nVidia cards compare to the ATi cards in terms of performance per money. I'd like to spend under 200 quid, but I can manage £250 if its worth it.
I've also realised I may get bottlenecking. I've got an E6600 running at the normal 2.4Ghz, will that be an issue do you think, and if I were to overclock it to 3Ghz, which I've heard is safe enough, would the problem go away?
Thanks very much in advance,
Jack
 
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Yaky Peanut

Yaky Peanut

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OK thanks.
I've got no extra cooling in my case. I got it 2 and 1/2 years ago with the standard cooling. It appears theres 1 fan over the CPU and 1 fan built in to the side of the case. Will this be enough to keep it hot if I clock it up to 3.3?
Also, what tool would you recommend using to overclock it?
 
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flyinfinni

flyinfinni

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I would suggest the Radeon HD 5850 as well- shouldn't run too hot, even in a stock cooled case. Overclocked to 3.0 GHz you'll only be slightly bottlenecked- a bit more would be ideal, but still- you'll get GREAT performance. the GTX 275, 285, 295 are all WAY WAY overpriced right now and totally not worth it at ALL. If you REALLY want an Nvidia card, the only one I can really suggest is the 470, but even IT is overpriced and really hot/power hungry compared to the 5850, which is the best price/performance available right now in your performance range. a 5770 would be another good choice, but its a good bit cheaper and lower-performing than the rest of your options, though it would be fine with your CPU at 3.0 GHz.
For overclocking- just use the motherboard BIOS. its the best and most consistent way to OC.
 
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Yaky Peanut

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Rolli59 - Running at 1920 x 1200 usually, although I sometimes put it down a bit for games to make all the HUD's slightly easier to readl. [Bad eyes lol]
Flyinfinni - Thanks very much for the advice, I'll give the overclocking a go when I get the card. I think the 5850 will be the one I go for then.
I was told Sapphire is the best brand, is this the case? If so, is it worth getting the Vapour-X edition which is an extra 15 quid here:
https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Graphics+Cards/ATI+5800+Series/?p=cF9zdHlsZT1saXN0JnBfcHJvZHVjdHNQZXJQYWdlPSY=
Is £250 a fair price for it or is there somewhere cheaper?
Thanks
 
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Bluescreendeath

Bluescreendeath

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The 5850 will be bottle necked by the E6600.

According to Tomshardware's building a balanced PC part 1, a P2D E6300 @ 2.8GHz was somewhat bottlenecking a 4890.

The E6300 P2D is 45nm CPU that is slightly faster clock per clock and has a higher base clock rate than your 65nm CPU.

A 5850 is about 1-2 tiers or so higher than the 4890.

You should overclock your E6600 to 3.0GHz and over to avoid any major bottlenecks.
 
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builderbobftw

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Uh, I disagree. Tom's did a recent article, and a Dual Core running at under 3ghz was FASTER than an i7, with a 5850.
 
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builderbobftw

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image005.png


That Crysis. And If you don'y like it, heres a general conculsion post.

image020.png
 
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Yaky Peanut

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OK, so as long as I put it up to 3Ghz it should be OK-ish. Would getting a quad core make any difference? I can't get an iX processor because I'd need a new motherboard and I don't have the money for that now, maybe in a few years.
I've also realised I've only got a PCI-E 1 slot, and this card is PCI-E 2. Apparently they're backwards compatible, but by how much will this lower the cards performance?
 
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flyinfinni

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Bob- that is comparing apples to Oranges comparing an i3 to an e6600! The i3 is hyperthreaded, with Turbo, and is SIGNIFICANTLY faster clock for clock than the e6600. The e6600 would need a much higher clock to be close to the i3.
Yaky- buying a quad is not gonna be that much help to you right now- might as well save for a more complete upgrade later as most games still only use 2 cores. There are some games that will show a difference, but not that much.
Also- a PCI-e x16 1.0 will perform just like a PCI-e x8 2.0. You won't see much difference, even up to a 5850. Many people are still running 2x 5870 in P55 mobos in x8/x8 configuration. You shouldn't really notice it.
 
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Bluescreendeath

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Yep. The 32nm i3 is the latest generation dual core and is much faster overall as well as clock-per-clock than the 65nm E6600 which came out years ago.

A 65nm E6600 OCed to 3.0ish is roughly equal to a 45nm E6300 @ stock 2.8GHz. The 5850 is slightly fater than a GTX285, but is probably slightly lower in terms of CPU usage. (between the GTX285 and 4890 in terms of CPU usage)



Here are better examples for the OP. At max graphics at 1280x1024.

Fallout%203%201280x1024.png


Far%20Cry%202%201280x1024.png


Crysis%201280x1024.png


Grand%20Theft%20Auto%20IV%201280x10.png



The rest of the benchmarks can be found here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-balanced-platform,2469.html

 
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flyinfinni

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From those graphs, you can see pretty clearly that the e6300 bottlenecks all but the 4850 on pretty much all the games. Even the E8400 shows a bit of a bottleneck in many of the situations. An i3 is a totally different game :)
 
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Bluescreendeath

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Aye, Crysis is mostly a GPU dependent game that doesn't rely much on CPU power (so you won't notice CPU bottlenecks since you'll be hitting GPU bottlenecks long before it).

Other games such as FarCry2 or GTA4 will cause the OP to notice CPU bottlenecks.

As a comparison to the i3 Crysis benchmarks:

Crysis%201680x1050.png


Crysis%201920x1200.png

 
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Yaky Peanut

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Well the new cards come... but it doesn't work.
I think it may be that my PCI-E slots busted because I tried sticking the nVidia card back in and it didnt pick it up again. Screen wouldn't come on through either card if i connected them by DVI, I have to use the VGA port on my mobo to get a picture with either of them.
Anyone got any ideas before I resort to buying a new mobo as my current board only has 1 PCI-E slot.
If I do have to get a new mobo has anyone got any ideas? I've got an e6600 which is an LGA775 and I've got ddr2 RAM, neither of which I'm prepared to upgrade at this point.
I was recommended that this one is very good:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-P5QL-EPU-Intel-P43-Sok-775-PCI-E-20-%28x16%29-DDR2-1066%28OC%29-800-SATA-3Gb-s-ATX
Reasonable price and its got PCI-E 2 so it should definitely work with my card.
Any other thoughts?
 
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flyinfinni

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Have you tried a different monitor? If you can get VGA from both, but DVI from neither, sounds like it could possibly be either your monitor or the DVI cable. I would see if you can swap out the cable first, and then the monitor and see if either of those helps.
I would try those before I got a new Mobo, but still, if you do need a new motherboard, that one you linked is fine. Asus is a great company, and it looks like it has plenty of connectivity and stuff like that.
 
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Yaky Peanut

Yaky Peanut

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I tried the card in another computer and although I didn't install the drivers and stuff I got a picture and a found new hardware message which is more than for my PC so I know the card is working and that its my PC that has the issue.
OK I think I'll just get that board then.
Cheers, I'll let you know what happens.
 
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builderbobftw

builderbobftw

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benches of games at 800x600 on low settings don't count, since he won't be playing like that.

Edit: And GTA IV is a poorly programeed piece of console port crap, and It is highly CPU bound, wich is a direct recperical to the general trend that m odern games seem to be taking.
 
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Bluescreendeath

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What are you talking about??? Look over the benchmarks again. All of the charts are on 1280x1024 and all the graphics settings are maxed out.

The benchmark chart are for Crysis, Fallout3, and FarCry2, not just GTA4. All of them show a CPU bottleneck for the dual cores and higher end GPUs.
 
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builderbobftw

builderbobftw

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OOh, It said avergae frames, not average settings. NVM.

And 800x600 was an exgaertion, but still, I woul dlike to see the diffrence in frames bewteen 2cpus with a mod range card, Crysis Maxed at 1920x1200, with 8aa, One done with a E6600 at 2.4ghz, and one with an i7-930 at 5.3ghz on L2N.
 
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