Cpu or video card?

[confuseis]

Hi all

I built my system when the core 2 duo's were fresh and now after buying shogun2 total war I realise its time for an upgrade however Im not sure whether to go for a video card or processor. You see total war has a lot of moving sprites in fact hundreds which i reckon is more a cpu intensive task than it is a graphics job, however im not sure how much of that task would be assisted by a modern graphics cards GPU?

my rig is core 2 duo 2.2ghz
4 gb ddr2 ram
nvidia 9600gt 512mb

i minimised the game and ran task managers performance tab and indeed the cpu's were both at near 100% capacity but im slow to rush out and get a new cpu if i think a new card would serve me better.

anyone?

thanks for reading

 

[jmsellars1]

To be honest i think both of them could do with an upgrade but if you want the cheapest way then i would maybe get a CPU cooler like a Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus and overclock that CPU a bit and get a GPU such as the HD5770 or if you can spend a bit more then maybe a GTX 460 or GTX 550. As for the RAM, i think that should be ok.

 

[confuseis]

ok thanks mate

Yeah im on a budget and I dont want to commit to a full new system just yet and want to flog this one a bit more. already got a new cpu fan never overclocked a cpu before. Do you think ill get a decent percentage increase? can I also overclock the 9600gt? &what tools do you use.

cheers

 

[megamanx00]

I don't think a faster card will do you any good. As it is I think your CPU is holding back that 9600GT a little. It's a little late to upgrade your CPU. If your motherboard supports newer 45nm Core 2 Duos then you may want to consider an E5800 and just overclock the crap out of it. Otherwise, overclock your current CPU with a good cooler and get a Radeon 6850 or GTX 460 assuming you can get at least 3GHz out of your CPU.

 

[jmsellars1]

I couldn't say for sure how much you are going to be able to get out of either components from overclocking but i depending on your case, motherboard and how fast you can set your GPU fan i think you might be able to get another 10-15% from the GPU and maybe 15-20% from the CPU.

GPU overclocking is easy enough, it's just a matter of cranking the clock up and watching temperatures, preferably on a stress test. Stay under 80c on stress and i'd say youre fine.

CPU overclocking is a bit more tricky, youre going to want to read up on it. Small overclocks are pretty easy but generally anything more than around 10-15% means youre going to have to up the voltage which is where it starts to be a pain. Stay under 70c on stress and youre ok.

The software i use for these are as follows:

CPUid Hardware Monitor (Monitoring fan speed and temperature)
MSI Afterburner (GPU Overclocking and GPU Fan Control)
Bios (CPU Overclocking and CPU/Case Fan Control)
Geeks3d Furmark (GPU Stress testing)
Prime 95 (CPU Stress Testing)

Hope this helps, good luck

 

[jsc]

With a decent cooler and a little luck, you can overclock any Core2 CPU (except perhaps the Q8200 family) 33% - 50% assuming that your motherboard does not have a locked BIOS.

What kind of motherboard?

 

[confuseis]

Here are the specs

Motherboard Model: Abit AW9D(-MAX)
Motherboard Chipset: Intel 975X (Glenwood-DG) + ICH7R

Platform:
LGA775 (FC-LGA6)

CPU stuff:

Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo E4500
Original Processor Freqency: 2200.0 MHz
CPU ID: 000006FD
CPU Brand Name: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E4500 @ 2.20GHz
CPU Vendor: GenuineIntel
CPU Stepping: M0
CPU Code Name: Conroe-2M
CPU S-Spec: SLA95
CPU Thermal Design Power (TDP): 65 W
CPU Max. Case Temperature (Tcase_max): 73.3 °C

Machines are running win 7 ultimate 64bit.

I can run dragon age origins with no problems arma 2 frame rate isint great, empire total war runs ok,

No Ive never overclocked anything before, Actually not a big fan of shortening the life span of my components so I always thought this was fraught with danger, however I have little choice now because of the budget restraints, lets say I can spend 200 euro's on an upgrade

I have a 2nd core 2 duo system which I use as a media centre PC then which is a 1.8ghz core 2 duo (conroe) with an 8400GS piece of **** graphics card. I was planning on passing some components down to this machine as I upgraded my main machine. E.g. replace its chip with the 2.2ghz one as the 240volt power supply is altready meeting its max capacity as is and because its a micro atx form factor I am physically impeded somewhat. It has a ms 7255 board gb ram.

Thanks for reply lads.

 

[jmsellars1]

I wouldn't worry too much about shortening the life span of components when overclocking. It's nothing too drastic, in fact you probably won't even notice because most CPU's (or any other part) are pretty obsolete within 5-10 years anyway.

 

[jmsellars1]

At €200 you could easily manage a decent GPU and some cooling upgrades. Any of the following would be good (in rough order of performance from low to high.) HD 5770, HD 6850, GTX 460 1GB, GTX 560Ti. If you think you have the cash too you can get the best air cooling around (which should fit on future machines for a while) for about €50-60. Look at Noctua or Cooler Master for that.