Upgrading Radeon 4650 (Yes, old...)

[kaesarsosei]

Hello,
I have a really old system with the following spec:

Athlon 64 3500+ (single core)
2Gb Ram
Radeon 4650 Graphics Card

Do you think its worthwhile to upgrade my graphics card to, say, a Radeon 5670? Would that make any difference to the rest of the system's gaming performance? I want to be able to play X3: Terran Conflict at 1650x1*** rez comfortably.

Thanks

 

[jaguarskx]

The HD 5670 has about 30% more performance than the HD 4670.

X3 is pretty much a CPU dependent game and only uses one core. It should be fine, but I would OC your CPU if you can.

 

[jyjjy]

Yeah, I doubt you will see much benefit from a new card on that processor.

 

[shrkbay]

even the 5570 will be bottlenecked by your CPU, to minimalize the bottleneck try OCing it, also make sure your PSU can handle 5670

 

[kaesarsosei]

My PSU is 480W so I have room to play with but I know there's no point putting a 6950 in, so I'm sticking to cards that don't require auxilliary power.

I am planning on getting a complete new system in the autumn or early next year, basically when Diablo 3 is out

Am I right to say that even though my CPU is really old, the fact that it runs at over 2Ghz, does that not mean that in single-core games such as X3 it is just as good as a quad-core CPU where each core is at 2Ghz? Obvously the clock speeds have creeped up since then, and I realise that perhaps there are other architectural changes (eg RAM speeds) I am not taking into account but is there really much difference in CPUs speed for single-core applications?

Finally, can anyone show me a good guide to OC'ing that CPU?

 

[jyjjy]

You are right that there isn't much difference in single threaded applications/games. Those are quite rare these days though and for gaming you generally want at least a dual core at 3ghz or higher.

 

[ethel]

If you stick to an AMD X4 processor you can get a decent enough build for little money, and it will have four core. For example this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103921&cm_re=phenom_ii_x4-_-19-103-921-_-Product