Athlon II x2 245 and HD 6850?

[Talking Tubby]

I currently have an Athlon II x2 245 (2.9 GHz), and was wondering if an HD 6850 would run games like SC2, Skyrim, Diablo 3, SWTOR, and BF3 on minimum without bottlenecking. Upgrading my CPU isn't really worth it because of my board, which is an AM2. Please help me out.

Thank you!

 

[phyco126]

You'll have bottle-necking, but you will also see a jump in FPS (depending on the GPU you are upgrading from). A single core 1.6 Ghz Athlon got 20 to 30 frames on high settings and a relatively high resolutionin WoW with a nVidia 240 GT. A better processor would have netted higher frames yet, but you will still see performance from a GPU upgrade. That said, its worth it. Just make sure your PSU can handle the new card.

 

[Talking Tubby]

You'll have bottle-necking, but you will also see a jump in FPS (depending on the GPU you are upgrading from). A single core 1.6 Ghz Athlon got 20 to 30 frames on high settings and a relatively high resolutionin WoW with a nVidia 240 GT. A better processor would have netted higher frames yet, but you will still see performance from a GPU upgrade. That said, its worth it. Just make sure your PSU can handle the new card.

I have a 500W PSU, should that handle it?
And I actually don't have a GPU currently.

 

[phyco126]

Depends on how many amps the 12V rail has on her. The wattage isn't nearly as important and the amps (though wattage still plays a role). What model PSU do you have?

 

[Talking Tubby]

Depends on how many amps the 12V rail has on her. The wattage isn't nearly as important and the amps (though wattage still plays a role). What model PSU do you have?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171031

 

[horaciopz]

At higher resolution as 1600x1050 you will decrease the bottleneckig as the GPU is working more than the CPU, I had an 6570 DDR3 with an AthlonII x2 260 3.2Ghz(overclocked 3.6ghz) and i played many games (wow at high, crysis 2 at casual) everything at 1440x900 with 50fps on WoW as regular and with crysis payable (dont know the actual fps)

But! we have to say, that your PSU is "enough" for the Wattage and it also have a PCIe 6pin conector, so you will handle your GPU well. BUT, this comes the bad part, CoolerMaster is well known for their good cooling but no for PSU's (those are not realiable and pretty bad). In the near future when you upgrade your mobo and cpu, also think about a new PSU, for now you are good since the only "heavy" load to your PSU will be the HD6850.

With a HD6850 you will get good FPS and WoW and other games... !

 

[phyco126]

Your PSU will just cut it, so it should be fine. But as Horaciopz said, I would definitely upgrade it some point in the future. Keep in mind, the older the PSU the weaker it becomes.