Need advice for budget upgrade from 4850/1gb

senritsu

Honorable
Aug 22, 2012
2
0
10,510
Hello,

i am considering upgrading some parts as my system doesn't really have enough juice for more recent games anymore

My current specs:
Asus M4A78T-E
Athlon II X3 445 black
MSI radeon 4850/1gb
target resolution 1680x1050 on primary monitor, occasionally 1080p on the tv
8GB RAM

I am on a tight budget, so i would prefer to keep the upgrade cost below 120€/150$ roughly.

One candidate to replace would be my graphics card, i looked around a bit and the things that looked promising were the 6850 and the 7770 at about the same price of 120€/150$, most cards below that seem don't seem to offer a significant enough boost to warrant the expense.

With that in mind, i am not quite sure if it would not make more sense to switch my cpu instead. Candidates here include the Athlon II X4 631 which is available for around 50€/60$ and seems to be quite good value for the money (going from pure benchmark scores it seems to offer a boost of around 55% compared to my current one), or one of the cheaper phenom IIs for around 80€/100$ like the phenom II X4 945/965

Any advice one way or the other as well as better choices for both would be much appreciated :)
 
I would go for the HD6850. Your CPU shouldnt hold you back, and if you're good enough you might even be able to unlock the 4th core on the processor if there is one and get it stable.

If not, it should not bottleneck the card.

And the 6850 is usually a bit faster, but needs more power. But seeing as you have a 4850, you should be fine.
 

senritsu

Honorable
Aug 22, 2012
2
0
10,510
I actually tried to unlock the 4th core already, but as the system didn't even twitch anymore after that i had to clear cmos :)