Will a 7850 be to restricted by my set up?

[Tatanga]

Hi,
I have the following setup:

CPU: core 2 duo (wolfdale) e6300 running at 3.4GHZ (2.8 stock)

MOBO: GA-73PVM-S2H
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2691#ov

RAM: 4GB DDR2 800MHz

PSU: XFX Pro 450w
http://xfxforce.com/en-gb/Products/Power-Supply/XFX/Pro-Series/ProSeries-450W-PSU.aspx

1 SATA HDD and a dvd drive

GPU: 6670 1GB DDR5
http://xfxforce.com/en-us/Products/Graphics-Cards/ATI/AMD-Radeon-HD-6000-Series/AMD-Radeon-HD-6670.aspx

I can run most games pretty well generally on highish settings on 720p I want to push it a bit further and get a 7850 a friend is selling for £100 get me upto 1080p and make this PC last a bit longer.( I appreciate it's showing its age!).

I don't think my set up will do this card justice and imagine I may loose a bit of performance on this card?

My concern is pretty much across the board that the mobo is PCI Express 1 the CPU is 4/5ish years old that the ram is ddr2 not 3.

What are your opinions will the card still be able to give me a significant boost?

 

[snipersam15]

Hmm that ram a lot of things there might bottleneck you the most will prolly be the ram and possibly the PSU, you think your psu can handle 7850

 

[Tatanga]

i'm confident the PSU will be able to handle the card its a good PSU (85% effiecent) and only 50 watts under the 500 recommended considering how much less an ill efficient PSU could actually pump out I think it will be okay. There's not alot of extras in the system being powered either.

I agree its a bit of everything that's going to be holding it back, by how much are we talking?
It might be hard to put a number on it I don't know enough about hardware to understand but would we think that the card would only run at about 80% capacity? Is my 6670 doing the same? would the gain still be significant despite the bottleneck as 7850 is a much more capable card than the 6670?

 

[andrewcarr]

That PSU will have no problem with a 7850. That card has great energy efficiency.

Now for how much it'll be held back I don't believe will be all that much, maybe 10% loss regular 20% some games (although will vary with game). Regardless it'll still be a major upgrade from your current graphics level. I doubt your system is holding a 6670 back. Yes I think it's a worthwhile upgrade as FPS should still increase quite a bit (at least double) and if you do decide to build yourself a new system you have a decent GPU that won't need to be upgraded. Just remember if you also upgrade to 1080 at the same time and are disappointing your GPU is better just the higher resolution (effectively double) is making the GPU work harder along with the restriction from other parts.

 

[egilbe]

You should see a significant increase in performance with the newer card, in spite of your CPU bottleneck. The 6670 isn't exactly a high end card

 

[snipersam15]

Agreed go for it, it will be good and like andrewcarr said you wont have to get another gpu when you upgrade your system. Good luck XD

 

[Tatanga]

Thanks for the advice, that's exactly the kind of information I was after. Realistically the card wont be fully utilised but will still be able to provide a boost to the system so i'm gonna get it.
Thanks for helping me choose

 

[andrewcarr]

No problem. Glad I could help.