4850 overkill for 5000 black edition?

JoeyRindone

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Jun 30, 2008
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Hi I'm a noob to the forum

I've built my last 2 pc's from newegg and from my experience I won't buy from anywhere else.

Anyways, here's my build. I want to know if the 4850 will be absolute overkill for my 1024x768 projector (which may be upgraded soon, but if I do the projector would only be 1280x720) in which case I'd buy the new 4650 or whatever it is when it comes out. The onboard video on the 780g series is somewhat decent from what I've heard.

Also any recommendations would be nice

x2 5000+ black edition $82 ($62 after rebate)
Thermaltake SopranoRS free x2 5000+ combo
Scythe SCKTN-2000 100mm Sleeve "Katana 2" $25
powercolor radeon 4850 $195 ($170 after rebate)
SUPER TALENT 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 800 $75 ($60 after rebate)
GIGABYTE GA-MA78G-DS3H $90
SILVERSTONE SST-ST60F 600W ATX Modular $90
Western Digital 640GB sata $95
Sony 20x dvd-r sata $23

total is $677 before rebates. i'd like to spend as little as possible while getting the best bang and most performance for the buck.

BTW, does anyone know when the new midrange ati cards are coming out? and if so will they be a new design or just rehashed hd3600 or 3800's?
 

effel

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May 19, 2008
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I don't that the processor is going to be a concern as much as the resolution is. With that kind of gaming resolution, the 4850 is going to provide insane frames per second; definitely overkill. I just put a very similar build together for another user who wants a WoW pc for his brother. I think the 780G is fine for that, but pairing it with a CF ready graphics card only boosts performance more, which is good.

I think your graphics card selection should really be based on what sort of games you're going to be playing. I'm a huge fan of the price/performance ratio of the 4850; I almost hit buy on it to replace my 8800GT. I decided that wasn't necessary however, since my graphics card provides extremely well for the games I'm playing right now. Honestly, I find myself playing CoD4, DotA on WC3, and most recently I picked up GRID. I play at 1440x900 though, which is a bit more pixels that what you're going to need to be rendering.

With consideration of what you're going to be playing, I'd look at a 3850. It'll save you around 60-70 bucks, which may or may not be helpful to you. Your system total is pretty low as it is, which is surprising for being able to stick a 4850 in there. Another way you could shave down the budget if you're ardent about the 4850 is go with 2GB of Ram, which you could pick up for around $45.

About your speculation of the midrange cards, I'm definitely going to keep my eye out for the 4650. The amazing results from the 4850 give me expectations of a decently powerful mainstream card.
 

doomturkey

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Sep 18, 2005
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The 4850 might be overkill for that low resolution, CPU bottleneck is a problem at low res. But at a low price of $200, you might as well. Hell, just turn the shaders up all the way and you should be golden.

EDIT: Definitely OC that CPU to get the most out of the 4850. Thats what the black edition is meant for. Try hitting at least 3ghz, it should be pretty easy to do without a voltage increase. I'm getting one shortly and I want to go as high as possible, 3.4ghz would be pretty sweet.
 
Yes, for current games it is massive overkill.
You will be CPU bound in nearly every game before you hit the limits of the 4850.
For the price, though, you might as well get it.
With any luck, you should be able to push it along until DX11 comes out with Windows 7.
 

JoeyRindone

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Thanks for the input. I just put in the order. The only thing I changed was the hard drive to the 750gb seagate. I heard the 640gb wd was pretty fast...but for $5 more an extra 110gb is probably going to be nicer than the marginal speed difference. I decided not to step down to anything with the video card...I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Hopefully OC'ing will level things out a bit. I hope its an easy overclock. 3Ghz would make me happy. Are there any utilities for overclocking this processor? I hate overclocking in the bios even tho I know its the preferred method.
 

effel

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Joey in order to overclock that processor, all you should have to do in the BIOS is change the CPU multiplier if I recall correctly.
 

doomturkey

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Yeah its meant to be easy to overclock. Just up the multi to 15 and theres an easy 3ghz. No need to mess with the FSB.