amd 5200+ bottleneck?

[arges86]

i was wondering if i got a nvidia 8800 Ultra (really inexpensive by now), would my 5200+ @ 3.0 Ghz bottleneck my card?

My computer is:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ OCed @ 2999 MHz
Mobo: Gigabyte M57SLI-S4 w/ nForce 570 SLI chipset
RAM: 4GB Mushkin DDR2 PC2-6400 DDR2
OS: Vista 64bit
VC: Evga 8800 GTS 320MB

Thanks for any suggestions or comments

 

[customisbetter]

Nope. You should be fine.

 

[Wisecracker]

At higher resolutions, I'd say no.

I don't know what you are paying for that 8800 ultra but you might want to consider a 9800GTX or a GeForce GTX 260.

Or possibly cross over to the ATI darkside.

By the time you are ready for a new video card it will most likely be time for a mobo upgrade.

 

[masteryoda34]

I would go with one of the newer cards like the GTX 260. You can find them for about $220 after rebate and it will be much faster than the Ultra.

 

[arges86]

my mobo has PCIe 1.0, not 2.0
So a 9 series or higher doesn't seem to make sense
right?

 

[Wisecracker]

my mobo has PCIe 1.0, not 2.0
So a 9 series or higher doesn't seem to make sense
right?

IIRC some time in the past Tom looked at PCIe Gen1 vs. Gen2 and (at the time) only in limited instances did the difference in bandwidth make more than a 5% difference in FPS.

The really big difference between PCIe Gen1 vs. Gen2 is in the wattage supplied by the slot. IIRC a PCIe Gen2 x 16 slot can provide up to 75w (Gen1 was something like 45w) ...

 

[megamanx00]

Nope. I think you're better off going with a single Radeon 4850 though. You could also just SLi your current GTS, all tho the 320MB of RAM could prove rather limiting. Anyway I think your CPU will be fine for that GPU so you should be fine. If you want to SLi that ultra though then you may want to look into also upgrading your CPU.

 

[jitpublisher]

You know going from the GTS320 to the Ultra is a decent upgrade, but you are upgrading to card just as old as what you have, only a little faster.

I'd definetly listen to the advice here and start looking at one of the newer cards. They are faster, and really some good deals can be found.
I would only go for an Ultra if it was like $140 or less.

 

[seboj]

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ OCed @ 2999 MHz

Just out of sheer morbid curiosity, would the 5200+ not take that final +1 to hit 3ghz?