Graphics card upgrade question

[CWillis767]

Hello, I am considering upgrading to an ATI 5850 graphics card. I currently have a 9600 GT. I have looked at some of the benchmarks and they look impressive; however, I have a question for someone who either know a lot about this new card or someone who has experienced this new card. Will I notice a BIG difference in framerate when playing games such as Batman Arkham Asylum and Resident Evil 5.

My current system specs are:
-ASUS P5K-E Motherboard
-Nvidia 9600 GT Graphics Card
-4 Gb of DDR2 RAM
-Intel 2.33 E6550 Ghz Processor
-650 Watt Power Supply

****To give you a inside look on my current performance****
I run Resident Evil 5 at about 43 fps everything HIGH and on except vsync and AA.

 

[jyjjy]

What resolution do you use?
That CPU at that speed will bottleneck an HD5850 pretty severely. It should OC pretty easily up to around 3.0 ghz which would certainly help a lot but ideally you'll want to upgrade to a quad core.

 

[Yellowcard]

If you have the money to upgrade to a HD5850, you should go for it. The Cpu certainly will be a bottleneck for this GPU. But Overclock it, and everything will be fine. RE5 will run really well with AA and AF. As for Batman... well you have to remember, that on an ati GPU you give up physx, and even AA, since those are only available for Nvidia. So you'll actually have less detail 🙁 It's your call. But most other games will run much, much better. In the end there is a huge leap of performance betwen those two GPU's.

 

[coozie7]

@ CWillis767: Either wait for the 57xx series to be released or look towards a 'old' DX10 card, a GTX260/1Gb HD4870 would be a nice upgrade but cheaper and better matched to your existing hardware than the currently expensive and hard to find HD5850.

 

[CWillis767]

I think I may just order the Intel C2Q Q9550. Because i'm pretty sure my CPU is a big bottle neck right now anyways for my 9600 GT. I'll just wait till the big battle comes at the end of November between Nvidia and ATI.

 

[Mousemonkey]

As those games barely use two threads the extra 500mhz clock speed is not going to make any difference.

 

[CWillis767]

If money is one of my main concerns do you think upgrading my CPU to the Q9550 and waiting until late November when Nvidia and ATI cards will be fully on the market is a smart idea?

 

[coozie7]

One question remains: What is the resolution of your monitor? We need to know this.

Although more and more games are using Quads to their full, the number is still fairly small so I'd say stick with the E6550 for now but overclock it-take a look at the Overclocking Forum for advice.
As for waiting, there seems to be no hard news as to when Nvidia will release their next gen cards but the rumours are December or maybe Q1 2010, so you might be in for a long wait.
If you must upgrade now then the GTX260/1Gb HD4870 look good (I'm assuming a 1680x1050 monitor) but I would strongly advise waiting until the 57xx cards are released and tested before making the decision.

 

[enayet_redeemer]

Radeon 5850 will surely bottleneck your CPU if you want to game above 1680X1050 resolution. You could probably go for 4850 X2 I think to get decent gaming performance for quite a long time.... 🙂

 

[CWillis767]

The resolution is 2048 x 1152.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Radeon 5850 will surely bottleneck your CPU if you want to game above 1680X1050 resolution. You could probably go for 4850 X2 I think to get decent gaming performance for quite a long time.... 🙂

Actually it's the other way round, the CPU would be the limiter below 16 x 10 above that the CPU becomes less of an issue.

The resolution is 2048 x 1152.

😱 On a 9600GT!

 

[harrypot]

Hello, I am considering upgrading to an ATI 5850 graphics card. I currently have a 9600 GT. I have looked at some of the benchmarks and they look impressive; however, I have a question for someone who either know a lot about this new card or someone who has experienced this new card. Will I notice a BIG difference in framerate when playing games such as Batman Arkham Asylum and Resident Evil 5.

My current system specs are:
-ASUS P5K-E Motherboard
-Nvidia 9600 GT Graphics Card
-4 Gb of DDR2 RAM
-Intel 2.33 E6550 Ghz Processor
-650 Watt Power Supply

****To give you a inside look on my current performance****
I run Resident Evil 5 at about 43 fps everything HIGH and on except vsync and AA.

i would get a 4870 its just as good in my oppinion and less money around £90

 

[CWillis767]

Actually it's the other way round, the CPU would be the limiter below 16 x 10 above that the CPU becomes less of an issue.


😱 On a 9600GT!

Why is that crazy??? haha? What do you recommend? I purchased the Q9550 so my CPU should be less of a bottle neck. I tried overclocking my CPU but it wouldn't run stable at 340 Mhz so I assume its not worth overclocking.... I think my ram is an issue because CPU-Z says my DRAM frequency runs at 400 Mhz.

 

[Mousemonkey]

20 x 11 is more than most people would ask from a 9600GT, I'd say get a 5870 and be done.

 

[swifty_morgan]

Even if the processor does bottleneck the 5850 I'd still get the new card. You will see a noticeable improvement over the 9600gt. I run a GTX260 and I'm thinking of doing it. Not that I need it.

The GTX260 blows the 9600gt out of the water on a slower machine than yours and the 5850 is faster yet. Of course your hardware can't take full advantage of it but so what.

As far as upgrading the processor, wait, you may find yourself building a new machine ( proc/mem/board ) before you know it and the card will work much better. Prices are dropping all the time and in 6 month's when AMD comes out with their 6core desktop processor you'll be able to get today's "leftovers" at better prices.

The memory runs at 400......... 400x2= wut ? sounds fine to me...... although my DDR2800 runs at 800+.... your board/bios may show it differently. If in doubt go into the bios and select load optimized defaults and see if it makes a difference.

 

[enayet_redeemer]

The resolution is 2048 x 1152.

Sorry, CPU bottleneck will happen in lower resolution. 🙂

You get smooth gaming experience in 2048X1152 with a 9600GT!!!!
I think you can go for 4850X2 would be the choice for yours.

 

[CWillis767]

I actually ended up overclocking my dual core to 3.0 successfully and the games run a lot smoother! I think I shall wait until Nvidia releases their new card before deciding which is a wait but it sounds like a good idea.