Is a 5850 wasted on an E8400 processor?

[FPSBoy]

I have a 8800 GTX at the moment and thought for £200 I could upgrade to a 5850 play my games at faster framerates. My monitor resolution is 1920 x 1080 and I struggle to get the best picture on things like GTA IV. I have 2gb RAM.

I wanted to get an i7 set up eventually but in the meantime is my processor going to hold back on what I can get out of the 5850?

Thanks.

 

[shubham1401]

Your RAM will be a bigger bottleneck than your CPU.
Get 2 more gigs.

And E8400 can handle a 5850.
Games still work well on duals.
You might have to OC it though...

 

[FPSBoy]

I have overclocked it a little but only 10%, same with the 8800GTX.

So I should be able to get max settings at native resolution then with only upgrading the card you reckon?

 

[jzsang]

Your CPU situation could be better, but overall, I think you will be fine. The E8400 is a very fast dual core and most games do not always utilize quad cores to their full potential. For the GTA IV's and RE5's that do, check this - http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,690488/Processor-benchmarks-with-Resident-Evil-5-Core-i7-reigns-Phenom-strong-Update-Lynnfield-results/Practice/ - out. An average of 58 frames at a reasonable resolution is not exactly a disaster. Also, please remember that some engines, such as the ones used by the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Crysis series, are quite GPU bound. If anything, upgrade your ram and enjoy your very energy efficient system.

 

[FPSBoy]

Interesting thanks, the last time I read into it (maybe a year ago?) I thought that the difference between 2 and 4gb wasn't a lot but I guess things move on.

The only downside about the memory is that I wouldn't be able to transfer it to an i7 system but I don't suppose 2gb will cost a lot. Cheers.

 

[coozie7]

+1 for the card and memory upgrade.
I would suggest going for a matched pair of 2Gb sticks rather than 4 1Gb unless you can find exactly the same as you already have installed, not every motherboard is tolerant of pick-and-mix memory.

 

[Ehsan w]

it depends on the game like Jzsang said
I don't think it would bottleneck if you overclock it to around 3.6 Ghz

 

[Bluescreendeath]

An OCed E8400 can handle a GTX295 without significant bottleneck, which is roughly equivalent to a 5870.