Upgrade Advice

[selicate]

So, I'm in the process of building a new system, but I'm buying the parts piece by piece over a few months as my budget allows. I've decided to purchase the graphics card first, since I can just drop it into my current system and get benefits out of it until I have all the parts, whereas with mobo/cpu/memory I'd have to wait until I have all three.

I'm going with a 5850.

My question is, does anyone see any major problems (besides a CPU bottleneck, already know that's coming) with running it in this for now:

Asus P5AD2 Premium
Pentium 4F @ 3.2 GHz
2GB DDR2-533
~4 1/2 year old 500w Antec SP-500 PSU
XP Pro SP3

 

[hallowed_dragon]

So, I'm in the process of building a new system, but I'm buying the parts piece by piece over a few months as my budget allows. I've decided to purchase the graphics card first, since I can just drop it into my current system and get benefits out of it until I have all the parts, whereas with mobo/cpu/memory I'd have to wait until I have all three.

I'm going with a 5850.

My question is, does anyone see any major problems (besides a CPU bottleneck, already know that's coming) with running it in this for now:

Asus P5AD2 Premium
Pentium 4F @ 3.2 GHz
2MB DDR2-533
~4 1/2 year old 600w Antec PSU
XP Pro SP3

You will have a severe bottleneck at resolutions below 1680x1050, but at higher resolutions it will not be that drastic. Until the next build a 5850 will go as fast as the CPU can supply information, so I guess it will be better than anything you have at the moment. For less bottleneck I suggest cranking up the detail (AA&AF) to the maximum in any game shifting the power to the card not the CPU. If you have monitor with a resolution under 1680x1050 configure the driver for the card to give you the maximum quality not performance stressing the card to the max.

 

[sirkillalot]

i hope thats 2 giga b ram other than that no major problem man

 

[selicate]

Whoops, yea, 2GB. Edited to fix.

Also, 24" monitor at 1920x1200

 

[sirkillalot]

does it do 1900x1200?

 

[selicate]

Possibly. I'd have to check later when I'm home.

It's a Dell 2407WFP. Would it be a problem if it didn't support that resolution?

 

[sirkillalot]

no! its also what i have so it does 1900x1200 good choice
o and since your upgrading stuff later i wouldnt worry about bottlenecking

 

[metalweenis]

The 5850 is the smartest choice you can make at the current time. If you're running a resolution of 1920x1080 or over the card will do it's job and make you happy. It seems that you are, so order it up!