Upgrade to HD5830 or GTX460 despite PCIe x16 1.0 ?

[scales]

Hi guys,
It has been a while since I bought a new graphics card and I don't bother to keep up with which is the fastest until I feel like upgrading; so I am sorry if my question is stupid.

Starcraft 2 is coming out soon (in case anyone has been living under a rock) and I thought it may be time to replace my dusty radeon xt1800xt 512Mb with something newer. I haven't upgraded my desktop in a while (running an old core 2 duo (e6400 2.1Ghz i think) with 2 gigs of ddr2 800 ram) and was considering a few options. I do most of my gaming on my ps3 but do like strategy games on the PC and my current setup lags a bit when playing RA3 at 1680 by 1050

I will update the mobo, ram, and cpu to some core i7 setup at some point, but was deciding whether upping the vid card now would give me any boost with gaming. My video card is still in PCIe x16 (not 2.1 or 2.0). I believe a newer 2.0 card will work in my older slot (though a little slower than what it can max out at) but was concerned about how it would compare to my xt1800xt given the lack of PCIe 2.0. Would it make sense to hold off until i upgrade the whole system?

From my recent quick research it looks as though the HD5830 or the GTX460 are the best options for something in the sub 230 price range.

thanks guys

 

[borisof007]

The difference in speed from PCI-E 1.0 to 2.0 when upgrading your card from an x1800xt won't be really noticeable.

Your decision to grab a GTX 460 or a 5830/5850 is a good one. Recent VGA tests for Starcraft 2 (courtesy of guru3d) suggest that those cards would be perfectly fine at full details at 1900x resolution.

Personally, I think the GTX460 will be your best option, but that's just me.

 

[scales]

The difference in speed from PCI-E 1.0 to 2.0 when upgrading your card from an x1800xt won't be really noticeable.

does that mean that I will still see a big speed boost with the new graphics card even though I am using it in a PCIe 1.0?

Your decision to grab a GTX 460 or a 5830/5850 is a good one. Recent VGA tests for Starcraft 2 (courtesy of guru3d) suggest that those cards would be perfectly fine at full details at 1900x resolution.

Personally, I think the GTX460 will be your best option, but that's just me.

I wouldn't mind saving a few bucks too, but I do believe that staying above 150 would be a better investment in the longrun...that xt1800xt was 300 when I bought it, so hard to believe that it is so outdated especially given its monstrous size!

 

[mactronix]

You will see a huge difference. To clarify your PCIE bus wont slow the performance of the card to a huge degree, it will run to within a couple of percent as fast as it would on a 2.0. If you had two systems side by side you wouldn't notice a difference when playing games.

The 460 is easily the better card in my opinion as well and thats coming from an ATI fan.

Mactronix

 

[cyberkuberiah]

get the 460 .

 

[scales]

Just to clarify, I am not tied to either card. Is there a competitive alternative that is a bit cheaper than 199.99?

 

[notty22]

Looking at your computer specs, a more balanced gpu choice might be a hd 4850.
They are 100 dollars at newegg. Its 8 tiers higher http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-radeon-hd-geforce-gtx,2676-7.html than your current card, with your current cpu, the 4850 might give the same performance of something faster (because of cpu/system bottleneck)

 

[scales]

Looking at your computer specs, a more balanced gpu choice might be a hd 4850.
They are 100 dollars at newegg. Its 8 tiers higher http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-radeon-hd-geforce-gtx,2676-7.html than your current card, with your current cpu, the 4850 might give the same performance of something faster (because of cpu/system bottleneck)

Thanks for the help. I was just thinking about where my bottleneck was, I posted my specs here just moments ago:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/290640-31-help-bottleneck

I figured the CPU was my biggest prob, and while I almost upgraded it a few months ago, I figured that a better option would just be to replace the whole system.

Agreed?

 

[borisof007]

I would agree Scales, and yes what I was trying to say earlier that upgrading your graphics card, despite it being only a PCI-E 1.0 slot, you would see a great performance increase.

 

[scales]

One more thing,
I am looking at the gfx460 (768) and see that there is a super clocked version for 10 bucks more. Is that a gimmick? Isn't there software that can do this?

not even sure if it is really necessary.

 

[Mousemonkey]

One more thing,
I am looking at the gfx460 (768) and see that there is a super clocked version for 10 bucks more. Is that a gimmick? Isn't there software that can do this?

not even sure if it is really necessary.

Something like MSI Afterburner that can be downloaded for free you mean? :lol:

 

[scales]

thanks all