Video card upgrade for older CPU

[xithryl]

Hi everyone,

A friend of mine has been playing swtor on his PC, which is sporting a Core 2 Duo E6420 😛 The video card in there right now is an 8600 GT

I was wondering if you all think dropping a new video card in there would help much or think the CPU is bottle necking a bit too much. I ask because my gfs PC right now is running an E4400 with a GTX 260, and doesn't get much better performance than his PC....

Now that I think of it I guess I could always check his PC with the 260... But if anyone knows for sure the best way to go about this that would be awesome.

 

[sosofm]

A 550Ti , 6870

 

[mubin]

your cpu definitely bottlenecking your gpu. You can upgrade to a new cpu or overclock it to get much better performance.

 

[xithryl]

A 550Ti , 6870

These are the cards I was looking at,

Mubin, I know the CPU is gonna bottleneck, but I mean the 8600GT is a huge downside off the computer. I guess what I'm really asking is if we get him a 550 Ti lets say... Would you all think the game would see much improvement? or would still too heavily be hindered by the CPU?

 

[mubin]

Your friend's cpu will bottleneck 550ti but not heavily. Depending on games, the more cpu intensive, the more bottleneck there will be. Games like Dirt3/BF3 do not need high end cpu but need high end gpu. So you will see improvement if you place a 550ti, depending on games.

 

[xithryl]

Your friend's cpu will bottleneck 550ti but not heavily. Depending on games, the more cpu intensive, the more bottleneck there will be. Games like Dirt3/BF3 do not need high end cpu but need high end gpu. So you will see improvement if you place a 550ti, depending on games.

Thanks man.. any ideas as to Star Wars the Old Republic being CPU or GPU dependent? I'm sure regardless coming from an 8600GT it can only go in one direction lol...

Thanks again.

 

[mubin]

Gpu intensive mainly. Here is tomshardware's link:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/star-wars-gaming-tests-review,3087-8.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/star-wars-gaming-tests-review,3087-6.html

You can see there how much bottleneck there will be. But seems like 2.5Ghz clock speed is needed for smooth gameplay for any dual core cpu.

 

[xithryl]

Best answer selected by xithryl.

 

[xithryl]

Thanks man this has helped me out a whole lot!