Upgrading my 8600 GTS

[aaronhkg]

Hi guys,

I want to upgrade my 8600 GTS 512mb to a newest graphic card, but there are tons of choies and versions in the market. My buget is about £40.

Would any experts give me some advise?

Thanks

 

[dustin_ds3000]

for that price you might find a ATI Radeon HD 4670 or ATI Radeon HD 4650 or Nvidia GeForce GT 220 or Nvidia GeForce 9500GT. you wont be getting much of and upgrade. you should save up at lest £80-£120 for something much better

 

[aaronhkg]

owh! if I rise up my buget to £80, which card I should buy? Nvidia or ATI?

 

[dustin_ds3000]

for £80 plus shipping you could get this GeForce 9800GT

 

[EXCellR8]

yea the 9800 is a good upgrade from 8600, but i would maybe look for an HD4850 deal... open box is your friend

 

[aaronhkg]

I can see that you are using 9800 GTX, what's the difference between GT and GTX?

ExcellR8: thanks for your advise.

I want to know does these card good enough to play Bioshock 2 or other lastest game ? I really need to get rip of laggy!

 

[dustin_ds3000]

the GeForce 9800 GT has 112 Stream Processors with a core clock of 600, shader clock of 1500, Memory Clock of 1800.

the GeForce 9800 GTX+ or GTS 250 has 128 Stream Processors with a core clock 738, shader clock of 1836, Memory Clock of 2200

here is a chart to compare the two Compare GeForce 9800 GTX+ to GeForce 9800 GT

yes both cards can play Bioshock 1 very well and should do the same for Bioshock 2

 

[Ritwik7]

+1 ExcellR8.

The Radeon HD 4850 will outperform the 9800GT and is at par with the GTS 250 (or slightly better).

 

[aaronhkg]

Did some google just now and found that there are so many types ( isotope @@") for Radeon HD 4850, 512mb and 1G in the market, is it the more mb the faster it is?

dustin_ds3000: Thanks for your detail information.

I'm wondering do I need to upgrade my CPU as well? i'm using AMD 64 X2 5000+ Black edition (3200) on Asus m2n-E SLI mobo.

 

[dustin_ds3000]

the only reason you need more than 512mb of video card ram is if your monitor have a screen resolution of 1920x1200 or higher. the fastest CPU your can have in your motherboard is the Athlon 64 X2 6400+ but you would have to update your BIOS to the latest version

 

[Ritwik7]

What games are you planning to play and at what resolutions? For most intents and purposes the 512 MB version of the card shouls be fine.

Is your CPU overclocked? Since it is a Black Edition CPU it has a pretty decent OCing potential. So overclock it to about 3 GHz + and there should be no bottleneck on the HD 4850. Even at stock it should do OK.

Read this article to see how the CPU performs.

 

[aaronhkg]

I"m using a 24" LCD 1980*1080, so i will need to get more than 512mb...more £££££

How much does 6400 faster than 5000? 20%?

Ritwik7: COD6, Crysis 2, Bioshock 2 etc...... Yes, my cpu is overlocked to 3200 GHz. and thanks for your link, learned alots.

 

[Ritwik7]

Well, then I think you'll have to spend on a much better card for Crysis 2 at that resolution. The HD 4890 will also be stretched to the limit when playing Crysis at 1920x1080. You'll just about get playable framerates with all settings to Very High. So the HD 4850 should be definitely out of the equation.

And your CPU will bottleneck the HD 4890 and better cards.

I suggest that you wait a while and spend on a new gaming rig altogether.

COD 6, Bioshock 2, etc. should however run perfectly on the HD 4850.

 

[dustin_ds3000]

+10 Ritwik7

Ritwik7 is right if you want to play Crysis 2 at 1980*1080 you will need a whole new gaming rig, just save your money as long as you can