toyo rob Posted January 10, 2009 Share Posted January 10, 2009 i'm thinking of getting a new desktop and have found pcspecialist.co.uk and created this little monster, my question is whether the graphics card selected is just too much for the rest of the specs, there are a few options open. i'm looking for a gaming spec too keep me for the next couple of years. my current comp has an old comp has the geforce 6200 with 512mb running on a gigabyte m/board, 2.5gb ram and xp3000+ amd processor. Processor (CPU) AMD PHENOM™ X4 9950 (2.6GHz) 4 x 512K L2 CACHE (SOCKET AM2+) Memory (RAM) 4GB CORSAIR XMS2 800MHz - LIFETIME WARRANTY! (2x2GB) Motherboard ASUS® CROSSHAIR II FORMULA: SATA II, 3 x PCI-Ex, 2 x PCI Operating System Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium 64 bit Edition + SP1, CD & Licence (£85) Memory - 1st Hard Disk 160GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7,200rpm) 1st CD/DVD Drive 22x DUAL LAYER LIGHTSCRIBE DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM Graphics Card 896MB GEFORCE GTX260 PCI Express + DVI Network Facilities ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT Memory Card Reader INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (READS XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) Case Stylish Silver/Black Trident case + 2 front USB Power Supply & Case Cooling 600W Quiet Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£58) Processor Cooling SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£15) totalling about £900. other options on graphics are pretty much any of the 9600 and 9800 range. any suggestions on whether its worth it or not?? Rob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3LL Posted January 10, 2009 Share Posted January 10, 2009 if thats £900 with delivery included i would say thats not a bad price given the hardware your talkin bout. i would say get more hard drive space though.. go for 500gb or more ideally. if your using this for games you will soon start to run out of space! sounds a good set up tho Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest r34nel Posted January 10, 2009 Share Posted January 10, 2009 wouldnt your old pc be okay with a better graphics card? i think you would be suprised how much of a limiting factor the graphics are, the rest of the spec aint bad and modern games are relying less and less on the cpu, when i built my current pc (over a year ago now) i used a intel core 2 duo 2.6 x2 , 2gb ram and a geforce 8500 512mb(all parts were newest at the time) but when i came to running games with the settings cranked up it stuttered and struggled no end! i upgraded to the geforce 8800GT and it was a powerhouse! and to be honest still plays the newest games on the highest settings, so this showed that the graphics card was the dominant factor in performance, no matter how much power your gonna be packing in the cpu department it will all be for nothing if the Gpu (graphics processor) is acting like a bottleneck, and i think with a good card that old amd cpu has got some life left in it! its kinda like having a dirty big turbo blowing down a drinking straw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest r34nel Posted January 10, 2009 Share Posted January 10, 2009 p.s that geforce 6200 was the budget series 6 card aimed at basic gaming. as was my 8500 in series 8, ignore the amount of on board ram its the gpu speed thats important Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toyo rob Posted January 10, 2009 Author Share Posted January 10, 2009 cheers, will see what those new cards are going for... rob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted January 10, 2009 Share Posted January 10, 2009 The replacement for that CPU has just been released...ie Phenom II... maybe you should ask for that instead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pixelfill Posted January 10, 2009 Share Posted January 10, 2009 Be careful with some of the more power hungry cards 9800GTX+ 9800GX2 GTX280 GTX295 Your old PSU almost certainly won't support their power requirements, so budget for a more pokey power supply if you go for an upgrade. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest r34nel Posted January 10, 2009 Share Posted January 10, 2009 if its a brand new release it will be crazy money, i remember in the pentium days when they released a slightly higher clock speed the price doubled! its normally best bang for buck to get the one just below the best, this saves a big chunk of cash for little difference in performance Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest r34nel Posted January 10, 2009 Share Posted January 10, 2009 yeah mikes right, my 8800GT requires TWO external power connectors, most cards produced around a year earlier didnt need any and could be powered straight from the motherboard, so series 9 cards i would imagine would be even more demanding Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toyo rob Posted January 10, 2009 Author Share Posted January 10, 2009 i was thinking of going with the 8800gt cause of the requirements of the newer cards, what connections does it need?? ive got agp and pci slots only on the motherboard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamanC Posted January 11, 2009 Share Posted January 11, 2009 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pixelfill Posted January 11, 2009 Share Posted January 11, 2009 i was thinking of going with the 8800gt cause of the requirements of the newer cards, what connections does it need?? ive got agp and pci slots only on the motherboard. If you've only got AGP then you are going to be pretty limited in options for high end graphics cards. The last top of the range graphics card designed specifically for AGP was the 6800 Ultra! Any newer which mechanically fit an AGP slot will have been originally designed for PCI-e and been made to work - there was very little investment in AGP from that point on. Edit I've just checked and a "Nvidia 7800 GS+ GSa AGP" may be the only option newer than a 6800 Ultra. You may find some of the low to mid range graphics cards made for AGP, but at the top end I doubt it. If you've got AGP your best upgrade solution is to replace the lot I'm in the same situation with my current desktop. Mike Disclaimer (I only know about nVidia never really looked into ATI) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest r34nel Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 thats correct, obsolete due to the limited banwidth the agp bus offers you will need pci-e x16 for an 8800gt or anything newer for that matter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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