Strong Graphics Card - Weak System

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MrG

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okies.. here we go.

This is my current system rather old but I am thinking of getting an entire new system soon. However being a student still I am on a tight budget till mid this year when I start full time employment.

I currently have enough to buy a graphics card if it would help but I was just wondering how much it would really hope gaming performance?

CPU:
Intel Pentium 4 530, 3015 MHz
Motherboard:
Gigabyte GA-8I915P Duo
System Memory
2048 MB (DDR2-667 DDR2 SDRAM)
Video Adapter
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT (256 MB)
Total Storage Size
570.0 GB
Operating System
Windows XP Professional SP3


Would replacing the 7600GT with say a 9800GT for R2000 make it take on some more challenging titles well or will the RAM and CPU seriously pull back its performance?

Should I rather just stick to what I have atm and upgrade everything (Mobo, CPU, Ram and GPU) at once.

I presume this may be a silly question but friends sytems that are Core2Duo etc I have hardly noticed any sort of speed improvement in general Windows operation etc in comparison to my Single Core 3.0Ghz.. I expected a more drastic performance change.. you know.. the one u saw from 300Mhz days to 3Ghz systems. :)
 
Rather wait till you can upgrade the whole system.

You'll probably notice the difference a Core2 makes in games rather than in a Windows environment. Plus they're becoming rather cheap these days.

More RAM would also help

EDIT

The 9800GT is a pretty decent card, but isn't it now the GTS250? Or is that a different card?
 
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I think your main limiting factor will be your cpu if u decide to get a 9800gtx, 2gb of ram is sufficient for most things these days, but 4gb seems to be the sweet spot. And performance difference between ddr 667, 800, 1066 is quite negligible
 
Not everyone can afford a new system and you guys are basically telling him that a new card will not make a difference.

Stop talking kuk if you ask me, bench that 7600gt and then bench 9800gt or 9800gtx or 295 and i can assure you there will be a massive improvement.

You can always buy the new card and upgrade later on.
 
if i was u i'd pick up a e7400 and a g31 mobo with that r2k and wait a month or two 4 a gpu
 
killadoob said:
Not everyone can afford a new system and you guys are basically telling him that a new card will not make a difference.

Stop talking kuk if you ask me, bench that 7600gt and then bench 9800gt or 9800gtx or 295 and i can assure you there will be a massive improvement.

You can always buy the new card and upgrade later on.
Click to expand...

+1
 
killadoob said:
Not everyone can afford a new system and you guys are basically telling him that a new card will not make a difference.

Stop talking kuk if you ask me, bench that 7600gt and then bench 9800gt or 9800gtx or 295 and i can assure you there will be a massive improvement.

You can always buy the new card and upgrade later on.
Click to expand...

Lets be honest now, P4s just don't cut it when it comes to games these days. Whats the point in buying a brand new card for 2k, being forced to anyways a few months from now upgrade the rest of his system (it's innevitable) and then for that same 2k he could now suddenly have gotten a much better card?

Im not saying he won't see an improvement if he goes for the card, but he will definately not see the full potential of the card
 
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Hmm someone here has a P4 and a 8800GTX, he can play most of the games on high still.

just tunes down physics...also doesnt the physics calculations get offloaded to the GPU?

I think the 9800GT will make a huge difference
 
decotey let me explain this for you:

He can upgrade his cpu and keep his 7600gt, still have kuk performance because his vga is still kuk slow.

He can upgrade his vga card to a much better one and keep his current cpu and see a massive improvement. Now i would rather go with option and have a much better rig until i have the money for the new cpu than run a fast cpu system but be stuck with the slow graphics till i have money to upgrade the gpu.

Logically speaking if you have money for either cpu upgrade of vga card you go for vga because you will see an improvement and have a better experience. The question asked is which is better gpu upgrade or cpu upgrade and it is no a brainer what he should upgrade first :). I would say he should see anywhere between 30-60% better performance which would be much better than having 0% performance.

Vga cards these days are not that cpu dependent.
 
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strictly speaking from a gaming perspective yes . . .

but in every other aspect, no
 
Lord Fubar said:
if i was u i'd pick up a e7400 and a g31 mobo with that r2k and wait a month or two 4 a gpu
Click to expand...

Now this is an option I've been looking at - basically finding myself in the same situation. specs wise as Mr.G

A question if I may - how would my current 8500GT (512MB) hold up with the e7400 and G31? Got 2GB DDR-800 Kingston RAM.
Would there be a significant change in gaming with the addition of the mobo and cpu - something to note is that I'm not getting full potential out of my current mobo as it clocks the damn RAM down to 400MHz :o

Or would I still need to go for a new GPU?
Not really heavy on gaming - but titles I have waiting in the wings are GTAiV (not gonna run high on most systems anyway :p ), GRID and a few others.
 
I think a celeron would max out that card :p so you should be fine and a cpu upgrade would not improve your frames unless your running a celeron :p
 
:D Well I'll see what the current card will be like with the e7400 and G31 - one problem now stares me in the face. Do I use my bonus to upgrade the PC or get me that iPhone :eek: :p :D
 
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