Looking to upgrade video card

[Adrenaline]

I have an older pc, 3.5 years now and here is what it has:

Intel Pnetium D 950 (Yes, I know this is old now)
ASUS P5N-D (had to replace my P5N32 SLI along with power supply due to what I believe was a power surge.)
2 7950 GX2 (originally was dual 7900 GTX but both went bad and EVGA replaced them with what I have now.)
Antec True Blue 750 Watt (Yes it is overkill BUT if I wanted to upgrade my machine I wanted to be able to without having to buy a new one yet again.)

If I get a new video card I would sell the two I have on ebay ost likely. I would like to upgrade my board, cpu, RAM and video card all together but I don't have $1,000 just lying around or I would.

 

[toyota]

with that cpu and 2 7950gx2 cards you are already pretty cpu bound. one 7950gx2 was fairly close to the 8800gtx in some cases so you theoretically probably have as much gpu power as having 1.5 8800gtx cards or so. your cpu is on par with a 3800 X2 which is already holding back what you have and will bottleneck the crap out of any modern higher end card. with that cpu no gpu upgrade is really going to be any faster than what you already have. now most newer games will probably run a little better on newer architecture cards but really you need a platform upgrade at this point.

you dont have to spend a $1000 for a gpu/cpu/ram and mobo upgrade and I am sure somebody can make you some good suggestion for a new platform.

 

[Adrenaline]

This is exactly the type of answer I was looking for, thanks.

What I was looking at was:

i7 860 ~300
evga SLI board ~200
4 GB RAM ~100
Video Card ~400

Ballpark figures for the numbers. I would be looking to upgrade to SLI later when cards drop.

Its either this or maybe just have one built through ibuypower or cyberpowerpc brand new with only one company to deal with instead of searching for the company when something messes up.

Edit:
My main concern is to be able to play Diablo 3 when it comes out in 2011 is why I will most likely wait until late 2010 to fully upgrade. If upgrading now would "future proof" me for a while (2+ years) I may do it. The main thing is that Blizzard usually makes their games to run off setups from a year beforehand it seems. I also play FPS.

 

[toyota]

any modern platform will be a huge upgrade over what you have now. you could go with a cheaper AMD setup or at least a cheaper mobo and i5 cpu. you certainly dont need a $400 gpu either as even a gtx260 for $150 will be massive improvement in playability for current games. if money is a concern then it never makes sense to go overkill on something. for example a $400 gpu would be silly when $150-$200 can get the job done now. then in the future just sell that card and get another one that will be much faster and have better features for the same $150-$200 price range. what res do you play games at??

 

[Adrenaline]

1920 * 1200 I believe.

If I upgrade the computer I want to make it to where I dont have to upgrade it for a while. I will also look at getting a new monitor (Gateway 2185 at the moment). My next one will be at a minimum 24".

Money should not be an issue in about 4 weeks though.

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: Adrenaline
1920 * 1200 I believe.

If I upgrade the computer I want to make it to where I dont have to upgrade it for a while. I will also look at getting a new monitor (Gateway 2185 at the moment). My next one will be at a minimum 24".

Money should not be an issue in about 4 weeks though.

that monitor is 1680 x 1050. I would still suggest a cheaper AMD setup or an i5 setup unless money is no concern. for a video card, I would look towards the ATI 5850 which will be out in a couple weeks for $259. the 5850 would be way more than enough for 1680 and will be plenty if you do upgrade to a 1920x1200/1080 res monitor.

 

[Adrenaline]

Money will not be an issue in a few weeks.

So I can look at the 5850 then, thanks. I am going through the cpu forums now reading up on P55 or X58 boards, leaning towards an X58 board with a 920 over the P55 with an 860.

Thanks for help.

 

[betasub]

The move to a solid LGA1156 set-up makes sense. But you can't "future-proof", just make choices based on an informed "vision" of what lies ahead. The best laid plans etc.

That said, buy your graphics card set-up for current gaming. It rarely makes sense to plan adding a second card much into the future, because there will be newer, faster single cards providing the performance with a better price/power/feature combination. So don't buy your current graphics card with an eye on gaming in 2011: there will be much better options available come then.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Your P5N-D supports all Core 2 processors. You should have upgraded to one whenever you got the board. I recommend you get any 45nm Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad. Even though you say money will be no issue, I can't help but at least mention the more economical approach. All you really need to do to get a "high end system" is replace the CPU and GPU, and you will get a system that can last just as long as full upgrade.

And I'd definitely sell both of those video cards and get a modern, high-end, DX10/DX11 video card. I haven't seen how the 7950GX2 performs in more recent games, but if they react to them like other DX9 video cards (take note how the 7900GTX performance tanks) then you're going to be so much better off with cards like the HD4800, GTX200, and HD5800 series.

 

[toyota]

damn cusideabelincoln, I didnt think about about his motherboard supporting the new cpus. I just saw where he said it was a 3.5 year old system so i never even bothered to look at the actual mobo model.

hey OP I will likely have my E8500 for sale within 3-4 weeks. lol, if you live near a microcenter they have Q9550 for $169. that cpu and an ATI 5850 and you will bet set for a while. heck if you dont already have 4gb ram you might want to go ahead and upgrade that too and make the move to Windows 7 64bit next month.

 

[bsix]

Based of what cusideabelincoln said, you could upgrade your setup with a 4890 video card as they are being blown out now ($170) and add a E8400 dual core ($165). Don't know how much memory you have but this would be a heck of an upgrade for less than $350.

 

[Qbah]

Grab a Q9550 and a HD5850 in a few weeks and make sure you have 4GBs of RAM. Upgrade your OS to Windows 7 and your system will fly You won't believe the difference yourself If you want to stay nVidia, grab a GTX275 or a GTX285. But those two will be quite a lot slower.

That mobo supports all Intel Core 2 Quad CPUs (750i SLi). Just make sure you have the newest BIOS. Link to the ASUS site.

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: bsix
Based of what cusideabelincoln said, you could upgrade your setup with a 4890 video card as they are being blown out now ($170) and add a E8400 dual core ($165). Don't know how much memory you have but this would be a heck of an upgrade for less than $350.

it would be silly to spend that much on a dual core at this point. also a 5850 over the 4890 will certainly be worth the extra money in the long run. faster, more efficient at idle, DX11 support and other features make it a better purchase IMO.

 

[Adrenaline]

I just got the mother board this past week as it seemed to go with everything I had and wanted at a reasonable price. If I go to a Q9550 chip then I may as well upgrade the whole thing which I may end up doing after selling what I have on ebay or something. I only have 2 GB of RAM right now and have never liked vista but I am going to upgrade to win 7.

Maybe just ebay the parts I want to get rid of and do a moderate upgrade is a good idea.

Thanks for all the help.

Edit:

May be a dumb question but here it goes:

How does the Q9550 compare to the i7 920 and i7 860 for gaming with a new card and 4 GB RAM? (just covering my bases and thanks to anyone who helps)

I am looking on the internet at different things but all I am seeing is encoding is excellent for the i7 whereas just running games and doing moderate things the Q9550 is still good and should be good for a while. I can take the words of people here better than other places I have come to find out over the years.

I did come across this:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardwa...s-gaming-performance/1

Which did help me out.

 

[bryanW1995]

q9550 is great for gaming, almost as good as a nehalem cpu. don't bother upgrading to i5/7 since your mobo works great for your needs. you can spend $219 for the q9550, spend ~$280 on a 5850, and buy 2 more sticks of ram for ~$30 and you'll be gtg for a long time.


edit: you might also look to just pick up a deal on a cheap gtx 260 right now since you have an sli mobo, then see how prices look on 5850 or gt300 when you get your new monitor.