What is the highest video card that would make sense with an E8400 CPU?

[Zstream]

I wouldn't upgrade the video card. I had a 4850, now a 460 with an i7-860. No real difference in performance, I did not game with AA so *shrug*.

Go get a nice SSD drive, that will be a much better purchase.

 

[toyota]

I wouldn't upgrade the video card. I had a 4850, now a 460 with an i7-860. No real difference in performance, I did not game with AA so *shrug*.

Go get a nice SSD drive, that will be a much better purchase.

a gtx460 is about twice as fast as the 4850 so how on earth did you not notice the difference?

 

[blanketyblank]

a gtx460 is about twice as fast as the 4850 so how on earth did you not notice the difference?

It's more like 50% so maybe if by twice you mean 4850 CF then that would be accurate. Then again they keep changing the stock clocks so if it's already OCed 50% from "reference" then you could be right.

4850 is about equal to a 5750 so this is a comparison between gtx 460 and 5750 as well as CF/SLI.
http://www.fudzilla.com/reviews/ite...ssfirex-pitted-against-gtx-460-part-2?start=2

 

[toyota]

It's more like 50% so maybe if by twice you mean 4850 CF then that would be accurate. Then again they keep changing the stock clocks so if it's already OCed 50% from "reference" then you could be right.

4850 is about equal to a 5750 so this is a comparison between gtx 460 and 5750 as well as CF/SLI.
http://www.fudzilla.com/reviews/ite...ssfirex-pitted-against-gtx-460-part-2?start=2

no its about twice as fast just like I said. plus the gtx460 has way more overclocking headroom so in the end it is absolutely twice as fast if both the 4850 and gtx460 are both oced.

EDIT: actually I was looking at some high res benchmarks where the 4850 was only equipped with 512mb. so really the 460 is only about 60% faster in situations where the ram was not an issue.

 

[VirtualLarry]

a gtx460 is about twice as fast as the 4850 so how on earth did you not notice the difference?

A GTX460 1GB overclocked to 820Mhz only scores 7.4 on the Windows Experience Index. A non-overclocked HD4850 scores a 7.3.

Same identical rest of system.

 

[yepp]

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/177?vs=180

 

[toyota]

A GTX460 1GB overclocked to 820Mhz only scores 7.4 on the Windows Experience Index. A non-overclocked HD4850 scores a 7.3.

Same identical rest of system.

dont be silly and use that as an indicator of gaming performance.

but yeah I was looking at some high res benchmarks where the 4850 was only equipped with 512mb. so really the 460 is only about 60% faster in situations where the ram was not an issue. of course that will be an issue though. and again if you oced both the 4850 and 460, the 460 would extend its advantage even more.

 

[RussianSensation]

1920x1080/4xMSAA
Min Max Avg
47 64 56.583

That's with a GTX460 @ 800mhz? That's some serious CPU bottleneck then.

I get 77.3 Avg / 58 min with a stock GTX470.

I still think $100-110 GTX460 768mb is a good stop-gap card until the OP upgrades his CPU platform. It's hard to recommend the HD5770 when the 460 is only a bit more $, while the 450 is too slow.

 

[nine9s]

Thanks for all the advice.

If the ATI is not as CPU-limited as Nvidia cards, as many posted in this thread, shouldn't I get a 5850 or 6850 instead of the GTX 460?

I can get all within ~$20 of each other. $150 for the used GTX 460 (but I would probably want a new one for warranty, which would be $180.) The 5850 is $180 also and a $6850 is about $205. I sssume when the GTX560 comes out, the 6870 will go down to $200, so that is also a choice. I like AA real high and all the other eye-candy, so I do not mind having a little too much video card for my CPU - i just do not want too much for a waste.

So to summarize, if around same price, wouldn't the ATI 5850 or 6850 make more since if they are not limited as much by CPU as Nvidia cards are (or is that not correct)?

 

[blanketyblank]

If you're spending close to $200 then go for a 5870. Get this and bottlenecks be damned.
There is a rebate that expires 1/31 that will take this card down to $200. This card is faster than 460 and 6870 btw.

http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16814102883

 

[andrei3333]

Just FYI, I game @ 16x10 res
E8400 @ 3.6GHz
EVGA GTX460 1GB @ 865 core / 1900 Memory
no problems in any of the games i play (which is basically all shooters).

Regardless of bottlenecks, what is important is this: " Will you be getting smooth gameplay on your system in the games that you like to play?" Everything is only relative to what your situation is. If you upgrade often then you probably will get a faster card in a year, if you sit on a comp for 2-3 years then you want the card to last that long and still be able to play in that time... there is more to this this than just what "bottlenecks" your system might have....its useless to think about it if for example your PC is unoptimized or has background software running while you play a game

Before i got my GTX460 i had an 8800GTS 512 MB, that played black ops, modern warfare 2 to the max 4xaa at least. no it could not play crysis the way i liked and no it could not play metro, but it did play everything else to the max. so believe me, its all relative to your particular situation so take all this information that you read here with a grain of salt...

 

[soulcougher73]

Ok so i was wrong before. I dont have an E6600. I did at one time, but i have the same as OP. E8400 at stock 3ghz.

 

[Skurge]

Ok so i was wrong before. I dont have an E6600. I did at one time, but i have the same as OP. E8400 at stock 3ghz.

No offense but it must be worrying when you have to check 3 times to figure out what cpu you have.

 

[nyker96]

this depends on your resolution, if you playing very high rez then the graphics card will be the bottleneck. but in general if you want to match a card, I'd say 6850 or 460 gtx 1gb will do nicely for you.

 

[tweakboy]

I can do some benchmarks @ 3.6GHz with a GTX460 1GB @850 and see how they compare. I can only do 1680x1050 and 1920x1080 though. Does BC2 have a built-in benchmark?

Push it more!

 

[schmunk]

Could you tun the crysis bench again?

//////////// Summary \\\\\\\\\\\\\
01/17/2011 23:29:19 - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium

DirectX 10 ENTHUSIAST 1X @ Map: frost @ 0 1920 x 1200 AA 4xx
==> Framerate [ Min: 20.86 Max: 30.77 Avg: 26.17 ]

//////////// Summary \\\\\\\\\\\\\
01/17/2011 23:38:35 - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium

DirectX 10 ENTHUSIAST 1X @ Map: frost @ 0 1920 x 1200 AA 4xx
==> Framerate [ Min: 20.37 Max: 31.12 Avg: 26.39 ]

 

[deepinya]

If you're spending close to $200 then go for a 5870. Get this and bottlenecks be damned.
There is a rebate that expires 1/31 that will take this card down to $200. This card is faster than 460 and 6870 btw.

http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16814102883

I agree with this guy.

I had an e8400@3.6 with a gtx 460 768mb
Then got a 5870 with the same clocks and the difference is night and day.

I play BLOPS @ 1600x1200 (100hz crt) and the frames went from about 90 to just about 125. The frame drops werent as bad with the 5870 while the 460 did get a little laggy on Nuketown with 18 people spamming all sorts of gaynades.

Get the 5870 and dont look back!!

 

[Termie]

I agree with this guy.

I had an e8400@3.6 with a gtx 460 768mb
Then got a 5870 with the same clocks and the difference is night and day.

I play BLOPS @ 1600x1200 (100hz crt) and the frames went from about 90 to just about 125. The frame drops werent as bad with the 5870 while the 460 did get a little laggy on Nuketown with 18 people spamming all sorts of gaynades.

Get the 5870 and dont look back!!

Interesting...it seems both cards are being held back by the CPU: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/call-of-duty-black-ops_5.html#sect0. Notice that a 5870 gets 157fps at 1080p on a quad-core. On a game as CPU-limited as BLOPS, where both cards are performing under their potential, it seems the scores would be closer. Maybe it's because nVidia is harder on dual-cores. I would think the GTX460 should be enough for that game.

 

[soulcougher73]

No offense but it must be worrying when you have to check 3 times to figure out what cpu you have.

Well i was at work so i couldnt check before. Was just going off my memory of when i built it like 4 years ago. Plus i checked newegg which is "usually" my default go to for product. Which i had bought the E6600 at one time, but forgot i had picked up the E8400 at Microcenter. I havent built a machine in 4 years so i was a bit out of touch with what is new and what i even had since it just worked. Well until my 8800GTX crapped out on me. Plus im old. My memory doesnt work like it used to

 

[toyota]

Interesting...it seems both cards are being held back by the CPU: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/call-of-duty-black-ops_5.html#sect0. Notice that a 5870 gets 170fps at 1080p on a quad-core. On a game as CPU-limited as BLOPS, where both cards are performing under their potential, it seems the scores would be closer. Maybe it's because nVidia is harder on dual-cores. I would think the GTX460 should be enough for that game.

he is probably greatly exaggerating. even at 1920 I did not see a single framerate improvement in very cpu intensive games going from a gtx260 to a gtx470 with my E8500 at 3.8.

 

[Termie]

he is probably greatly exaggerating. even at 1920 I did not see a single framerate improvement in very cpu intensive games going from a gtx260 to a gtx470 with my E8500 at 3.8.

Yeah, BLOPS is pretty CPU-limited: http://www.techspot.com/review/336-cod-black-ops-performance/page8.html. I don't think anyone's hitting 125fps on a Core 2 Duo in this game (unless a patch fixed it).

What I find strange in this review, however, is that its GPU benches are about 50% lower than xbitlabs on similar settings: http://www.techspot.com/review/336-cod-black-ops-performance/page8.html. One of these just has to be wrong, given that they're on similar Core i7 testbeds. But I digress...

 

[blanketyblank]

Interesting...it seems both cards are being held back by the CPU: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/call-of-duty-black-ops_5.html#sect0. Notice that a 5870 gets 157fps at 1080p on a quad-core. On a game as CPU-limited as BLOPS, where both cards are performing under their potential, it seems the scores would be closer. Maybe it's because nVidia is harder on dual-cores. I would think the GTX460 should be enough for that game.

Also potentially a game that prefers ATI cards.

 

[GundamF91]

Go get the HD5870!!!

I went from 4850 to 5870, and still used the same Q9450 at 3.6GHz. The difference in gaming experience is substantial. I still don't do more than 1680x1050 so 4850 was working OK for me, but 5870 really made everything butter smooth. There are probably CPU bottlenecks, but really you're only looking at a handful of frames/sec bottlenecked by CPU compared to dozens of frames/sec bottlenecked by GPU.

Upgrading the GPU is still one of the single most important thing you can do to make games play better. Better CPU will help, but don't think it'll be strangled by your Core2Duo, which is still plenty capable. If you're still worried but not willing to shell out money for DDR3 or new mobo, grab a Core2Quad and you won't be very far behind the Sandy Bridge in terms of using full power of your GPU.

My upgrading route has been one of "leap frogging". After AGP slot went away, I had to start fresh on a gaming platform with PCI-express. Also timing was right with Core2Duo, so I started with E4500 and x1950, then I got a better GPU, HD4850, then I got a better CPU, Q9450. After a year I got a better GPU 5870...and I'm still on that combo.

My Socket775 is done for, but my HD 5870 PCI-E 2.0 is still a strong card. so if I want more processing power, I'll upgrade to a Sandy Bridge, and then run that with the HD5870. And then maybe that will be replaced by HD7xxx or even HD8xxx.

So you can always leap frog, and not have to worry about being bottle necked, it's never going to be exactly matching. Then eventually you jump ship when there's a big platform change, such as new socket comes out, or PCI-E go to 3.0, etc.

 

[Dark Shroud]

Yeah the 5870 is a good deal & will last awhile. At least until the 7000 series when you can get a new card with new full architecture from AMD.

 

[deepinya]

Interesting...it seems both cards are being held back by the CPU: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/call-of-duty-black-ops_5.html#sect0. Notice that a 5870 gets 157fps at 1080p on a quad-core. On a game as CPU-limited as BLOPS, where both cards are performing under their potential, it seems the scores would be closer. Maybe it's because nVidia is harder on dual-cores. I would think the GTX460 should be enough for that game.

I take any review with a grain of salt. I do get 125 fps at 1600x1200. Its not 125fps 100% of the time, it will dip to like 90 but it depends on the map and spam. I have 8xAA and max in-game AF textures are auto I think. I can take a SS in game

he is probably greatly exaggerating. even at 1920 I did not see a single framerate improvement in very cpu intensive games going from a gtx260 to a gtx470 with my E8500 at 3.8.

Its not my concern whether you believe me or not; I couldnt care less. Just sharing my experience since the OP has the same questions I did.


I bought the 5870 cause I got a great deal on it. I could have easily flipped it for profit but sold the gtx460 instead and havent looked back.