Which to upgrade, CPU etc or Graphics Card.

[Kujako]

So I'm looking at getting a bit more performance out of my system. Currently I'm running the following.

Dual AMD Opteron 200 series 3.0 Ghz
16 GB RAM
Ultra 320 SCSI RAID
nVidia 9800 GTX

Watching system performance while playing games I never see the CPUs come close to 100% utilization. So I'm wondering if there's any reason not to simply get the highest end ATI card or if my generation old Opterons will some how adversely effect the performance gain from it.

Due to the cost of the overall system I'm disinclined to upgrade the motherboard, memory, RAID card & CPUs.

Oh yes, it should be noted that I'm running games at 1920x1200 and I'd like to get a full 60fps.

 

[mpilchfamily]

Well if the games your playing now are not hitting good FPS with that card then upgrade to the GTX 280.

 

[Kujako]

I'd not say that the FPS isn't good, it just slows down a bit with everything turned on. For example, the new shadows in the World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King causes me to drop to around 30 fps when I'm high above the terrain with maximum graphics settings and visibility distance. However, my CPUs dont get above 70% utilization.

 

[Sunrise089]

I wouldn't upgrade, but if you insist then I would get a 1gig 4870.

 

[AzN]

I wouldn't upgrade either. Turn down AA. 1920x1200 is very demanding.

 

[Calculator83]

Originally posted by: Azn
I wouldn't upgrade either. Turn down AA. 1920x1200 is very demanding.

I would upgrade to 4870 X2, they're selling new for 450 on ebay

 

[Kujako]

So in general, the opinion is that graphics card should be upgraded before CPU etc. Which is more or less what I feel as well.

 

[OCChronic]

Actually, it's ther RAM that's holding you back. If I'm correct, you are running 16GB of DDR 400 or even worse for gaming, registered and buffered DDR 400. The DDR 400 can only supply a limited amount of bandwidth compared to more modern DDR2 and DDR3 and I suspect that when you pump up the graph-x to insane levels the frame buffer and texture memory have to use a significant amount of system RAM to do the job and it gets bogged down. You're 9800GTX is a great card but it's basically a 512MB refresh of the 8800 GT with higher core and mem clocks.

If you do go for another video card make sure it has at least 1 GB of fast GDDR3 or GDDR4 and provides a minimum of 100GB/s bandwidth or you'll be frustrated by the lack of performance gain, for the money. the 4870 X2 has 2GB of fast memory but sometimes doesn't work nice with some games because the software code doesn't use both GPU cores effectively and they run hot and suck up the juice from your PSU like mad.

 

[Kujako]

Memory performance issues aside since comparing interleaved workstation setups to gaming rigs can be a pain, truth be told nothing I play seems to make use of more then 2GB of memory.

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: OCChronic
Actually, it's ther RAM that's holding you back. If I'm correct, you are running 16GB of DDR 400 or even worse for gaming, registered and buffered DDR 400. The DDR 400 can only supply a limited amount of bandwidth compared to more modern DDR2 and DDR3 and I suspect that when you pump up the graph-x to insane levels the frame buffer and texture memory have to use a significant amount of system RAM to do the job and it gets bogged down. You're 9800GTX is a great card but it's basically a 512MB refresh of the 8800 GT with higher core and mem clocks.

If you do go for another video card make sure it has at least 1 GB of fast GDDR3 or GDDR4 and provides a minimum of 100GB/s bandwidth or you'll be frustrated by the lack of performance gain, for the money. the 4870 X2 has 2GB of fast memory but sometimes doesn't work nice with some games because the software code doesn't use both GPU cores effectively and they run hot and suck up the juice from your PSU like mad.

Ram speeds has minimal difference in games. Now if you don't have enough memory than you are going to see your hard drive chuckle.

It doesn't matter if the card has 1gb of fast gddr3 or gddr4 without knowing the bit bus. Performance depends mostly on GPU core.

 

[Kujako]

Originally posted by: Azn
Ram speeds has minimal difference in games. Now if you don't have enough memory than you are going to see your hard drive chuckle.

It doesn't matter if the card has 1gb of fast gddr3 or gddr4 without knowing the bit bus. Performance depends mostly on GPU core.

Well, any new video card I get will have at least a gigabyte of RAM, no point in a lesser upgrade. And I've total overkill on system memory as I said, 16GB with never more then two being utilized by games (and yes I'm running XP64 so the memory can be addressed).

Were I to upgrade the CPUs I'd be looking at something like the Tyan Thunder n6650W (S2915-E) which would require replacing everything but my video & raid card. Which is why I'm loath to do so.

 

[Tempered81]

for a single gpu:

e8400 $150
e7200 $120 - $90
e5200 $80
cheap p35 $60
2gb ddr2 $30

9800gtx is a nice card

 

[Kujako]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
e8400 $150
e7200 $120 - $90
e5200 $80
cheap p35 $60
2gb ddr2 $30

Not even close to being in the same class of computer I'm looking at. Dual or quad Xeon or Opteron.

 

[Tempered81]

oh well save your money

 

[JustaGeek]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
oh well save your money

:thumbsup:

 

[Sunrise089]

So what do you do on your PC that uses dual CPUs and 16gigs of memory. Not mainly games I take it.

 

[Kujako]

Originally posted by: Sunrise089
So what do you do on your PC that uses dual CPUs and 16gigs of memory. Not mainly games I take it.

At this point the system in question is 90% game machine. However its one of many computers at my desk I use to write statistical analyses software for ISO & SIGMA certification systems.

Also, it keeps my feet warm.