good increase?

P

pbrx7

New Member
i currently am running two (SLI) XFX 8600GT 256 mb cards. if i purchased one of these newer HD4850's (sapphire HD485 512 mb), would i see a signifigant increase in performance or am i wasting my money.

i know my board does not support crossfire but i plan on getting a crossfire board in the near future and pairing the 4850's. between the two cards and the mobo i will be in the $500 range. i understand i also have an option to do three video cards with the 790FX chipsets.

also, i have been reading about cpu's bottlenecking the video cards. can someone explain this to me a little more in depth.
 
Yeah, you'd see a good increase in performance, no offence, but the 8600's (even in SLI) are pretty poor cards. I think you'd get your money's worth in performance.

Yeah, CPU's can bottleneck the GPU (s). What CPU do you have at the moment.
For example, when I had my Q6600 at stock and my two 8800GTS', my 3DMark 06 Score was about 12,000. Now, by having my Q6600 at 3.4Ghz, my 3DMark Score is 17,200.

The cards need a fast CPU to allow them to send all the data, so having a slower CPU will make the cards slower as it'd be hindering the speed of 'em.
 
im not sure of the number but i currently have an X2 running at 2.7. factory speed was 2.5 so i have a slight overclock. i really dont know jack about overclocking but my motherboard automatically overclocks if you check the little block in the bios!
hypothetically, lets say im running 3 hd 4850's. will i see more performance with a faster dual core or (X2 6000+) or do you have to get an X3 or X4. im not worried about multitasking, just gaming. 6000+ runs about $89 on newegg but the same speed in an X4 is really exspensive.
I know my 8600's aint the best but they have done an amazing job for me and i've been really pleased with them. Not to mention they were very cheap. I have been in iraq for the past year and a half and i know the newer games are gonna bog them down when i get home next month!
I just bought a new asus laptop and it has an HD3650 chip in it and it has really impressed me. thats why im looking at the new ati cards for the desktop.
 
I'd say a Quad would see more of a performance increase. If you OC'ed your CPU a little more, you'd see an increase. May be small, but it'd be a free increase in performance, you know.

Overall, if you kept your current CPU and got rid of the 8600's and then got a 4850, you'd see a big increase!
 
kornowski said:
i'd say a quad would see more of a performance increase. If you oc'ed your cpu a little more, you'd see an increase. May be small, but it'd be a free increase in performance, you know.

Overall, if you kept your current cpu and got rid of the 8600's and then got a 4850, you'd see a big increase!
Click to expand...

+1
 
okay, thanks. will do that and save the money. will i still be okay once i run 2 or even 3 cards or should i upgrade at that point?
 
Well, I'd probably upgrade if and when you got a second card, I think your CPU would bottleneck your cards then. I'd get an Intel Core or a high end dual core like the E8400 or something when you go CF.
 
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