Solving Performance Issues With New Hardware

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Ramikadyc

New Member
Hello. I registered an account to ask the users of this forum for their help in picking out a new video card that will work with my system and will also perform wonderfully, all at the best cost. Of course, cost is second to quality in this case, so any and all help and opinions will greatly help me in choosing.

Firstly, here are my current system specs, copied from a website that gauges your system and tells you if you can run this or that program:

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E4500 @ 2.20GHz
CPU Speed: 2.20 GHz
RAM: 3.0 GB
OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition, 64-bit (Build Service Pack 16001)
VIDEO CARD: EVGA GEFORCE 8600GT 512MB PCI-E (current card)

What I would like is a better graphics card for gaming, something that allows me to play games like Dragon Age: Origins or the upcoming Mass Effect 2 on full or near-full settings, since I get framerate issues unless I dumb it all down to half or so. I was looking at a GeForce 9800 GT but I am not sure if that's the best bang for my buck, or what kind of improvement I'll see.

Having mentioned all that, is it possible that I will still suffer similar performance issues even with this card because of other factors, like my RAM or processor? I can run almost all games (although some, like Crysis, are relatively unfun to play) at certain settings, and I feel like even just a noticeable improvement will solve my woes with the games I do play, I just don't want to make the mistake of shelling out money for a graphics card only to find out it won't make a difference because I need more RAM or a more powerful processor.

Price isn't a huge factor, but preferable something around $150, but willing to pay more, all things considered. Any and all input would be more than helpful.

Thanks in advance!

edit: was told power supply might be a determining factor, so here's a link to what's in my system with full specs.
 
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Your CPU is on the weaker side, yes, but 8600GT isn't all that wonderful card and getting a good card should give you a pretty noticeable boost. If price is not an issue, you might as well go for one of the higher-end GTX card (GTX285, 275), 4-series Radeons (HD4870, 4890), or even better, one of the new Radeons (HD5870,5850) - the only problem with the 5-series Radeons is that they seem to be in a short supply, so you might have trouble finding one.

If you've never owned an ATI card, I should tell you, the control centre is absolute rubbish IMO - if you don't care too much for it, I would say currently ATI is a better buy, but it depends on the prices over where you live / where you can shop, too - you'll want the best bang for buck.

EDIT: The reason I"m recommending the 5-series cards is, they're the newest and come with DX11 support - of course, that only matters if you care for it ;)

9800GT is a good mid-range card, a good deal better than your current card but the truth is, as wonderful as it and the GPU it's based on are, it's simply getting... well, old.
 
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I have the same CPU as you, before i overclocked it a noticed it was not the best for gaming. if you can overclock it, go ahead. mine is stable at 3ghz, 1.4v for vcore. If you need help, ask me about it.

I'd recommend at least a GTS 250 or Radeon 4850 for gaming. If you can afford it a GTX 260 or 4870 would be even better.

What kind of power supply do you have? Your PSU will limit you to what graphics cards you can use. Again, if it's in your budget you could upgrade. Open your computer, look at the PSU and tell us what the wattage is, and how many amps on the +12v rail does it have?

What is your budget, if you wanted to buy a new CPU, Graphics Card and possibly PSU (unless your current one is good enough)
 
This is the link to the power supply in my system: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3501285&CatId=2534

After Christmas, my budget for new computer hardware will be around $400-$500 if everything works out like I want it to. I appreciate the information, I'll be looking into it all when I get more free time.

Also, linkin93, I appreciate your overclocking suggestion. I've never overclocked a system before. I looked up how to do it and explored my BIOS and have found the options for everything, I just don't know what values to set. If you have any suggestions as to what I should set it all to, I would be very grateful, since I understand you're familiar with the CPU I have. I would change things now but I'm not confident I know enough about it yet.

Thanks again.
 
Overclocking is fairly straight foward. find the FSB (also known as QDR, QPI among other things) and raise it by 10mhz. fit F10 on your keyboard to save and exit...

if windows boots fine, stress-test the CPU with games/benchmark. If everything is stable you can restart, go back into the bios and raise it by another 10mhz... and repeat.

When you get instability (usually in the form of a BSOD) go into your bios and change your Vcore (Cpu voltage) from "default" or "auto" to 1.3v

If your instability problems are gone after that (do more stress testing ;) ) you can take the FSB higher once again. I wouldn't go past 1.4v on my E4500, but i'm not an extreme overclocker.

Depending on your motherboard you will hit an FSB wall, the higher quality of your motherbard the higher you can overclock.

I can take me E4500 from 800mhz FSB to 1100mhz FSB, but for 24/7 use i keep it at 1080. every board and every cpu is different so only go as far as yours will allow.
 
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Thanks for the info. I did what you said, and my system keeps locking up during gaming if I change the FSB at all. I upped the Vcore to 1.4 after the first time, and it still locks up after a few minutes. There are a few other options I have while changing the FSB (such as Linked and Ratios between the CPU and the...other thing, etc [forgive my ignorance]), should I be doing something specific there? Or is it probably just my system itself being incapable of overclocking? It's probably hard to draw solid conclusions from just this information, but your best guess or any other input would be of great help.

edit: I've found that the highest I can set the FSB to is 810 at 1.4v Vcore--big whoop, yeah. Any higher and it locks up after 10minutes of gaming, or doesn't load in at all.
 
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Okay, so I've noticed another thing. According to my hardware monitor in my BIOS menu, when I first boot up my computer, say in the morning after it being off all night, the temperature sits at about 40C-45C, which I assume is average for my setup. After playing around with even the most minor of overclock settings, my system still locks up and I have to force restart it. After immediately doing so and going back into my BIOS and checking the temperature, it is always--every single time--sitting at 49C. Forgive my ignorance if this is obvious, but is it possible my system is locking up and shutting down automatically once the temperature reaches 50C due to some sort of safeguard? If so, is this because of a setting that I can toggle off to prevent it from doing so? To my understanding, a system's temperature is safe at even 60C (correct me if I'm wrong), which I'm not even pushing. Any advice from anybody? I'll be doing some research on Monday with my time off, but any input before then would be great.
 
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