Bit of a PC upgrade, but which G Card suits this spec

Hi

As title says, please see list of hardware and recommend an adequate graphics card that isn't overkill, or under spec as I suspect my current one will be

Asus P5Q Deluxe, this board has 2 slots for graphics cards, does anyone recommend SLI or is that just a FAD
Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.8 Ghz Will be clocking to 3.6 Ghz
2 x 2 Gig OCZ DDR 2 800
2 x 1 Gig OCZ DDR 2 800
30 Gig OCZ Vertex 2
Coolermaster V8 Heatsink
Currently have a Nvidia 8600 GT 512MB Graphics, is this the weakest part of my PC?

Will be buying a 2nd hand one off Ebay

Cheers for your advice

Lee

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Comments

SteveLord

SLI would be a waste given the rest of your hardware. I don't care for it personally, since you invest more money, consume more power, increase bugs with games and never get 100% extra performance.

As for a card, I would NOT recommend anything Ati 6xxx series or better. And on Nvidia, anything 500 series or better. Primarily because your CPU is going to hold you back from getting maximum performance. I had the same CPU last year and went from a 9800GTX+ to a 6870 and then a 6950 with little noticeable performance increase.

Whiteout

Hmm, I would also look into some ram, the stuff is so cheap these days. You can get 8g of DDR3 1600 for less than 50$ from newegg. Which is more then you can use right now. Are you running 7 or xp, probably not much room on that SSD with 7..., but sweet you have one though!

What do you use your computer for mostly? Do you game at all?

Ram: Newegg.com - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL

Video Card: Newegg.com - MSI R5770 Hawk Radeon HD 5770 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card (Good card for a 100 bucks)

SteveLord

He uses DDR2. Which is not nearly as cheap as DDR3 and comes in smaller sticks.

Lee H

I do like to play Need for Speed games, and my lad plays Fifa12

Not really a big gamer but if I ever see a game that looks good I wouldn't mind it working on my PC

Haven't really been following all the latest graphics cards and have no idea what to look for?

My memory is DDR2 and have 4 X 2 Gig sticks in my current PC and have bought 4 X 1 Gig so am going to split them across the 2 PC's hence 6 in each

The ones that fill 2 spaces in the back of your case cos my 8600GT is just soo small

Cheers for your help guys

Lee H

Can someone have a quick look at this and tell me if its a worthy upgrade from an 8600GT 512MB, seeing as I am going from a core2 E4500 with P5QL-EPU to a Quad clocked to 3.6 and a 16 phase P5Q deluxe, is this a big enough jump to go along with my new kit?

GeForce 9800 GX2 1024 MB Graphics Card | eBay

Whiteout

SteveLord wrote: »

He uses DDR2. Which is not nearly as cheap as DDR3 and comes in smaller sticks.

Hmm, good call. Guess his mobo isn't compatible with DDR3.

@Lee H - Sorry don't know much about that card, except that it looks huge. Make sure you have plenty of room in your case!

tpatt100

I had a similar CPU as yours and I upgraded the nvidia that came with it to a AMD 5850 and got a pretty nice boost in framerates/performance in games. I was mainly playing Wow and Mass Effect though. I'm running a pair of 6850's Crossfire in my new desktop now but I replaced my old machine entirely.

Saundie

I really wouldn't go with that 9800GX2 - it will use a great deal of power and does not perform well enough for modern games. Something like the AMD 5850 or GeForce GTX 550Ti would perform better and run much cooler, using much less power.