Graphics card question

[philwil]

I'm buying a new desktop soon, from PCS, to network with my old PCS machine which, though still okay, is generally a bit slow these days, being four years old, and does struggle with gaming.

I will be running two 28" monitors on (probably) an AMD Athlon II X2 265, with (probably) 8Gig RAM.

So my questions are:

1) most suitable GPU? I'm reckoning on a GTX460 1Gig, or GTX460 2Gig, or GTX560Ti.

Will I get a significantly higher performance from the 460 2Gig compared to the 1Gig, and will the 560 give a better performance than either of them?

2) Will 450w PSU be enough?

Many thanks for any advice.

 

[Phoenix]

I'd upgrade the CPU to at least an athlon quad core then get a HD6870 for your eyefinity setup, a 450w power supply will be fine.

 

[philwil]

Thanks for the reply. But why a quad core? As far as I'm aware, most programs still don't make efficient use of multi-core. The apps and games I mostly use (Cubase, Photoshop, Office, Combat Mission and a few others) all run well on dual core. They are reasonably okay, if a bit slow, on my current E6600 Core2 Duo rig with 2Gig Ram. Given that I'm fairly budget wary, is there any real advantage to spending more on a quad core?

 

[bg92]

It would be a good idea if you posted the whole build you are looking to purchase, and your budget so we could help you find a good build suited to your needs.

 

[JSG10]

I would most defintely upgrade that CPU, although the term gets banded about a lot that would most definitely be the bottleneck in the system if you are upgrading the rest.

As for the GPU, no you won't get significantly higher performance from the 2gb over the 1gb, I would however go for the GTX560 as it is a newer card, kicks out less heat and uses less power and is a more powerful card. It would also allow for a longer time before having to upgrade again.

The PSU will be fine.

 

[PringlesInside]

radeon 6870, - amd say 500w minimum power supply, so il say get better powersupply. You could look into going for the radeon 6950 2GB as this 2GB will be great for eyeinfinty setup (as i think i did read 2GB would be best for this ) or you could wait for 1GB 6950 which should be released soon (although i dont kno if pcs will stock it)

 

[Phoenix]

Thanks for the reply. But why a quad core? As far as I'm aware, most programs still don't make efficient use of multi-core. The apps and games I mostly use (Cubase, Photoshop, Office, Combat Mission and a few others) all run well on dual core. They are reasonably okay, if a bit slow, on my current E6600 Core2 Duo rig with 2Gig Ram. Given that I'm fairly budget wary, is there any real advantage to spending more on a quad core?

Well I thought this was for gaming? Newer games are able to utilize 3-4 cores like Starcraft II and Battlefield Bad Company2, outside of gaming Photoshop will benefit from the extra cores and it just a good idea overall. A 450w power supply will be fine unless you start adding enhanced coolers or other things.

 

[philwil]

I mostly play wargames (I'm a beta-tester for the Battlefront: Combat Mission series, which are very cpu hungry but not yet fully optimised for multi-core).

Consensus here seems to be I should go for ATI, but I thought Nvidia was generally considered the better brand?

 

[Phoenix]

No it's not a better brand at all, they both produce good graphics cards.

 

[Tom DWC]

Just to add to the comments made so far, while it's true that a modern dual core (such as an i3) would be sufficient enough for most games the Athlon X2 could indeed become a bottleneck on certain games, what with it being an older, slower chip. I know the term bottleneck isn't a popular one but I can't think of any other way to phrase it. I agree with Phoenix than an Athlon X4 would be a nice upgrade (and far more beneficial than another 4GB of RAM) which you should be able to pick up for a half decent price. Consider the X4 645. As you're a previous PCS customer there's a chance they might supply it for you if you don't want to buy elsewhere but you'd have to contact them via the official channels to confirm.