Old Processor, (relatively) New GPU?

I'm looking to upgrade my old PC on a limited budget (~$250 USD).

I have a 2.4 GHz quad-core processor (from 2007 or 2008), 4GB RAM (DDR3), and old, rapidly-dying HDD which needs replacement, and a Radeon 5670.

I'm thinking of buying a new HDD and upgrading to a Radeon 6870. Is it worth sticking in this (relativity) powerful GPU in with such an old processor?

 

No. You will be greatly limiting your new gpu's performance.

For that money, I would consider moving to Win7x64 (if you're not there already) along with 8GB RAM and a new 750GB XT Hybrid HDD.

You can download Win7 (legally) from this forum and use this link to extend the trial period to almost a year (while you're saving up for a new platform).

See:
Extend Windows 7 Trial Period Up To One Year


With DDR3, you should be able to get 8GB RAM (does your board support it though...) very inexpensively and you can get an XT Hybrid for $50 off here:

See:
Seagate 750GB Momentus XT 7200.1 SATA 2.5in Hybrid Drive w/ 32MB Cache at Memory Express


I would not spend any more on this system (a new platform for an entry level price of ~$400 will be more than 5x faster...), but with the above upgrades, yours could still be a viable solution for at least another year (or more).

Good luck.

 

I disagree. a 2.4Ghz Quad Core will work pretty darn good with a Radeon 6870 1GB Card. Couple that with a new 120GB SSD (You already have 4GB RAM) and your system will feel like new!

As far as SSD's go, I have personal experience with Intel and Kingston drives. They both work great. I do have a OCZ Vertex 3 sitting here, but I just received it so I really can't give an opinion yet.

 

You can disagree all you want - all I know is that a 2.66GHz quadcore from that era was twice as slow as a Q9450 (just a few months newer).

The platform era makes a difference. Not just the checkmarks we can list off in marketing speak.

 

are we talking AMD quad, or intel?

the intel's will still 'hold their own' against modern mid range(i5ish) cpus


if its an AMD, scrap the system... besides the ULV ones I don't think amd ever had a 'fast' mobile cpu.

 

No, it really won't. His processor is plenty powerful to run the HD 6870.

Two big problems:
1. That is A LOT more than his $250 budget, more like $400.
2. That will do absolutely nothing to improve gaming performance, which judging by the fact that the OP wants to upgrade his graphics card, is what he intends to do with it.

 

A 2.4g intel quad is still fine for gaming, even if it's from 2008. A 6870 is going to be a big jump from the old 5670, and your new GPU will still be the limiting factor in MOST games.

250$ should get you a 6870 and a decent HDD, forget about SSD, it only decreases the loading time and will not help your fps a tiny bit.

 

is this not desktop discussion?

This is the wrong section of the website.

DesktopReview.com - PC Forums - Desktop Computer Forums and Discussions

 

Qing, you can't quote and respond to only part of my 'solution'.

What I offer is still within his budget and will make a bigger difference than getting a gpu for a failing HDD issue.

A circa 2007/08 cpu is not a platform to put a new gpu into - it will limit the new cards performance (by a lot, imo). Especially if Win7x64 with at least 8GB RAM is not running on it already.

 

You will gain a lot in some CPU dependent games like Starcraft 2 and such since Sandy Bridge is leaps ahead of a 2007ish Quad. But the truth is that most games are GPU dependent and I think your Quad will be very good at keeping up with the GPU. A lot of gamers are stll using the old CPUs with hardcore GPU from what I`ve read.

 

They may very well be - but not a 32bit O/S with 'only' 4GB RAM and certainly not at stock speeds.

For ~$250 for 1 year trial of Win7x64, 8GB RAM 'upgrade' and $200 for an XT 750GB Hybrid this at least offers real performance gains and a still very balanced system which could be used indefinitely with no future hardware issues.

For the same $$ to be spent of buying a new HDD (to replace dying one) and then spending the remainder on a gpu is money down the drain. Especially as the platform will not be any better overall - only the video card will be 'slightly' upgraded; if there is money left over from a new HDD (with their crazy prices right now).

To put that kind of money into an old system and make it extremely unbalanced in the process doesn't make sense when ~$400 will buy a brand new system that will annihilate what the OP currently has.

The best upgrade path is still Win7x64, 8GB RAM (yes, it makes difference in gaming - especially the more important minimum fps) and a fast, large Hybrid like the Seagate XT 750GB to replace the dying HDD currently installed.

If the installed HDD wasn't dying, I might be offering something different - but with it being a necessary upgrade along with the limited budget; this is the best choice to make (rather than getting simply a much lower performing strictly mechanical HDD and a supposedly 'better' gpu which will simply net us a very unbalanced platform overall).

 

Tiller, you clearly don't understand. You see "from 2007 or 2008" and you freak out, but the truth is that a 2.4Ghz Core 2 Quad is more than enough CPU for an HD 6870. It isn't like he is trying to run HD 6990's in crossfire or anything, and the current GPU he has is pretty low end and bottlenecking the system's gaming performance. While 8GB of RAM is nice, if money is tight and it is between that and something else, the 8GB is really not worth it.

Also a 750GB Momentus XT is a huge waste if money is a concern. It is no SSD by a long shot, $250 is his ENTIRE upgrade budget (the 750GB XT is widely regarded as being overpriced anyway), the OP clearly wasn't interested in improving storage subsystem performance, it won't increase framerates, and there are much better upgrades available. The OP already knows what the deal is. He just wasn't sure if his current CPU would bottleneck the new videocard, and it won't.

 

No, more RAM does NOT have an impact on gaming. We had a RAM thread earlier where Qing Dao just attacked me without proving what I said what was wrong (I wasn`t), so I didn`t bother to write in that thread anymore. But I might just post a few slides anyway in this thread since you think that more RAM = more FPS
Now can we please leave the RAM discussions dead? Pleaaaase

 

If you're looking for gaming performance then get the 6870. Doesn't matter if the CPU is from 2008, the best use of $250 for gaming is to upgrade the GPU and OC the CPU.

If you have money left over or find some extra cash, then look into upgrading the CPU/mobo.

All the other stuff (64 bit OS, RAM, HDD, etc.) will have a minimal impact on gaming performance.

 

Could be used indefinitely? Is that possible?

Why does the OP need the fastest, most exspensive drive on the market? Wouldn't a $100-$125 WD or 1st gen XT drive work fine?


Two years ago, I had an Asus G50(C2D 2.26GHz - 9800M GT - 4GB DDR2). When running the game maxed out, there wasn't a noticible FPS difference compared to my current X460DX(2410M 2.3GHz - GT 540M - 6GB DDR3). Actually, with all the notebooks I've owned, I've never seen a difference in FPS in systems with 4GB's or 8GB's of memory.

Take my 2010 MBP 13(C2D 2.4GHz - 320M). Originally it had 4GB's of memory. Later on I upgraded to 8GB's. When playing Call of Duty Black Ops, there was no difference in FPS. You'd think there would be because the 320M uses system memory. Or maybe 4GB's is a plenty?

The Intel Core 2 Quad Q9000 scores 2997 in Passmark, while the Q9100 scores 3511. My 2nd gen Sandy-Bridge i5 scores 3338. I think we can quit call C2Q too slow now.

 

Everyone:

Fact: HDD is dying. Replacing this is not an option. Why spend 50% less on a new HDD (vs. an XT Hyrid) to get the same (yawn) performance?

Fact: The 'scores' for new gpu's are not calculated on 5 year old systems. They are achieved with the most current platform (and I'm guessing overclocked too...) that is available today.

Fact: Max/Avg FPS is not what I'm saying will improve with 8GB RAM and Win7x64 (O/S for 'free' for a year...) - I'm saying the Minimum FPS will improve - even with the 'old' card - and especially with a fully modern Hybrid HDD.

Fact: A platform change or two (or three?) has happened since the OP first bought his current system for less than double his $250 budget he can have a machine that is an order of magnitude faster - and with a warranty).

Fact: Any machine can be used indefinitely (as I said though; with no further hardware issues).


But the fact still remains that most of you just hear 'games' and chant 'gpu upgrade'.

No problem, I hope the OP is weighing his options more carefully than most of the replies to this thread.


I'm not pushing to do (only) what I suggest: I'm saying that a lot of the 'facts' are being ignored when the advice is only mentioning 'gaming' and 'gpu upgrade'.


Wishing everyone a Happy New Year in 2012!

 

In fact, 4GB ram is fine for the general mass population today, gamers included, unless you got lots of unnecessary programs/adwares running in the background, btw, nice chart, Clouldfire.

As for gaming, apparently it's OP's 5670 that is weakest link, not his CPU, if you believe otherwise, go check some CPU performance comparison in games. As Qing already started, OP is not running a high end crossfire or SLI setup, and a 2.4ghz quad is not shabby at all in this situation.

People tend to think CPU makes a big difference in games, but in fact it doesn't, at least in most cases, it's still GPU that matters the most. Speaking of experience, when I upgraded my 2.26ghz p8400 to a 3.06ghz x9100(overclocked to 3.6ghz then) in my Asus G50VT, the whopping 1.34GHZ CPU juice didn't help my fps at all, but when my overclocked my 9800M gs by 10%, I immediately noticed a 10% fps increase in games.

Most modern quad core CPUs and recent dual core CPUs are still fine for gaming, provided you don't couple them with an extremely high end GPU(6990,580, sli or crossfire setup).

 

Here is one 'proof' that the cpu makes a difference:

See:
Conclusion: Sandy Bridge Has Game : Who's Got Game? Twelve Sub-$200 CPUs Compared


Feel free to look up other similar facts for yourselves and please stop spreading misinformation. (For example, that 4GB is enough in 2012... sigh).


Also note that these were all 'current' cpu's as of March 2011 - anything older will be extremely embarrassed by these gaming scores.

 

I said 4gb ram is enough for most people, stop twisting other people's statements, I didn't say 4gb is enough for people who do a lot of video/photo editing or people who run VMs on regular basis. Please read carefully, thank you.

Gaming wise, it's common consensus that GPUs that bottleneck the most system, unless you got an extremely unbalanced system like a gtx590 and a low end i3, as people above already agreed upon.

 

lidowxx,

I wasn't even responding to you (didn't see your post while I was writing mine).

 

There are other factors, sure, but the most effective way to improve gaming performance in his budget would be to get a new GPU (and HDD) and to OC is CPU instead of getting a new one. Do you disagree?

 

Because a regular drive is 1/3 the cost or less, the storage subsystem doesn't impact the gaming performance, and there are more pressing things to spend the money on than just a faster mechanical drive.

With the ability to get 4 monstrous top of the line GPU's in a single system, they had better be using the best CPU they can to run benchmarks!

You are contradicting yourself. If minimum FPS improves, so will the average FPS. But it really doesn't make a noticeable difference. And I'm not sure why you are talking about the hard drive because it has NOTHING to do with this.

Core 2 - Nehalem - Sandy Bridge. A 2.4Ghz Core 2 Quad is still a very powerful CPU. If you even took two seconds to look at its actual performance compared to more modern Nehalem and Sandy Bridge processors, you would stop with this "order of magnitude faster" nonsense. A 2.4Ghz Core 2 Quad holds its own against any modern dual core processor.

That's funny because the only argument you have against upgrading the GPU is that you keep insisting the system is too old without actually knowing anything else about it. You were saying his current CPU will bottleneck an HD 6870 so bad that the performance difference will between it and his current GPU will be negligible. If you based your advice on anything other than hearing the system was not current as of the end of 2011, there is no way you would be saying that because it is absolutely incorrect.

The OP isn't trying to put HD 6990's in crossfire on his Netburst-based Pentium D. Here are some facts: His current graphics card is severely bottlenecking his gaming performance and his processor is fast enough for gaming, and fast enough to take full advantage of the graphics card he wants to upgrade to. As everyone else can clearly see, it really is as simple as that.

And if you want to talk about orders of magnitude, the video card upgrade will improve performance more than an order of magnitude more than any other way you could through $250 at his system.

 

Up until a month ago, I ran a Q9550 mated to a 6950 in my HTPC. I experienced CPU-related slowdowns in exactly one of the games I play - GTA 4 - and that's due to that particular game being ported worse than a flaming turd.

OP, upgrade the GPU. You can re-use it later if you decide you need a new CPU/mobo. It won't be money wasted, in any case.

 

OP: definitely the most cost effective thing to do to improve gaming performance is exactly what you thought. Upgrade the graphics card and leave everything else alone.

 

I'd like to remind you that desktop questions and discussions should be pursued at DesktopReview.com - PC Forums - Desktop Computer Forums and Discussions.