Possibly Upgrading Mobo/video

[hick]

Current system

Asus m3a78-em AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Brisbane 2.7GHz at 3.1GHz (stock cooling/voltage)

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800

then a 500g sata w/ 16mb cache

Cant remember the PSU

Onboard video

I found on my motherboard it will not let me choose my ram speed. Only the generics 333/400/533 So i cant match it to my cpu. (which might be fine)

 

So my question is should I upgrade my motherboard or do you think the ram speeds are really an issue.

I am thinking of getting APPHIRE 100245L Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0

 

Use starcraft 3 eventually. Half-life 2 mods. Hopefully on my 42" 1080p LCD

[tkrow21]

I have that video card and have to say that the cooler is great, I don't get above 56 C under load with an overclock. Regardless, any HD4850 will kill Starcraft II (unless the 3 WASN'T a typo), along with any Source game.

[scr4wl]

I have that video card and have to say that the cooler is great, I don't get above 56 C under load with an overclock. Regardless, any HD4850 will kill Starcraft II (unless the 3 WASN'T a typo), along with any Source game.

 

As long as your not upgrading to another socket type i'd just stick with that MOBO (unless for some reason you don't like it) The RAM is pretty decent bu sure if you want faster speeds then go for it

[hick]

ya i meant Starcraft 2 but was thinking diablo 3.

So I will stay with this mobo since it doesn't sound like the ram timings are bottlenecking badly. I will hopefully get that video card on tuesday. Furnace broke and cost me $522 to fix part of it waiting to see how much to fix the rest monday . Well thanks sirs.

[pkilway]

I have that video card and have to say that the cooler is great, I don't get above 56 C under load with an overclock. Regardless, any HD4850 will kill Starcraft II (unless the 3 WASN'T a typo), along with any Source game.

 

Same, I LOVE my new Sapphire 4850 (100245L). Running at 675mhz core and 1150mhz memory and still at 38C idle and 56C load. I installed the Catalyst 8.11 drivers yesterday and have to say they are more stable then the 8.10.