Advice on Upgrade

[creeve4]

I am running an old system:

Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-SLI (only supports PCIE X16 1.0) (http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/...e=GA-K8NXP-SLI)

Athlon x2 4200+ (socket 939)

2GB DDR (not DDR2)

9500GT 512mb DDR2

 

I want to upgrade my video card to a 9800GT, but I think my motherboard and DDR memory will be too much of a bottleneck for the 9800GT to make much of a difference. Am I correct in this assumption?

 

My reason for upgrading is so I can play Dragon Age: Origins. Currently it runs horribly slow even on the lowest settings. With an upgrade to the 9800GT will I see an improvement in Dragon Age?

[creeve4]

I have decided to spend a little more and I'm looking at the following:

 

ASRock A785GXH/128M

AMD Phenom II X2 550 or AMD Athlon II X3 440

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

XFX HD-477A-YDFC Radeon HD 4770 512MB 128-bit GDDR5 or XFX HD-485X-ZDFC Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-bit GDDR3

 

How does it look? Need some advice on the CPU and GPU choice, what should I go with?

[Dynamic]

Processor

Dragon Age: Origins - More cores, better performance

The processor is the most important component for a lag free Dragon Age: Origins experience. The CPU shouldn't just run at least 2.8 GHz but also have four cores. In our test the performance was increased by 29 percent when we replaced our C2D E6600 (dual-core) with the C2Q Q6600 (quad-core) which also runs at 2.4 GHz. Thus we recommend the C2Q Q8400 or the Phenom II X4 940 BE - both processors cost about 150 Euros. Detailed CPU benchmarks will follow as soon as possible.

 

Video Card

Dragon Age: Origins - Lower Middle Class GPUs are enough

Although the graphics are looking quite good, the game doesn't stress the graphics card too much. For 1280 x 1024 pixels (no FSAA, 16:1 AF) a Geforce 9800 GT or Radeon HD 4770 is enough. Higher settings like 1680 x 1050 with 4x/8x FSAA require a GTS 250 or HS 4870 (512 MiByte). Since the launch file already needs 1.3 GiByte system memory, your system should have 2 GiByte (XP) respectively 4 GiByte (Vista) RAM at least. For Windows 7 you should also have 4 GiByte.

 

8800GTS or an Radeon HD 3850 with 512 MB

 

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,698666/...-2009/Practice/

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,698761/...cores/Practice/

Edited April 14, 2010 by Dynamic

[El_Capitan]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/multi-...pu,2280-11.html

 

Triple cores gives a 25% jump over dual cores.

 

What your monitor resolution and what other games you play gives us a better idea of what GPU to get.

[creeve4]

I have decided to spend a little (lot) more and I'm looking at the following:

 

ASRock A785GXH/128M

AMD Phenom II X2 550 BE

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

XFX HD-485X-ZDFC Radeon HD 4850 1GB

[joel.monteiro]

im not sure u know to unlock the phenom dual core so rather go for the athlon II X4 620 or 630 quad core thats almost the same price as the phenom II X2 550 and for gfx y not go for a 5670 it supports Dx11 and decent performance.

[Rofltroll]

Try giving a price range. People will jump and give you the best possible solution for you.

[panjang110]

hey, i notice that too... i have lags while in denerim even with at 3.8ghz but after unlocking my 550 to triple core problem solved hehehe