Upgrade graphics card or whole PC for gaming?
Discussion
Hi Guys,
I think I will upgrade my PC for a better experience playing Elite Dangerous. I'm downloading it now, but I see my current graphics card is the minimum recommended. This is what I have so far:
ABIT AW9D-Max motherboard
Intel Core2 Quad Q6700 @2.66GHz
4GB DDR2 6400 RAM
Radeon HD 4870 1Gb
500GB Samsung SSD
Windows 7
I originally built this PC in December 2006 so it is getting on a bit now, though the RAM, processor, graphics card, hard drive, case and operating system have all been gradually upgraded. The motherboard is still original. The current graphics card was bought in 2009.
Do you think I can get away with just upgrading the graphics card? It still pays Skyrim pretty well with the graphics options on high and ultra.
Will the processor, slow RAM and the PCI 2.0 slot bottleneck the graphics card, or will a decent card be able to make up for the deficiencies in the rest of the system?
The Quad core will not run stable when overclocked unfortunately, so that isn't an option. Quite annoying because I used to have a dual core E6600 installed, which would overclock fine to 3GHz. I bought the Q6700 for about £20 on an ebay auction a couple of years back as I thought it would be a worthy upgrade. It didnt seem to make any difference.
Thanks!
I think I will upgrade my PC for a better experience playing Elite Dangerous. I'm downloading it now, but I see my current graphics card is the minimum recommended. This is what I have so far:
ABIT AW9D-Max motherboard
Intel Core2 Quad Q6700 @2.66GHz
4GB DDR2 6400 RAM
Radeon HD 4870 1Gb
500GB Samsung SSD
Windows 7
I originally built this PC in December 2006 so it is getting on a bit now, though the RAM, processor, graphics card, hard drive, case and operating system have all been gradually upgraded. The motherboard is still original. The current graphics card was bought in 2009.
Do you think I can get away with just upgrading the graphics card? It still pays Skyrim pretty well with the graphics options on high and ultra.
Will the processor, slow RAM and the PCI 2.0 slot bottleneck the graphics card, or will a decent card be able to make up for the deficiencies in the rest of the system?
The Quad core will not run stable when overclocked unfortunately, so that isn't an option. Quite annoying because I used to have a dual core E6600 installed, which would overclock fine to 3GHz. I bought the Q6700 for about £20 on an ebay auction a couple of years back as I thought it would be a worthy upgrade. It didnt seem to make any difference.
Thanks!
I'd see how it goes to be honest. Your system exceeds their minimum spec, so you may be fine at the resolution you want to run it at.
The game seems to use about 2GB of memory, so you should be OK in that regard.
The COBRA game engine is obviously very modern & does use all available cores (and hyperthreading if available).
The game seems to use about 2GB of memory, so you should be OK in that regard.
The COBRA game engine is obviously very modern & does use all available cores (and hyperthreading if available).
That's useful information about the RAM, thanks. If I don't have to upgrade the motherboard, CPU and ram I can justify a higher expense on the graphics card. The Geforce GTX 970 looks like a good option, but would blow my budget for buying any other components.
I want to run the game at 1920x1080 with everything else on maximum. I have installed the game now and it recommends 1280x720 on medium settings for my hardware.
I have had a read online and it sounds like my PCIe 2.0 slot should have very little, if any affect on the performance of a newer graphics card.
I can't find anything definitive on DDR3 vs DDR2 for gaming, but RAM speed generally don't seem to make much difference for most games running at 1920x1080.
Nothing concrete has come up about how restrictive my old Q6700 is to modern gaming. It seems to depend on the game.
I want to run the game at 1920x1080 with everything else on maximum. I have installed the game now and it recommends 1280x720 on medium settings for my hardware.
I have had a read online and it sounds like my PCIe 2.0 slot should have very little, if any affect on the performance of a newer graphics card.
I can't find anything definitive on DDR3 vs DDR2 for gaming, but RAM speed generally don't seem to make much difference for most games running at 1920x1080.
Nothing concrete has come up about how restrictive my old Q6700 is to modern gaming. It seems to depend on the game.
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