New CPU or gfx card?

[Sykes]

I've built my computer from scratch out of 100% free parts I've gathered over time. Problem is, I need an upgrade :[ but I don't know what to get first. Money doesn't come easy for me, so it's not like I'll be able to upgrade both of them quickly I need your opinions. I'm not sure which is the bottleneck here.

I have an AMD Athlon X2 3800+ 2.0GHz (~2.2GHz) and a GeForce 7600 GT 256MB. Now, I'm leaning toward replacing the video card, because DirectX 10 would be really nice, and video cards are getting cheap. Especially GeForce 8's.

Opinions? Suggestions?

 

[entens]

video card. you can always try overclocking the CPU.

if money is tight, may i suggest openbox items on newegg? i would avoid ob cpu's but i have had great luck on the ob videocards(3 and counting)

 

[genpatton7]

A 9800 GT would be a good choice, very reasonable pricing nowadays and still runs all new games at a good framerate with DX10.

 

[FreakingHell]

A graphics card upgrade will net you a larger FPS boost.

 

[I-Die-Often]

Be aware that Nvidia cards crash in some games and nvidia has no plans to fix the issue... My brother in law (robo hobo on eGO) upgraded from his 7600gt last month only to return the card due to it crashing a couple of games. I would recommend an ati 4770 hard to beat at the price range and it is the forward card out of ati's line with the new die size...

Just my two cents... but I have stopped using nvidia as well and my last card was a 7600gt as well... I now use a 3870 and couldn't be more happy... although a bit dated, the 3870 can be had for $65 after rebate on newegg and it is a huge step up fro
the 7600gt as well...

 

[bakerthree]

be careful when you buy your new graphics card since many of the newer ones are pcie 2 cards and will not run well in pcie slots.

 

[FreakingHell]

Be aware that Nvidia cards crash in some games and nvidia has no plans to fix the issue...

I have no idea what you are talking about...I've only ever used nvidia cards and almost never have crashes, and when I do it is usually because of my overclocks.

Please elaborate on these crashes. More than likely it was a improper driver installation. Nvidia cards would not be as popular as they are if they crashed all the time. Perhaps he was using a beta driver, as these are known to crash.

@Bakerthree, almost all current cards will not suffer a performance loss in a PCIe 1.0 x16 slot. The exception is the GTX295 and 4870X2, but the performance decrease is very minimal. The next generation of cards will probably be a different story though.

 

[Stevontoast]

video card. you can always try overclocking the CPU.

if money is tight, may i suggest openbox items on newegg? i would avoid ob cpu's but i have had great luck on the ob videocards(3 and counting)

NO
If it is an old CPU over clocking would be dangerous for it...
Frankly, if you have an old CPU chances are your Motherboard is poop too
I think you should save up for awhile and get new stuffs completely
Give up the specs of this computer then
It will help us decide if you need a CPU upgrade of a GFX one.
Hmm... 2GHz?! is that single core or what rofl, if it is dual bon't bother upgrading... dual is fine
Get a graphics card 7600 is rather outdated and 256MB is clearly not a lot...
Tell us what you want the computer to do also, like play TF2 or just CSS or whatevers ;D

 

[UnderLord]

Be aware that Nvidia cards crash in some games and nvidia has no plans to fix the issue... My brother in law (robo hobo on eGO) upgraded from his 7600gt last month only to return the card due to it crashing a couple of games. I would recommend an ati 4770 hard to beat at the price range and it is the forward card out of ati's line with the new die size...

Just my two cents... but I have stopped using nvidia as well and my last card was a 7600gt as well... I now use a 3870 and couldn't be more happy... although a bit dated, the 3870 can be had for $65 after rebate on newegg and it is a huge step up fro
the 7600gt as well...

I would like to know what games crashed due to it being a Nvidia card it sounds like someone pulled something out of a certaint area of there body if you know what i mean. Personally I'v had nothing but Nvidia cards and find them very useful I'v played every type of game i can find and never had one crash most likly it could be due to the game having a bug in it or someone installed the forceware wrong (which is near impossible to do, but has been done before).

Oh yeah for the OP - Buy a new card your X2 should be working fine you might also want to check the temps of the CPU to make sure its not overheating that can cause the computer to run slow too. And if you get some thermal grease apply it to the heatsink and have sufficient cooling you can get your CPU upto about 2.6GHZ stable.

 

[iGreen]

Hmm... 2GHz?! is that single core or what rofl, if it is dual bon't bother upgrading... dual is fine ;D

Anything AMD X2 is dual core and you can guess what X4 means

I have an AMD Athlon X2 3800+ 2.0GHz (~2.2GHz) and a GeForce 7600 GT 256MB.

An easy option would be to overclock your CPU (only if you are VERY careful and feel happy to do it) if not, then don't bother. I'd also only recommend overclocking if you've got a decent fan/heatsink, if it came with the processor i'd avoid overclocking to be on the safe side.
so i'd lean towards a new GPU instead. you tend to get a greater increase in performance from a new graphics card instead of a new CPU

 

[Passerby]

a new gpu might get bottle necked by the cpu and you also have to make sure your psu can handle a newer gpu

 

[Sykes]

I was a little hardcore when I put out the specs. It's originally clocked at 2.0 GHz but I overclocked it (Windows uses ~ to show what it's overclocked to) to 2.2 GHz. That's as much as I was able to overclock it due to my very poor cooling, and naturally hot room (it hits 90 sometimes). Also, yes Athlon X2 is dual core, and that's per-core speed. I am aware of both ATI and NVIDIA's problems with their cards, and even though AMD and ATI "go well" together, I think I'll go for an NVIDIA 8 series, or possibly a 9 series if I can get enough money.

Thanks for your opinions!

EDIT: Yeah, I won't get anything my PSU can't handle, and no doubt my CPU will be the bottleneck, but no matter what I upgrade next I'll be bottleneck'd, which is exactly why I made this thread It won't be a crazy upgrade. Probably an 8 series just for the DX10 and PCIe 1.

 

[I-Die-Often]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=nvidia+card+crashes+game&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

NVidia has acknowledged their card crashes KOFTOR... and that is the game he had crash on him repeatedly... no version of driver fixed it... no uninstall/reinstall... nothing... it is very well documented and is very wide spread. NVidia refuses to fix the issue, so I advise everyone to stay away from their cards since they don't fix their own known issues.

I know there are people that are die hard NVidia or die hard ATI... I have used the card he has now 7600GT and upgraded to my 3870... robo hobo upgraded from a 7600GT to a 8600GT (either 8600 or 8800) and had major issues with crashing in game... he then switched to a 4770 and has had absolutely no crashes in any game since.

You could always try searching some before you insult people, that would probably help you out a bit.

 

[Passerby]

they will fix that bug but in there own sweet time

there was a bug with nvidia drivers and the qt4 gui toolkits which cause application interfces to draw very slow and they said they would never fix it but but like 6 months later completley fixed. and that bug olny really affect people who run linux and use kde 4 so a fairley small community at the time the bug was found

 

[Sykes]

I prefer NVIDIA over ATI for various reasons, and I really only play a few other games outside of the Source Engine. No doubt their cards have their share of problems, but that's no reason to boycott them.

But please, I don't want this thread to be yet another NVIDIA vs ATI thread. I believe I read somewhere that it's a rule this should not happen (a thread titled Console Wars). I prefer NVIDIA, so if you would like to change my opinion, feel free to PM me about it

 

[GreatNate]

Anything AMD X2 is dual core and you can guess what X4 means



An easy option would be to overclock your CPU (only if you are VERY careful and feel happy to do it) if not, then don't bother. I'd also only recommend overclocking if you've got a decent fan/heatsink, if it came with the processor i'd avoid overclocking to be on the safe side.
so i'd lean towards a new GPU instead. you tend to get a greater increase in performance from a new graphics card instead of a new CPU

I agree with iGreen, you have to be careful with overclocking. I thought my heatsink and fan could handle only a bit of an overclock (i did 15%, not much, but still a little). I have a temp gauge on my computer and i MAY have let it pass 114 degrees without noticing. NO my processor does bad math occasionally, and i get fps spikes on all games(Suuuuuuuuuuuuuucks), i need to replace with another AM2 slot cpu, wish i had the extra dough. I now can't play games with any punkbuster on it cause it keeps thinking i hacked the processes.

SO listen to iGreen, make sure you get a quality heat sink and fan before you decide to overclock.

 

[Sykes]

Yeah, I have a $9 cheapo heatsink/fan and a rather poor ventilation system. It's only at an 8% overclock (2.2 from 2.0 is 4%, multiplied by 2 for each core?) and it's been running for about a year now and it's only overheated twice. Both times it was a good 90 degrees in my room and I was playing UT3.

Atten is my godfather when it comes to overclocking, so if I ever want to do it I'll just ask him he knows his stuff. Although I havn't heard of overclocking your GPU. Perhaps this is something I could do?

 

[Cut Chem!st]

If you play source games most, considering your in the tf2 division go with the CPU. You won't see much of a boost in the source engine with a new video card, plus DX10 isn't used at all. Only way i've seen it is for some higher settings that you can just get a tweak to do.

 

[PureBlood]

A graphics card upgrade will net you a larger FPS boost.

this, the improvement would be more obvious :thumbup1:

 

[Un4Gvn]

Holy Nvidia vs ATI Batman.
Look, if you've only run one or the other, then your not qualified to speak. Every generation of each manufacture of cards has had this problem or that. To say that one is better then the other is foolish.
The man's question was what should he upgrade first.
Definitely the video card, in my opinion(considering you have enough PSU), he would begin to see immediate effects from an upgrade like that.
I would not recommend overclocking as, more often then not, it might cause severe problems.