Upgrade CPU or Graphic Card first

[Devils Dog]

Hi,

 

In February I am going to have about £150 pound I hope, so what should I upgrade first CPU or graphic card, and what to. Then I should be able to upgrade the other within 3 months.

 

I would like to go to a Quad core CPU when that get upgraded

 

My Spec

CPU: Intel Pentium Dual Core E2220 2.4ghz - L2 Cache 1mb

RAM: 2gb DDR2 800mhz

Graphic Card: Nvidia 8600GT DDR2 512mb

HDD: 2x 160gb IDE

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L

[Chevyboy]

CPU first, big time.

 

Graphics card could stand some love as well, and ram is cheap and extra gig (2 if you use 64 big OS) could help as well.

 

However many with high end rigs are running the game very poorly so just keep that in mind.

 

I`ve got mine running quite well so if your in it for the long haul, definitely CPU first, this game eats anything below a 3ghz C3D and anything below 2.4ghz quad alive. Relatively speaking.

[medfreak]

GPU definitely. Your CPU could hold you over more than your GPU in almost all games. Don't just think about GTA IV for your investment.

[Devils Dog]

 

CPU first, big time.

 

Graphics card could stand some love as well, and ram is cheap and extra gig (2 if you use 64 big OS) could help as well.

 

However many with high end rigs are running the game very poorly so just keep that in mind.

 

I`ve got mine running quite well so if your in it for the long haul, definitely CPU first, this game eats anything below a 3ghz C3D and anything below 2.4ghz quad alive. Relatively speaking.

That what I was thinking to.

 

The CPU first to quad core, then Graphic Card 3 months later as the graphic card should be a bit better and maybe cheaper.

 

Then up the ram to 4gb thought I do run 32bit XP, but I been told the XP should see 3.25gb and do have plans to upgrade windows in the future.

 

Then go on to the sound card and case

 

Edit: Thanks medfreak for your opinion.

When I built the PC I wanted a quad core and a better graphic card but ran out of money

Edited December 4, 2008 by Devils Dog

[Rockstar1]

GPU definitely. Your CPU could hold you over more than your GPU in almost all games. Don't just think about GTA IV for your investment.

8600GT is a mediocre card. It barely exceeds performance of a 7900 class card.

 

If it were my system, it's what I'd upgrade too. In any other game besides GTA4, that will make a hell of a lot more difference than C2D to quad. In any other game besides GTA4, you won't see any improvement going quad while you still have an 8600GT.

 

 

 

[Chevyboy]

GPU definitely. Your CPU could hold you over more than your GPU in almost all games. Don't just think about GTA IV for your investment.

8600GT is a mediocre card. It barely exceeds performance of a 7900 class card.

 

If it were my system, it's what I'd upgrade too. In any other game besides GTA4, that will make a hell of a lot more difference than C2D to quad. In any other game besides GTA4, you won't see any improvement going quad while you still have an 8600GT.

He asked specificly on this games forums, got an answer regarding this game.

 

And yes the 8600gt is a low end card, but this game is much harder on CPU`s than GPU`s currently at least, a higher end CPU with a lower end GPU is currently netting much better performance results for people on all the benchmarks.

 

While you are partially correct, he did ask on GTA4 forums, for this game, a stronger quad CPU would be ideal over a top of the line graphics card that will not be fully utilized anyway.

[AussieDave27]

This game may be CPU intensive but your cpu isn't all that bad. If you overclocked it to close to 3 you'd have a decent system with a new graphics card. Purchase a 9800 if you want to stick with NVidia or maybe a 260GTX. Such an upgrade would help you a lot more than a CPU upgrade for the majority of games.

 

GTA IV isn't worth upgrading for on its own. Even people with vastly better systems than yours have bad performance with still poor graphics so any upgrade just for this game wouldn't give you a drastic improvement.

 

I'd also recommend waiting for a patch. It should give you a performance increase we hope.

[Vicetopia]

Graphics Card.

Run that E2xxx up to 3 GHz and you're good to go. It should run 9x333 using stock vcore (Whatever is shown on the box and/or "VID" on some programs).

[Cojage]

Im in the same boat as the OP. I have an Asus P5b with 1066MHZ FSB, i have not really knowledge about mobos, could this fsb be a bottleneck if i would upgrade? Im thinking of getting a 4850 or 8800gt.

 

And does anyone know a good clear guide about overclocking a e4500? I read a couple of guides but still dont understand what mp, fsb, etc. are

[AussieDave27]

The importsnt thing with overclocking is to not rush into it blindly because that will inevitably lead to frustration.

 

Don't, however, be scared because it's actually quite hard to cause hardware damage to the....hardware. The worst you can do normally is stuff up the bios settings which can be restored by a manual reset (take out the bios battery for a few mins then replace). That's the worst I've ever done and I'm no master overclocker. I run my dual core at a pretty conservative 3.25GHz (up from 3)

[medfreak]

 

This game may be CPU intensive but your cpu isn't all that bad. If you overclocked it to close to 3 you'd have a decent system with a new graphics card. Purchase a 9800 if you want to stick with NVidia or maybe a 260GTX. Such an upgrade would help you a lot more than a CPU upgrade for the majority of games.

 

GTA IV isn't worth upgrading for on its own. Even people with vastly better systems than yours have bad performance with still poor graphics so any upgrade just for this game wouldn't give you a drastic improvement.

 

I'd also recommend waiting for a patch. It should give you a performance increase we hope.

I agree totally. Especially considering the fact that he is going to upgrade his CPU 3 months after his GPU anyway. So overclock that mofo.

 

 

 

Im in the same boat as the OP. I have an Asus P5b with 1066MHZ FSB, i have not really knowledge about mobos, could this fsb be a bottleneck if i would upgrade? Im thinking of getting a 4850 or 8800gt.

 

And does anyone know a good clear guide about overclocking a e4500? I read a couple of guides but still dont understand what mp, fsb, etc. are confused.gif

 

 

 

I got an 8800 GT on my secondary workstation. I would say go for the 4850, but if GTA IV is the primary game in your mind, I suppose an 8800GT would present less problems.

Edited December 4, 2008 by medfreak

[jason_jinx]

GPU always unless you are really having problems crunching numbers.

 

Get a 1gb vram card.

They do have the 4870 1gb on sale.

[Rockstar1]

GPU definitely. Your CPU could hold you over more than your GPU in almost all games. Don't just think about GTA IV for your investment.

8600GT is a mediocre card. It barely exceeds performance of a 7900 class card.

 

If it were my system, it's what I'd upgrade too. In any other game besides GTA4, that will make a hell of a lot more difference than C2D to quad. In any other game besides GTA4, you won't see any improvement going quad while you still have an 8600GT.

He asked specificly on this games forums, got an answer regarding this game.

 

And yes the 8600gt is a low end card, but this game is much harder on CPU`s than GPU`s currently at least, a higher end CPU with a lower end GPU is currently netting much better performance results for people on all the benchmarks.

 

While you are partially correct, he did ask on GTA4 forums, for this game, a stronger quad CPU would be ideal over a top of the line graphics card that will not be fully utilized anyway.

He didn't specify this upgrade was for onlyGTA4.

 

Upgrading from a C2D to a quad for GTA4 is retarded unless he's got money to burn.

 

Quad core with an 8600GT is extremely unbalanced.

 

The smart thing for him to do it upgrade the videocard.