Graphics card for old pc under 8.5k

[aloodum]

for such a monitor your best bet is to get a HD7850 card for now and upgrade the system later - sure the cpu will bottleneck the card but playing at 40-50 fps does not makes much changes in game experience for most of the games.

Will differ from you on that point.Its the stuttering, the min fps values that will lead to a frustrating gameplay.
I say this based on personal experience. I ran saboteur on c2d e6550 with a 6850 at 1600X 900 and boy was the game stuttering whenever the scene rendered a multitude of objects. Switched to the e8400 and the phenom II and it was smooth.That was cpu bottleneck in all its visual glory!

@@ The best idea would be to build a balanced system. The C2D architecture is way old and simply even a oced cpu wont take you anywhere substantial. Why would you waste extra resources on a dead architecuture? Have a link at this chart and you`ll undertand what i'm hinting at:
Gaming CPU Hierarchy Chart : Best Gaming CPUs For The Money: November 2012

You now have two choices:

1. Get the 7850 as topgear suggested,upgrade your cpu ,mobo, ram later (but promise u will )
2. Get the 7700, get a i3 upg utilizing the 5k gap and the tradeoff from your old system which atleast will fetch 3k

Im not very up-to-date with the i3 ivybridges so some memeber may help you out on the prcing part

Cheers!!!



Cheers!!!

 

[Myth]

7770 suits the current config but 7850 will work much better long term.
Take the 7850 now and upgrade system gradually piece by piece. It will support better resolutions and provide much better fps. Once OCed, the performance increases further.

 

[anirbandd]

if you have the budget, and can afford to upgrade whole rig later(piece by piece or whole) then 7850 is the way to go. if not, then 7770.

 

[topgear]

Will differ from you on that point.Its the stuttering, the min fps values that will lead to a frustrating gameplay.
I say this based on personal experience. I ran saboteur on c2d e6550 with a 6850 at 1600X 900 and boy was the game stuttering whenever the scene rendered a multitude of objects. Switched to the e8400 and the phenom II and it was smooth.That was cpu bottleneck in all its visual glory! !!!

talking about Saboteur - the game lagged when I try it with a quad core cpu and the game has a glitch for which some needs to run it on a single cpu core afetr starting the game uysing the task manager cpu affinity option.

Still most of the games are optimized for dual core cpus - for eg. take BFBC2 and BF3 and see how well they scale with cpu cores when a powerful gpu is used :

*cdn2.benchmark3d.com/benchmarks/battlefield2/battlefield2_cores_avg_dx11.jpg

*static.techspot.com/articles-info/458/bench/CPU_03.png

now with some latest game :

*cdn2.benchmark3d.com/benchmarks/far-cry-3/dx11/FC3_CPU_Cores_DX11.jpg

sure a quad core cpu ( or a SB/IB core i3 series cpu ) is way to go but unless Op get his hand on one of them he can live with the C2D he has - at-least he will get minimum 30FPS in most of the if he is going to use powerful gpu like HD7850.

images courtesy of their respective owners | HD6950 1GB used on both FC3 and BFBC2 benchmark

 

[aloodum]

talking about Saboteur - the game lagged when I try it with a quad core cpu and the game has a glitch for which some needs to run it on a single cpu core afetr starting the game uysing the task manager cpu affinity option.
Still most of the games are optimized for dual core cpus - for eg. take BFBC2 and BF3 and see how well they scale with cpu cores when a powerful gpu is used :
now with some latest game :
sure a quad core cpu ( or a SB/IB core i3 series cpu ) is way to go but unless Op get his hand on one of them he can live with the C2D he has - at-least he will get minimum 30FPS in most of the if he is going to use powerful gpu like HD7850.

Umm i tried with the phenom x2 and it was way better than the dual core cousins from intel.rather the intels had 4gigs of ddr2 while the pheniom had only 2 gigs of ddr3. Speaking of the the cpu affinity, you situation was exactly to what i faced way back in 2008 with BF 2142 with my version .i had manullay set the both the cores active for execution with those checkboxes....while my friends was ok.Seems like you had an issue with ur release

Yes its a gpu driven games environ there, as you showed(in Fig 1, cant see the other two? ) how a single powerful gpu negates the need for a high(er) cpu.
But in case of the OP, even though the GPU is a somewhat gtx570 class, the cpu is clearly outdated-released way back in end 2006, and hence he would face far greater performance penalty vis-a-vis a newer cpu architecture-clock for clock.While his fps will be in the 30-40 range it may run in to severe lags (lag spikes), stuttering/choppy behavior if Op runs the usual set of Rts/RPG style games.
For example in this thread below, the OP has paired a top end c2d with the 7850 and complaints of choppy behavior in many titles:
HD 7850 2GB - Disappointed with performance - Graphics-Cards - Graphic-Displays

Now its basically up to the OP with his budget/upgrade path,if he sticks with his current c2d , he would obvioulsy gain more if he choses the 78 over the 77.

 

[topgear]

Ok have a look at this pic :



now this is a low res bench where cpu power comes into play mainly and what we got ? just compare the last four cpus. The per core efficiency of C2D ( e8400 ) series is not that bad ( look at 965BE @ 3.4 Ghz ) provided Op runs his cpu around 2.8-3Ghz speed which e6400 can achieve easily without some serious OCing and the stock cooler should be good enough for that.

Now note again that the benchmark used low res where cpu determines performance more rather than gpu but once he increase the the resolution he may not face any performance issue with gpus powerful as HD7850 which is as powerful as HD6950 or little more.

now if Op invests in a HD7770 and core i3 say 3220 which is again a dual core cpu and performs almost same as 965BE but the whole deal will cost him around ~18-19k - now the old cpu+mobo+ram combo will fetch him 3k at best.

Newer games depends mostly on gpu rather than cpu at high res and OP has a HD resolution monitor on which playing games at 1280*720 won't be any good - so fr Op gaming at HD resolution HD7850 is a better choice IMO.

the below image should clear your doubts :



performance wise HD7770 is a little better than GTX 460 but look at HD6950 / HD7870 ( HD7850 sits in-between ) which offers some serious performance boost over HD7770 at HD resolution.

 

[aloodum]

Okays, now take a closer look at the first pic (Cpu test from pcgameshardware.de):
Note the C2D E8400 has a min frame rate of 18 fps . The phenom 965 has 35. And this is what i'm stressing on.
What the pic doesnt tell you ,or rather most bar charts DONT , is the fps wrt to a time frame. What messes up a good gameplay is lag spikes/stutterting.This obviously would depend on the game itself..while OP maynot face such dips in say a fps shooter, he will be severely penalised in a crowded village scene in a RPG/RTS

Intel has (for the most time of its showdown with AMD) had better IPC peformance. Nevertheless if you are considering just Ocing the OP's the E6600you must also take it into consideration various factors:
1. OP has a E6600(4m cache, 1066fsb) and the test shows results for an E8400(6mb, 1333fsb). Even if he bumps his fsb (which i assume as the multi is locked at 9 for both), there is nothing that can be done for the 2mb L3 cache difference, and as we know in the c2d architecture/architecture of bygone years, this one oft the most critical performance parameters. And that is why you`ll see a considerable difference in gaming peformance bwtween the various flavours of C2D's from 65nm of E4XXX series(2m, 800fsb) ,E6XXX(4mb,1066) to 45nm E8XXX
2. Also take into consideration that E8400 has the SSE4 instruction set which the E6600 does not have.
3. The test platform consisted of a performance chipset P45 for lga 775, comapred to the G965 for the OP. Though the ram specs are not printed but irrespective of that, its safe to say the overall memory bandwidth at 1066 and 1333 fsb will be better than the 965-Small but a contributing factor nonetheless.

Coming to a i3 vs a phenom 965, again the IPC of a sandy/ivy is vastly superior to a phenom. Regardless of how the game designers made the game, most linear calculation will still go to mr cpu and the paralles one will end with gpu.From a purely gaming POV, the i3 will rule the roost wrt to a phenom

Pls understand my emphasis all along has been on a building a balanced system and no where am i contesting 77 vs 7850. The 7700 contest with the 6850, while the 7850 bites on gtx570, so obviously if u pair a 7850 with a C2d it will give more MAX FPS comapred to a 77 paired to the same. But as i said not only will the cpu bottleneck both both at any resolution, it will lead to a very choppy performance via the penalty suffered in min fps drops . Had the OP a more recent CPU(even dual cores) or even a late C2Q 9XXX series (which are just a shade below the first gen i5's) it would have been a no brainer.

But i assume regardless of his choice of GPU, you would agree that his cpu needs to go if he wants optimal performance.
Cheers!

 

[codename47]

Thanks everyone for all the help. I think I should go for 7850 now and upgrade the system later one piece at a time.

 

[topgear]

^^ nice - after getting the HD7850 do let us know about your gaming performance - I mean post some game benches / min/max fps result of different games.

@ aloodum - I do agree that Op needs a cpu upgrade for optimal performance.

 

[codename_47]

Finally arranged 15k. I have zeroed in gigabyte 660gtx 2gb OC which is available for a little more than 15.5k on fk. Going to head lamington road tomorrow to see if i can get a better deal. Seriously doubt that i am going to get the same make at lamington road. The thing with going to lamington road is we go there to buy something and end up buying something different altogether.
Any buyer for my old 512mb 8800gt zebronics?

 

[Myth]

Extend your budget by 2k and take the 7870

 

[codename_47]

Finally got myself a gtx 660 gigabyte oc version. Had a bad experience shopping at lamington road. First of all one should not expect that you can easily get some bucks sawed off. The price quoted at lamington road is no way cheaper than what is online and If you want some high end product then all the shops call the same dealer. I got my card at 15750 just 80rs less than what was on fk. Anyways I am experiencing cpu bottleneck in latest games. Guess i will have to upgrade my entire config. Will allocate 15k for cpu mobo combo. Want to sell my old CPU. Any guess how much will i get from it? Anyone interested?

 

[Myth]

Congrats
Pictures >?
Put up the post for selling items here : *www.thinkdigit.com/forum/bazaar/
To ask selling price : *www.thinkdigit.com/forum/bazaar/139625-how-much-can-i-sell-my-old-stuff.html

 

[topgear]

@ OP - Congrats on your purchase and you need to get a new PSu and DDr3 ram as well.