hello gaming world

i currently have an 8800 GTS 320, which is pretty good for the games i am currently playing but it's about time for an upgrade right? it starts to choke pretty hard when you get to games like crysis, gta iv, etc. so I think it is TIME FOR AN UPGRADE etc.

here are some cards i was looking at :


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127427

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102830

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130492


i am leaning very heavily towards the HD 4890 since it seems to get dramatically better performance than most of the Nvidia 200 series cards for a modest price, but i don't know a WHOLE lot about these things or which 4890 to get. please advise!!

i have an AMD 5600+ X2 CPU and 2 gigs ram, but i plan on upgrading the ram. i don't know whether my mobo supports 2 x 6 pin connectors but I assume it does because it's PCI-E.

whoops, this probably should have went in computers and tech. my bad!!

taking care of it

thank you kind sir

Upgrade your RAM to 4GB, because that's going to choke your system a lot. Also you should know Crysis and GTA IV are horribly optimized. Even ridiculous i7 systems have trouble running GTA IV, it's the game, not the system, and you will probably not be able to run this smoothly regardless. A 4890 is fine, and you will likely see a 10-20fps jump in most games, however I don't really think it is necessary when that money could go into upgrading your ram, cpu, and buying games that are actually intended to be run by normal computers.

I'm using a 320 card, not 640, so High texture settings lag horribly in most games at my LCD res (1680x1050)

my bottleneck is card right now other than RAM, which I am also going to take care of.

Ok, but I'm just warning you since you mentioned GTA IV. You will not be able to play this on high settings, 99% guaranteed. I've heard of some 2x 4870X2 systems getting 'PLAYABLE FRAMERATES' which is just absurd, but it's your money so~

benchmarks say the 4890 gets decent fps (40~) but i'm guessing my CPU will be a bottleneck. any links to good ram though?

what motherboard do you have?

MSI K9N4 SLI-F

i'm 90% sure the 4890 will fit in its PCI-E slot. if not i am prepared to buy a new mobo. i'm completely replacing the internal ram though since it's 4 512 DDR2s i think?

I'd just go grab 4GB of DDR2-800; recommended brands are Corsair, OCZ, and Patriot. Also make sure your PSU can handle the 4890.

it's 600, 640W i'm pretty sure so i should be fine. higher-clocked RAM isn't worth it?

Memory makes up less than 5% of total system performance and your motherboard only supports up to PC2-6400 (DDR2-800) anyways. You won't notice tangible differences between 800, 1033, or higher DDR2 RAM unless you are doing something specific.

When it comes to brand, just go with who you trust. There are some companies you can't go wrong with like eVGA XFX or BFG that have life time warranties. Something to help narrow it down is to compare the clock frequencies, and find the best clocked card for your money.

what difference does clock speed make? is that the rated speed of the card, is there a real difference in rendering speed beyond a few FPS? i'm a bit out of my element here.

of the two 4890s I linked, is the only reason the $250 is more expensive the HDMI port? why is the cheaper one rated significantly higher in clock speed?

A lot of manufacturers will sell overpriced HARDCORE OC versions of cards with slightly higher clockspeeds but it's really nothing you can't accomplish on your own with a regular version of the card by increasing the fan speed and overclocking it. From a quick google search, it looks like those 4890's can run fine at 1Ghz and above.

Also, does anyone know why video card manufacturers insist on putting some of the dumbest pictures on the plastic fan tunnel/heatsink cover? I bought an aftermarket heatsink for my video card because even though I never see it when the case isn't open, knowing that there's a picture of some CG woman with bikini battle armor on it just bugs me. Why are they paying people to design that embarassing horesehit? Who the fuck does that appeal to?

why don't they put naked ladies on them

A lot of manufacturers will sell overpriced HARDCORE OC versions of cards with slightly higher clockspeeds but it's really nothing you can't accomplish on your own with a regular version of the card by increasing the fan speed and overclocking it. From a quick google search, it looks like those 4890's can run fine at 1Ghz and above.

okay, so are you telling me the $250 one just has an HDMI port and that's the only real difference?

why don't they put naked ladies on them

its like trucker mudflaps but for your videocard

okay, so are you telling me the $250 one just has an HDMI port and that's the only real difference?

yeah