Advice on Graphics Cards

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Originally Posted by Abriael

6GB of RAM are good only with a triple channel architecture (that depends on the chip). 4 GB are actually plenty for most gaming needs, and if your chip supports double channel, better than 6.

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Still the cpu bottleneck is a valid point. That is going to cause a large drop in fps.
Not a hypothetical drop, a very real, large drop.
My system with that cpu, would loose about 4k points in the benchmark, on estimate.

Bottom line. The gpu is going to give you the most increase in fps, at the least overall cost.
You would need to entirely rebuild the system, to remove bottlenecking.
The mobo, cpu and memory would need to be replaced, to make as much difference as the gpu by it's self.

To the OP:

Get one of the GPU's recommended and call it a day, if you are not looking to spend a thousand dollars or more.

Are you talking with the OP or me?
°_° /confused

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Originally Posted by Coris

Are you talking with the OP or me?
°_° /confused

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(Insert Edit-Button here. There's none for me on the mobile forums. Sorry for doublepost.)

Forget my Question xD
I was like "Huh, my CPU isn't that old" and I posted before checking the internets for a release date.
/bow

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Abriael

6GB of RAM are good only with a triple channel architecture (that depends on the chip). 4 GB are actually plenty for most gaming needs, and if your chip supports double channel, better than 6.

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I recently had to upgrade from 4GB cause TERA was using up all my free RAM (it is compiled with LAA, so it can use up to 3GB RAM.. which it does), leading to ugly stuttering and I can only see it happen more often in the future with x64 systems being commonplace now. I was usually advocating 4GB RAM is enough, but with a mere 10€ difference in price, it's safer to go with 8GB for dual channel nowadays.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Solace

Still the cpu bottleneck is a valid point. That is going to cause a large drop in fps.
Not a hypothetical drop, a very real, large drop.
My system with that cpu, would loose about 4k points in the benchmark, on estimate.

Bottom line. The gpu is going to give you the most increase in fps, at the least overall cost.
You would need to entirely rebuild the system, to remove bottlenecking.
The mobo, cpu and memory would need to be replaced, to make as much difference as the gpu by it's self.

To the OP:

Get one of the GPU's recommended and call it a day, if you are not looking to spend a thousand dollars or more.

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It was already brought up. Her mobo doesn't need to be changed. It's an AM3, and as such it supports a 965be which is plenty not to bottleneck a 660. The only problem is the PCI 1.0, but that's just a 5% loss for a 660.

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Originally Posted by Soukyuu

I recently had to upgrade from 4GB cause TERA was using up all my free RAM (it is compiled with LAA, so it can use up to 3GB RAM.. which it does), leading to ugly stuttering and I can only see it happen more often in the future with x64 systems being commonplace now. I was usually advocating 4GB RAM is enough, but with a mere 10€ difference in price, it's safer to go with 8GB for dual channel nowadays.

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In my experience it's actually better to have 4GB of good memory (IE: Corsair Dominator for instance) than 8 GB of 10€ memory, to be honest.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

In my experience it's actually better to have 4GB of good memory (IE: Corsair Dominator for instance) than 8 GB of 10€ memory, to be honest.

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It seems you have misunderstood what I meant. I got the corsair xms3 8gb for 47€, 4GB was 37€. That's 2x more RAM for only 10€ more. That makes 5,7€/GB vs 9,25€/GB. The sticks run stable at 1600Mhz@CL8.

The Corsair dominator is similar, 4GB vs. 8GB. 8GB is just better value. What's supposed to be better about those anyway? 1600CL9 is pretty standard...

Besides, 4GB of expensive memory won't help you if they are full and your PC will start trashing the HDD...

Once again, I have to thank everyone for their advice. I'm getting am HD 7870 since I have a friend who offered it free. the reason being (and this is embarrassing) that he got an upgrade to something much better. lol

I love my crappy computer, tho. >.<

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Originally Posted by SkyeWindbinder

Once again, I have to thank everyone for their advice. I'm getting am HD 7870 since I have a friend who offered it free. the reason being (and this is embarrassing) that he got an upgrade to something much better. lol

I love my crappy computer, tho. >.<

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Sweet!
I'll be getting me a 7870 soon too :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SkyeWindbinder

Once again, I have to thank everyone for their advice. I'm getting am HD 7870 since I have a friend who offered it free. the reason being (and this is embarrassing) that he got an upgrade to something much better. lol

I love my crappy computer, tho. >.<

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Thats great; Free is always good^^, Shouldn't feel embarrassed, the 7870 is a very good mid-range card, falls slightly behind the GTX 660 in some areas but beats it in others and has better OC potential. Should be a decent card even when you upgrade; Should be able to max out FFXIV: ARR without a problem when you choose to upgrade other parts.

If its not to much trouble, once you get it installed, run the benchmark and let us know what score you get.

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Originally Posted by Shura

Thats great; Free is always good^^, Shouldn't feel embarrassed, the 7870 is a very good mid-range card, falls slightly behind the GTX 660 in some areas but beats it in others and has better OC potential. Should be a decent card even when you upgrade; Should be able to max out FFXIV: ARR without a problem when you choose to upgrade other parts.

If its not to much trouble, once you get it installed, run the benchmark and let us know what score you get.

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ok, will do!