Not sure if I should upgrade or not.

Hello all, I am new here and have a few questions. I was looking to upgrade my computer, and when I get to the video card I have a nVidia Geforce GTX 275. I check pricewatch.com to see what compares price wise, and it is still at $268. But I check out the places that supposedly have it for $268 and the page is no longer available. Is my card outdated or what? I know it is EVGA DDR3 with 868 MB memory. I am looking at the 1GB GDDR5 ATI Radeon HD 5770, and it is only around $150. Why does my card say it costs so much more, but all the stats are lower than the Radeon HD which is almost half the price? Is my card very outdated, since it is DDR3? Also is it going to be better to get 2 of the Radeon HD cards, or 1 more of my nVidia card? Any and all help is much appreciated.

The GTX 275 is technically "outdated" but then again, as product cycles for this kind of tech is usually 6-8 months, by the time you can actually buy ANY high end video card, it's replacement is already entering production...so really, by the time you can actually buy a card..it's outdated

But fear not because the GTX 275 is still a fine card to own and I really wouldn't recommend replacing it unless you had a specific goal in mind such as lowering power consumption, gaining DX11 compliance, reducing heat output, or gaining performance on the highest levels of gaming - such as the extreme resolutions like 2560x1600 or multi-monitor gaming.

For anyone who has a single monitor and runs at a resolution up to 1920x1200 (or 1080P), the GTX 275 is still going to be considered a fairly high end graphics card capable of gaming. In fact, its replacement - the GTX 460 - is not worlds faster. Typically its maybe a few fps stronger, but as you can see here the stats are in the GTX 460's favor. Particularly the power consumption numbers, saving 60w is pretty significant. The newer manufacturing technology also effects heat output and at full load these GTX 460s can run nearly 20c cooler from my experience.

The HD 5770 is not going to be faster than the GTX 275, the 275 is faster by a considerable margin. The HD 4890 is closer in performance, but not the 5770. 5770 crossfire would be faster, but not really worth it in terms of performance scaling, cost, heat output, noise, and potential stability issues.

What you really want as an upgrade from a GTX 275 if it is no longer fast enough for you, is the HD 5850 or GTX 470. Both of these cards are considerably faster, DX11 compliant, more efficient, and can be had for about $300. The HD 5850 is a better buy in my opinion, but the GTX 470 has its merits. Honestly the GTX 460 is probably the best option out of all the new 400 series simply for its priceerformance ratio, as well as its efficiency (power consumption, heat output, and noise vs performance).

So to sum without any more ranting and raving on my part...The GTX 275 is discontinued and its replacement is the GTX 460. The HD 5770 is NOT faster than the GTX 275 and it's stats represent ATI's approach to processing and is not going to be directly comparable to Nvidia's, at least in terms of shader processing power. The amount of ram on a graphics card does not directly effect its performance in every case. If a card can utilize a gig of ram, it will benefit. If it cannot utilize a gig of ram, then having less will not hinder performance.

If you want to upgrade from the GTX 275 and get a better architecture and features, go for the GTX 460. If you want more performance than your GTX 275, go for the HD 5850.

But before buying anything, can you list the specs of your pc, including the resolution you play games with?

Wow amazing reply, thank you so much. I will definitely check out the HD 5850, but one more question is what is the difference in the HDDR5 and the DDR3? And so if I build a machine with the HD 5850, I will definitely see better results than I do now with my GTX 175? The main reason for even upgrading is the game FFXIV is coming out soon, and I need a PC capable of playing it well. I ran the benchmark test for the game with my GTX 275 and got very low results. The benchmark can be found here if you are interested: (Just google FFXIV benchmark and you can find it, I am not allowed to post links.) I got a score of 1126 on the Low Resolution option, and according to the following score interpretation, I couldn't even play the game, and I thought I had a pretty good PC.

8000 and over Easily capable of running the game on the highest settings.

5500–7999 Easily capable of running the game. Should perform exceptionally well, even at higher resolutions.

4500-5499 Easily capable of running the game. Should perform well, even at higher resolutions.

3000-4499 Capable of running the game on default settings. Consider switching to a higher resolution depending on performance.

2500-2999 NVIDIA GeForce GTX460 or better with VRAM 768MB or more

2000-2499 Capable of running the game on default settings.

1500-1999 Capable of running the game, but may experience some slowdown. Adjust settings to improve performance.

Under 1500 Does not meet specifications for running the game.


My current specs are as follows:
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
ASUS M3N-HT Deluxe Motherboard
AMD Phenom II X4 965 Processor
4 GB 533 DDR2 Memory
nVidia Geforce GTX 275 Video Card
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Gamer Edition Sound Card
Maxtor 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive
I forget the power supply I have, but it was a really good one, probably one of the newer pieces of my PC, I want to say 750 or 800W.
I currently use 1680 X 1050 resolution.

GDDR3 is essentially a graphics optimized version of the DDR2 memory you are using in your computer right now, though at higher speeds. GDDR5 on the other hand is based on the desktop DDR3 standard. GDDR3 is a double data rate standard, where as GDDR5 is a quadruple data rate standard. Without going into too much detail, what this basically means is GDDR5 can deliver much more bandwidth than GDDR3 could, even restricted to the same bus width.

So while your GTX 275 has memory modules running at 1,135 MHz and linked to a 448-bit bus and yielding 127gb of memory bandwidth, the HD 5850 has memory modules running at 1,000 MHz and linked to a much more simple 256-bit bus, it still yields 128gb of memory bandwidth. The advantage here is that you can use higher density GDDR5 modules, rated for higher speeds, and pair it with a much more simplified bus - which brings down the complexity and cost of the board itself.
If you were comparing apples to apples here then GDDR5 will essential equate to 2x the memory bandwidth over the same speed GDDR3. If the HD 5850 had 1ghz GDDR3 modules, you would only have 64gb worth of memory bandwidth. But because it uses 1ghz GDDR5 modules, you get 128gb.

The HD 5850 is significantly faster, and in the FFXIV benchmark you will be looking at scores in the 3500-4000 range easily and I suspect 1680x1050 should be well within the range of smooth performance for the HD 5850. You certainly wont need a new computer, but a new video card will make a world of difference.
About your memory though, if you are running memory that runs at 533 mhz, then you have "DDR2 1066", remember that "DDR2 533" runs at 266 mhz.

You have a great system and I really dont see any basis for needing to build a new one to replace it. I'd suggest a new video card, and possibly overclocking your chip a bit if you feel comfortable. The score you received seems a lot lower than it should be based on what I have seen. I'll download the benchmark and try it on my system here and see what I score later. We have similar machines, except mine uses a 6-core 1055T at 3.6ghz, 8gb DDR2 800, 150gb raptor, and a GTX 275.

But you may even want to hold off a little bit longer, perhaps even until FFXIV comes out, as ATI is expected to be launching their new 6000 series in September, and it is expected to be a refresh of the existing 5000 series, so you may see another 20% extra performance over the 5850 within the same price range, or price drops on the existing 5850/5870.

Awesome, very good information to know. You don't know how helpful you are, but yes please let me know how you do on the benchmark test. Based on what you have informed me of, I think I will just upgrade to 8GB of DDR2 ram @ 1066, the fastest my board will support. Then later in September I will look into a new Video Card, but where could I check to keep updated on when ATI will be releasing their new cards? And one last thing, where would I go to find information on overclocking my processor? And what is a good temperature range to stay within, and even a way to possibly shut down when PC goes over a certain dangerous temperature, as I live in FL and needless to say, it is freaking HOT!!

P.S. I am looking at this ram:
Kingston Hyper X - 4GB DDR2-1066 PC2-8500 Kit 240Pin 1.8V Non-ECC Non Registered Ram Memory For Desktop PC. I will order 2 of them of course, totaling 8 GB, good idea or not? They are $121 for 4GB, so it will be $242 altogether, I know there are cheaper but these are Kingston brand and have heatsinks on them.

Also, I am wondering how much the average price drop of ati cards are when they come out with new cards. If the HD 5850 will only go down about $20 or less, then its not even worth waiting, but if it goes down more than that, I will probably go ahead and wait it out.

First off you probably wont need to bother buying 8gb of ram, its just not going to effect performance enough to justify the $200 buy in. Having a bunch of ram is only useful if you can use a bunch of ram. I have 8gb of ram and a 6-core chip because my pc is under huge load most of the time. I can be encoding a half dozen 1-8gb video files, while I am scanning or ripping others, and all that is happening in the background while I am playing a game. And even with that, I don't use up all 8gb of ram. So for you I would probably suggest sticking with a 4gb kit unless you expect to see loads like this.

4gb of solid DDR2 1066 can be had for about $90, and many kits (even high end kits) can be had for about $70 with rebates. These OCZ Reaper series are a good example. But I would also like to stress that you really dont need to look for high end ram unless you intend to overclock your chip a considerable margin. With a Black Edition chip like yours, you have an unlocked multiplier, so technically you can overclock your chip without having to raise the memory speed even by a single mhz. You could use the cheapest memory money can buy and it wont be much of an issue. It is worth it to upgrade from DDR2 533 to DDR2 800 or 1066, but I wouldn't go nuts with ultra premium 8gb kits of ram because it just wont do much for you.

As for when we will see the new ATI cards, all reports I have seen show they will be ready for September. ATI's current cards are produced by TSMC on a 40nm node. The new 6000 series were supposed to be built on a 32nm process, but TSMC scrapped that in favor of moving to a 28nm process in 2011, so the new cards will be 40nm. There is some chatter that ATI may hold off on release until Nov. to push for the holiday sales and there is some truth to this as the 5000 series is still selling very strongly and Nvidia doesn't really have any direct competition as their cards right now are either priced higher or lower, only the GTX 460 is taking on ATI head on - against the HD 5830.

Price drops are hard to predict as it will depend on what ATI is doing with the 6000 series launch. If they have direct replacements for the 5000 series then you may see significant drops but I wouldn't hold my breath for that. Right now the 5850s sell for about $280-$300 and it will be possible at some point to see these cards for $199-$249 if there is a HD 6000 in the works to replace that $300 range. At that price it knocks the HD 5850 down to the price of the GTX 460, which is good for ATI as the 5850 is faster anyway. So they will still be able to sell those easily.

And before talking about overclocking, I have to ask what cooling you are using on your processor. Are you using what came with the chip or did you buy your own heatsink? It's a safe bet that you can get another 200mhz or so out of the stock heatsink without any significant risk to stability. What are your current temperatures? Not that temperatures are the be all/end all of stability, it is just something people tend to use as a general metric.

Hope that helps

Ok, well I did some overclock reading, and I am not sure if my card is the Black Edition. Are all Phenom II X4 965's Black Edition? Mine doesn't say black edition anywhere in system information or Everest. But I run at a pretty constant 40 degress Celsius, and I read you are good as long as you keep it between 35-70 degrees, so I have room for overclocking I believe. I installed AMD overdrive, but when I ran it, it had some error message saying it did not detect an AMD-7 processor. I have the stock heatsink installed.

I also went and checked out the BIOS and all the CPU MHz options I read you can use to overclock are grayed out, not sure why.

Thank you so much for all of your advice, I will get 4GB @ 1066 now instead of 8GB, what you said makes plenty of sense.

I ram the benchmark with my system and scored a 2772 on high(1080p), and a 3508 on low (720p). This is with a Phenom II X6 1055T(3.6ghz), 8gb DDR2 800, GTX 275 (stock), and a raptor 150gb on windows 7 home 64.

So clearly you have a bottleneck in your system somewhere. I shouldn't be scoring 3x as high as you given the fact we both use the same video card. I do have 2 more cores but you are running at 3.4 vs mine at 3.6 which I wouldn't expect to account for that much difference. While benching I didn't see more than 3-4 cores being used anyway. It could be the difference in memory speed but the quantity isn't going to effect the benchmark..unless of course I am getting artificially higher score due to merely having more ram and a better chip, despite the benchmark not actually utilizing it?

Anyway, as for your chip, yes it is a Black Edition. The 965 was only ever released as a black edition chip. It runs at 3.4ghz stock and contains an unlocked multiplier. This is going to help you a bit, as the stock multiplier runs at 17x, all you need to do is raise that and you will gain clock speed without overclocking the bus or memory. The "physical" clock speed of your chip is calculated by taking the bus speed and multiplying it by the clock multiplier. So in this case that is 200x17=3400 Mhz. If you raise the multiplier to 17.5x, your clock speed rises to 3500 Mhz, 18x will take you to 3600 Mhz. So that is what I would try first without messing with any other settings. I've yet to see a 965 that cant do 3.6ghz on stock cooling and voltage. Even though this is an older board, I don't foresee any issues. If you do have any, all you need to do is return the settings back to stock through the bios, or by using the CMOS jumper on the motherboard to reset the bios. Detailed instructions for this are found in the manual, and the CMOS jumper should be located in the lower right hand corner of your board, by the SATA ports.

You don't have to use any software for overclocking your chip, and if you are shootin for 3.6 (which is what I would suggest until you get a better cooler) then I wouldn't bother with any software. Just enter the bios, up the multiplier, and off you go.

Alright, I just overclocked to 3.8GHz(not going any higher) and ran the test again to see if that affected it at all, and I got 1185 on High setting (1920 X 1080), and a 1150 on Low setting (1280 X 720). So I guess that is not the reason for the bottleneck, I'm going lower the processor to 3.6 for the time being, seeing as it did not help me out right now. But why would I get a lower score on the lower resolution, shouldn't it be the other way around like yours?

I have ordered new ram, actually the exact ones you have advised, so as soon as I install those, I will update you on how its going. Hopefully this is the cause of my problems.

Thank you so much for helping me out, you don't even know how much I appreciate it. I hope you work as a computer technician somewhere, because it is clearly your expertise.

The fact that your two scores do not differ by much, and the fact that your score is significantly lower than mine, means that you are bottlenecked some where. Given that we have chips based on the same architecture, at nearly the same speed, and use the same video card, our scores should be very close. If what you are in fact running is DDR2 533 then that is potentially what could be causing the bottleneck. I would suggest doing the basic maintenance such as:

Run anti virus/spyware
Run disk clean up and disk defrag
Scan your disk for errors and bad sectors
Uninstall any un-needed software
Remove any un-used processes that load with windows using msconfig (such as divx updates, quicktime launcher, etc)
Updating your system drivers to the latest available

Doing all that should ensure your pc is running at its peak, and that new ram should help as well. The only other reason why your two scores would be so close is if your monitor cannot do 1080p (1920x1080) and when you select the high option, it is instead forcing it to run at 720p as you cannot force a monitor to run a resolution higher than it supports. Do you know if your monitor supports 1080p? But regardless, my pc of similar spec is scoring more than 3x what you managed in 720p and thats not right. Hopefully that new ram is going to make a difference, along with the basic fixes listed above

Kudos on the overclocking, and most of these chips manage to reach 3.8-4ghz with little effort, the only question is if you are increasing the voltage and if your stock cooling can manage to keep it cool.

And I'm happy to help, this is what I do for a living...though Dev does not pay me, I just help out here for the hell of it. I have my own site which can be found in my profile if you ever need to contact me directly, or wish to support my site

Best of luck!

Cool I will definitely check out your site. I do all of the maintenance steps you listed on a regular basis except disk defrag and check for bad sectors and errors. I will do them when I get home later today, I know windows comes with a disk defrag program, I also use tune up utilities which can defrag the drive, but do you suggest anything to check for bad sectors and errors? If not I will just google it and I'm sure I will be fine.

I am not sure if my monitor supports 1080p, I will check later on today when I get home, I would assume it does not though because it is around 2 years old. It was a really good monitor back then, I believe it is 20 or 21 inch LCD Viewsonic with 1 ms delay. You wouldn't reccomment a monitor upgrade would you? I will post the exact model when I get home later. Thanks again, checking out your site now.

Edit: My monitor is a Viewsonic VX1940w. 1680 X 1050 native resolution, 2ms delay.

Hey stang, the forum won't let me PM you, says I don't have the permission, and I can't see your hotmail. Could you post it or PM it to me or e-mail me at natedogg386@inbox.com. Would be a lot easier to talk to you through instant message if you don't mind.

Awesome, very good information to know.

Another idea... also depends on your mobo if it has 2 pcie x16 slots..Either way I would find out what psu you have and the quality of it. A high quality 650watt or 750 watt psu will out perform a generic no name 950 watt anyday.

Why not just invest in a 2nd gtx-275 and sli them? May save some money and just beef up your system. fyi a gtx-295 is just 2 - 275 pcb sandwiched together.

Take a look here for some comparisons..

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/2