PC Gaming Advice

MartinH32

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Hi,
I'm looking at getting back into PC gaming.
Current PC is AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 3.2 GHz with ASUS M4N78 PRO GeForce 8300 Socket AM2+ motherboard and 4gb ram. 3TB hard disk. So, I'm looking at a new graphics card and was looking at XFX HD 6870 900MHz 1GB GDDR5.

So would the processor / motherboard / graphics card be a reasonable spec games PC? I'm NOT wanting to upgrade anything but the graphics card so if this card does not 'cut it' I will stick with the xbox360. Graphics card is £140 and that's it, no more and I can't stretch to any more cash.
So what do you think?

thanks
 
Set up should be fine for 1080p gaming...:smashin:
It will wipe the floor with the xbox graphics,,,,,.....:D
 
That is a very similar set up to mine apart from my processor being the 965, and you can OC a 955 to 965 speeds with ease. I have no problems at all gaming at 1080p, all settings maxed out apart from the usual suspects (crysis , crysis 2 DX11 and metro 2033) and these games are still totally playable at sightly reduced settings. This set up is well above both the Xbox and PS3. I was playing MW3 on a PS3 last week and even COD4 looks better on my machine.
 
The consoles are stuck in 2005...

Any GPU that came out post-2005 = WIN!
 
That is a very similar set up to mine apart from my processor being the 965, and you can OC a 955 to 965 speeds with ease. I have no problems at all gaming at 1080p, all settings maxed out apart from the usual suspects (crysis , crysis 2 DX11 and metro 2033) and these games are still totally playable at sightly reduced settings. This set up is well above both the Xbox and PS3. I was playing MW3 on a PS3 last week and even COD4 looks better on my machine.

Slightly reduced settings being AA @ 2x/4x, as opposed to 8x?

Metro 2033 lagged in one scene for me at 8xMSAA.. I just turned it down to 4xMSAA and the game ran like silk - I never played for long though, I thought it was pretty poor....

Then I went out and bought STALKER lol

Btw, OP, that card is still awesome, even compared to the 69xx series.
 
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yeah you don't have to turn much down at all. For crysis and warhead I have a custom config that is between gamer and enthusiast which looks great and plays fine. Crysis 2 plays great on DX9 mode on ultra settings but for Dx11 you have to drop it back to extreme. I have to say the difference is minimal in these modes anyway. I was playing Batman AC DX11 yesterday maxed out and it was ok but a little stuttery in sections. I dropped back to DX9 mode and it plays more smoothly and TBH I can't really see any difference at all. Perhaps i am not looking closely enough, but the game still looks great and well above the consoles.
 
yeah you don't have to turn much down at all. For crysis and warhead I have a custom config that is between gamer and enthusiast which looks great and plays fine. Crysis 2 plays great on DX9 mode on ultra settings but for Dx11 you have to drop it back to extreme. I have to say the difference is minimal in these modes anyway. I was playing Batman AC DX11 yesterday maxed out and it was ok but a little stuttery in sections. I dropped back to DX9 mode and it plays more smoothly and TBH I can't really see any difference at all. Perhaps i am not looking closely enough, but the game still looks great and well above the consoles.

Scaling back the AA is the best way to increase FPS... Or just lower your resolution and increase the AA..

Back in 'The Day' I used to play at 1024x768 (or something around that number) and I'd just crank up the Anti-Aliasing!
 
Scaling back the AA is the best way to increase FPS... Or just lower your resolution and increase the AA..

Back in 'The Day' I used to play at 1024x768 (or something around that number) and I'd just crank up the Anti-Aliasing!
No way i could move away from native rez on a lcd,looks blurry like an xbox to me..:)
 
Im running the same CPU @ stock and am having no issue with it at all.
 
I would really suggest upgrading to the an AMD HD6950, prices will probably be falling soon due the release of the 7 series. Would definitely give the best upgrade.

For Windows performance you cannot beat an upgrade to an SSD
 

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