Hey all,
I have a gaming rig I built 5-6 years ago:
Last year I added a second 9800 GTX for $50 off of eBay (it's why I bought an SLI mobo in the first place. So, I could just add another in the future). However, even now, it's starting to struggle with the latest gen games... I can no longer run games like BF3 on 1080p resolution (even on medium or sometimes low settings!). I usually have to resort to 720p and turning off a lot of effects. Things like occlusion are an absolute no for me.
I am wondering, (I haven't touched building PC's in a while now) if just upgrading the video card to something much newer will do the trick or would it be better to build a new computer entirely. The motherboard is PCI-E 2.0 and I know the latest stuff has support for PCI-E 3. The only difference is bandwidth. I am thinking that if I only have one card, it won't make a noticable difference and that I should go with just upgrading the card.
Thanks for your help!
I have a gaming rig I built 5-6 years ago:
- EVGA 780i Motherboard (PCI-Express 2.0 and has tri-SLI support)
- Q9450 QUAD PROCESSOR 2.66G 12MB 1333MHZ FSB
- EVGA GeForce 9800 GTX(G92) 512MB Graphics Card (added second one last year)
- OCZ SLI-Ready Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800 Memory
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive (Upgraded to a 1 TB drive last year)
- Corsair 750W TX750W ATX12V Power Supply
Last year I added a second 9800 GTX for $50 off of eBay (it's why I bought an SLI mobo in the first place. So, I could just add another in the future). However, even now, it's starting to struggle with the latest gen games... I can no longer run games like BF3 on 1080p resolution (even on medium or sometimes low settings!). I usually have to resort to 720p and turning off a lot of effects. Things like occlusion are an absolute no for me.
I am wondering, (I haven't touched building PC's in a while now) if just upgrading the video card to something much newer will do the trick or would it be better to build a new computer entirely. The motherboard is PCI-E 2.0 and I know the latest stuff has support for PCI-E 3. The only difference is bandwidth. I am thinking that if I only have one card, it won't make a noticable difference and that I should go with just upgrading the card.
Thanks for your help!