New GFX card + more RAM, how much improvement?

Discussion in 'Hardware Building/Buying/Usage Advice' started by richiespeed13, Oct 27, 2012.

  1. richiespeed13

    richiespeed13 Registered

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    Hi All,

    Sorry if this is a rather daft thread, but I am looking for some advice on some new parts I have purchased.

    At the moment my PC specs are this:

    ATI Radeon 4870 512mb
    4GB DDR2 RAM
    Intel E8500 @ 3.16ghz
    Win 7 Ultimate

    I can hardly run rFactor 2 at good settings. At my native 1920x1080, running at medium settings is "ok", a little stuttery sometimes, but ok. The game looks pretty poor on these settings however. When I max all settings, with just me on track, the game looks great, but I only get 20fps, lol.

    So, here is my situation and questions:

    My PC has been in bad shape for the last few months, the PSU and HDD have been making all sorts of weird noises! So I have just ordered a new hard drive, and a new 750w PSU.

    My first question, if I potentially had issues with my PSU and HDD, could that have caused performance loss when gaming and in general computing? If so, how much? I understand it is probably all very relative to the particular situation.

    My second question, I have purchased an ATI Radeon 5870, with 1GB Vram, (which is 512mb more than my old 4870), will this card alone see reasonable performance gains within rFactor 2, putting aside that my dual core CPU may be a bottle neck? I am not looking for miracles, but if I could run at fairly good settings in my native resolution, with 20 other cars on track, I would be very, very happy!

    Also, as I have said above, I have 4GB DDR2 RAM, in the form of 2x 2GB blocks.

    I have just ordered another 4GB, also in 2x 2GB blocks, (of course, I bought the exact same type of RAM). So this will bring me up to 8GB of DDR2 ram. I know DDR2 is pretty old, but will adding more RAM increase FPS in rFactor 2 at all? I have a 64 bit system, and I primarily bought more RAM as I love video editing.

    My motherboard doesn't support DDR3, which is why I haven't just upgraded to that.

    So I guess at the end of the day, I just want to know, with my repairs and upgrades, will my "it was good in 2007" pc, be brought slightly further into the future, and able to run games at reasonably higher settings?

    On one hand, it seems obvious that these upgrades should increase performance, but I am not sure by how much, and I am also worried that things like DDR2 RAM, and dual core CPU, might be a very large bottleneck when playing games like rFactor 2 and Arma 2, etc.

    Thanks very much for any help!

    Regards,

    Rich.
     
  2. richiespeed13

    richiespeed13 Registered

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    EDIT!

    I have just discovered that my motherboard does in fact accept DDR3 memory! Which is a big surprise to me!

    However, I have no idea what type of DDR3 memory it accepts. I believe I can get 1600mhz, but I have no idea and can find no solid evidence of what type of DDR3 ram I can and can't buy for this motherboard.

    I have an ASUS P5QC, which is quite old, and as such, it's hard to find what type of DDR3 RAM it accepts.

    If anybody could help me I would be extremely grateful!
     
  3. Gearjammer

    Gearjammer Registered

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    The added system ram won't make any difference on the performance of rF2, but it will be handy for other things like your editing.
    The upgraded PSU and hard drive won't make any difference in performance either with the possible exception of loading the sim faster.

    The upgraded graphics card will make a difference if for no other reason because of the extra ram on it. Graphics need ram and most graphics cards won't be using system ram so the more on the card, the better the graphics it can handle as far as texture sizes and effects. The fact that it is also a generation newer will help.

    I would caution a little at this point though. Don't expect to see yourself going from 20fps to 60fps with just that small change. It is likely that you will be able to run the sim at full resolution with that card without changing graphic settings. You might even be able to tweak one or 2 graphic settings, but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.

    You have already purchased the items so give them a go and see what happens, but don't set your hopes too high unless you want to be let down. Your CPU's speed is good enough for some decent performance, and the new graphics card is as well, but keep in mind that rF2 is a new sim with a lot of enhanced graphics functions. I would definitely keep any AA turned off as well as shadows and other "special" effects, like wind and crowd movement and road reflections.
     
  4. richiespeed13

    richiespeed13 Registered

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    Thank you very much for the reply mate, much appreciated!

    I agree with what you said about not expecting too much, this is a very low budget upgrade so I will be very thankful for any form of performance increase.

    I'm not sure if you got to see my second post or not, would you happen to be able to help with my ddr3 upgrade problem? I am a super noob when it comes to RAM, any form of advice would be great if you have any.

    I am really struggling to find ddr3 ram that will run with my motherboard.

    Thanks!
     
  5. kaptainkremmen

    kaptainkremmen Registered

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    Dual-channel DDR3 1333MHz / DDR2 1066 MHz
    * DDR2 1066MHz DIMMs work only on the black slots for one DIMM per channel.

    2 x DIMM, Max. 8 GB, DDR3 1333/1066/800 Non-ECC,Un-buffered Memory
    4 x DIMM, max. 16GB, DDR2 1066 / 800 / 667 MHz, Non-ECC, Un-buffered memory

    Have a look at this link. bottomof page... global vendor
    http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_775/P5QC/#MSL
     
  6. Gearjammer

    Gearjammer Registered

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    based on what KaptainKremmen has posted I would go with 2 4Gb sticks at 1066 over 4 2Gb sticks at 667. With your system however, you are not going to see much improvement on performance by changing to DDR3 if you already have fast DDR2 ram. The reason is because the memory controller on the motherboard isn't as good as ones on motherboards designed specifically for DDR3 ram.

    For that reason I would pass on spending money for ram with your current configuration.
     
  7. richiespeed13

    richiespeed13 Registered

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    Ok thanks for the replies, much appreciated!

    @Gearjammer, my current RAM is 2x 2GB DDR2 @ 800mhz, would upgrading to 2x 4GB DDR3 at 1333mhz not be quite beneficial? I know it's not a huge boost for gaming, but for video editing and other programs, I was under the impression it could make a fairly big difference?

    Thanks a lot for all the help!
     
  8. Abriel Nei

    Abriel Nei Registered

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    RAM speed does not make a significant boost of performance (only a few percent barring some special cases). You will get a lot more performance from having more RAM.

    A quick article that deals exactly with this problem:
    http://www.thebuzzmedia.com/ddr2-800-vs-ddr3-1333-does-speed-matter/

    Also note that you need to choose DDR2 OR DDR3 - you can't have both installed (just saying if it wasn't clear).
     
  9. Gearjammer

    Gearjammer Registered

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    The speed of the ram does make a little difference depending on what you do, but more ram for gaming won't as most games are 32bit architecture which means they won't even be able to see let alone use more than 4Gb of ram. There are ways to utilize more ram in a 32bit OS though, such as setting up ram disks and putting the swap file for windows into that ram disk. The improvement on your CPU performance using faster ram will likely only be about 5% faster for video work, and changing from DDR2 to DDR3 will show improvements as well, but the question is if the gain would be significantly more if you upgraded something else.

    The answer to that question is that dollar for dollar you are going to get more performance buying a new motherboard and CPU than you would by purchasing more or faster ram or even changing from DDR2 to DDR3. Also, DDR3 is significantly less expensive than DDR2, so don't spend any money at all on DDR2 ram.

    The best investment you could make for that system would be to spend the money on a graphics card that is up to date unless you really need the extra ram for your video editing.
     
  10. Guy Moulton

    Guy Moulton Registered

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    When the beta first came out I was running a system with an C2D 2.6 GHZ CPU (not quite as good as yours) and even OC'ed to 3GHZ, the system performed poorly with rF2. I tried increasing the amount of RAM and OC'ing and no matter what I did, the only thing that worked was to turn down the in-game graphics options. I was CPU bound.

    Don't bother to upgrade your system for rF2, you will still be CPU bound. The Core2 CPU just doesn't have enough to drive this game. That said, getting DDR3 is a safe bet since you can upgrade to an i5 or i7 system and use the RAM in that system as well. Whatever you get for RAM, make sure it'll be compatible with a future build. Same thing with a graphics card upgrade- you can take it with you. So try those out and maybe you'll get a bump in performance.
     
  11. richiespeed13

    richiespeed13 Registered

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    Thanks for the inputs fellas. What you say about the CPU is very true, I have felt for a while now that having a dual core processor is slowing things down. That being said, the E8500 has been a great processor for me, although it's not on par with the good quad cores on the market now, it does still do a really good job.

    These upgrades I am getting now are just a short term thing, to maybe hold me out for the next year or so. After that I will be buying a whole new rig, but that is a whole new story!

    Out of curiosity, how much work would it be to get a motherboard and cpu combination that is a moderate upgrade to my system? And is it even worth doing, or am I better off starting a whole new PC build?

    Here are my detailed specs (including the future updates listed above):

    ATI 5870 1GB
    8GB DDR3 RAM
    Intel E8500 @ 3.16ghz
    Asus P5QC Mother Board

    and a 1tb hdd

    With that system, would getting a new motherboard and cpu be a logical thing to do, or is the rest of the system too old? I don't know if it's just me, but it would seem odd seeing some really new high end mobo and quad core processor in my fairly old tower lol!
     
  12. Gearjammer

    Gearjammer Registered

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    As a gaming PC, those specs are ok, nothing outstanding, but should do the job with things turned down some. The thing about games is that most don't use more than a single core so it is all about the speed of the CPU. Even a dual core can handle a lot of the modern games as long as it is running above the 3Ghz area which yours is.

    As far as your upgrade goes, take a look at how much it would cost you for an upgraded motherboard and CPU as well as an upgraded graphics card and ram. Compare it to what you are going to spend on the upgrades you are planning on doing right now, and how long before you plan to do a complete system rebuild. If you can justify spending the money right now for the small upgrade to get you by till you do a complete system upgrade, then by all means, do the upgrade. You are still not going to be able to run full graphics, but you will see an improvement.
     
  13. MJP

    MJP Registered

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    Shouldn't be a problem, as Guy mentioned you'll be able to carry the ddr3 ram across and the 5870, you'll be unlikely to be able to max out the settings at 1080p but it should be capable of running high settings at a decent framerate.
     
  14. richiespeed13

    richiespeed13 Registered

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    A quick update for anybody interested, I have just swapped out my old 4870 512mb for the new, (second hand), 5870 1GB.

    With just myself on track, the 4870 was running 1280x720, all settings highest, apart from aa on level 1, and no HDR, at 20-30fps.

    (I ran those settings as a benchmark, and for video making)

    Now with the 5870, I am running 1920x1080, all settings highest as usual, aa still on 1 and no HDR, and I'm getting 50-60+ fps.

    Considering the jump in resolution I am very happy! I am yet to try out a race with a full grid, but I am going to assume things may drop down to 30 at the start. I'll let you know when I try.

    Cheers!
     
  15. djt

    djt Registered

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    What enhanced graphics functions?

    Just how many DirectX 9 enhanced graphics functions does it take to go from being CPU dependent to GPU dependent?



    Which isn’t going to help much with the horrible transparency texture shimmer that you get with AMD GPU’s and games like rFactor2 that still use older DirectX 9 rendering engines.
     

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