Upgrading Computer (Video Card Only?)

**Cathal** · February 26, 2011, 09:57 AM

Hey all,

I have the following components:
CPU: Intel Core2 Duo E6600 @ 2.40GHz
Video Card: GeForce 8800GTS 640MB GDDR3 PCIe x16
RAM: 4GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800 (Pc2 6400)
Mobo: MSI P965 Platinum LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard
OS: Windows 7 64-bit

Most of my settings are on high except unit detail, water, and unit size, which are on Ultra. I turned off shadows and put trees, sky, and grass on low. On my nVidia Control Panel I put the AA up to x8. I left on HDR light bloom, vsync (I had heard that this should be left off?), and vigenette.

For the demo, everything was running smoothly until I got to Sekigahara. It was more or less ok but movement did get choppy when everyone started to fight and I zoomed in.

While I think my over 4 year old rig's performance was darn good, I was wondering if I just replaced the video card with something more powerful, such as a GTX460 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130596), will that alone increase performance? I don't really want to upgrade my CPU to something like a Core i5-2000K because then I'd have to get a new mobo, ram, etc....

For something like the GTX460, it says that it is PCIe 2.0, will that still work on a PCIe slot?

Thanks for any help.

P.S. If this is in the wrong forum, please direct/move me to the correct one. Thanks.

**Cathal** · February 26, 2011, 11:59 PM

All of these views and no one can answer if just upgrading the video card to gtx460 1GB will give me the performance increase I want? Hah.

**mrcrusty** · February 27, 2011, 12:04 AM

Lol, just for that, I won't help.

What resolution are you playing on?

But yes, the GTX 460 should give a noticeable increase in performance, though I'm not 100% on how well it will do in Shogun II because of the CPU. You shouldn't run into any issues with PCI-E compatibility. I can't imagine you running into too many troubles though and if you still do lag, it's bound to be software (game or drivers) related, not hardware related.

**Devilmaypoop** · February 27, 2011, 01:51 AM

Getting a 460 gtx will definitely make S2TW run flawlessly.

As for the CPU, it's fine as S2TW wont use more than 2 cores. Maybe just overclock a bit, like around 2.8 - 3.0 ghz. That would be a huge improvement.

**Cathal** · February 27, 2011, 09:40 AM

@mrcrusty

Yea, I figured if I added that extra reply then I would maybe alienate some people. But thx for almost fooling me with the white text. Heh.

@both above

Sorry, i forgot to include the resolution. I run in my monitor's native resolution of 1280 x 1024. The monitor is a SyncMaster 931BF (2ms 2000:1) if that matters.

Very cool. I will give that a go because I didn't want to purchase a new CPU as that means I'd have to purchase new memory and mobo. My last question is this:

There are two cards I'm looking at to getting:
1) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130596
2) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121391

The first one is one I would have to get retail and it looks like the best deal I can do is $200. The second one is something I can purchase from an individual from this forum, so I would assume I could get sub-retail for it. My question is the difference between the two cards looks just to be the Core Clock, Shader Clock, and Memory Effective Clock. The 1st one has a Core Clock of 850 MHz, a Shader Clock of 1700 MHz, and a Memoriy Effective Clock of 3900 MHz. The 2nd one has a Core Clock of 675 MHz, a Shader Clock of 1350 MHz, and a Memory Effective Clock of 3600 MHz. I think that's it.

Now, I know in computers that just because something has better numbers, doesn't necessarily mean you'll have better improvement. Are these numbers too far apart to be ignored or would I be ok with either one? If price was equal, I'd get the first one, but it depends on how cheaply I can get the 2nd one. What do you all think?

Thanks again!