Wanting to upgrade my computer

[Puddle Jumper]

Never said a 7750/7850 was top of the line, that would be pretty foolish. But a bottleneck is a bottleneck. Any really nice video card will still be bottlenecked by the Celeron, not so much for Crysis requirements.

Besides, at 1024x768, a GTX 260 would be overkill if you ask me, the GTS 250 is more than enough to handle it, especially for that cost.

Aside form it's cache the e1400 is identical to the e2180 and since I have been running one of those for more than a year I feel I have a pretty good idea how the Celeron performs. At 2.8ghz which is 100% Intel Burn Test stable on stock voltage my e2180 can handle Crysis or any other game or application just fine. Since I'm not running a GTX 260 I can't comment on how it might be bottlenecked however I wouldn't let that possibility stop me from upgrading to one. Based on my experiences using a HD 4850 and a slower athlon x2 I doubt the GTS 250 would be bottleneck by the e1400 provided it was overclocked to at least 2.5ghz as I mentioned earlier.

The reason I pointed out the 7850 isn't a high end cpu is if he bought it he would essentially be switching one budget cpu for another, slightly faster, one. Besides if he got a good board and cooler for the e1400 it could likely be overclocked to equal the 7850's stock performance. I'm not debating the fact that the 7850 is better but I don't think it is worth the $135 upgrade price (mobo +cpu).

I missed were he said he played at 1024x768, I assumed he would be playing at 720p based off of his display. The GTS 250 would be good taking that into account.

 

[hikaricloud]

But you think it's worth the $120 upgrade, seeing as you have him buying a new mobo AND a new HSF. So for an extra 15 bucks, he could get a better CPU, and a board with more upgrade options since it will support the newer AM3 chipset. He'll still be able to overclock to 3ghz+ on a stock HSF.

Also, you say the E1400 is the same as your E2180? Even against the 7750, it fails at stock speeds. Not to say that you couldn't overclock, but you can also overclock the 7750, so it's really a moot point. And this way he doesn't need to overclock.

AnandTech Bench (beta): AMD Athlon X2 7750 vs Intel Pentium Dual Core E2180

 

[Puddle Jumper]

If the objective is running Crysis he should be putting his money towards a gpu and any other parts needed to accommodate it first. Ideally the upgrades I suggested would be best purchased in stages, something I forgot to mention before. The first thing to buy would be the gpu (either a GTS 250 or GTX 260) plus the Antec 300 and psu combo deal. Should he still have problems running Crysis the next step which would be buying the p43 and a cpu cooler to overclock the e1400.

You said the Celeron could bottleneck any modern gpu, based of my experience with a very similar chip I said I thought that a GTS 250 level card should be fine. I never said either the e1400 or e2180 at stock would beat a 7850 or 7750, I even agreed that the 7850 was the better cpu.

AM3 support isn't a advantage until AMD releases cpu's noticeably faster than the top end 775 chips.

 

[hikaricloud]

I understand your experience. I just don't see the point in spending almost the same amount of money or more to be stuck with an E1400.

Your E2180 would also bottleneck a GTX 260. While you say this wouldn't keep you from buying it, it's still a fact. And not everyone wants to overclock, some people don't feel comfortable with it. This way he wouldn't have to.

While you didn't say the E1400 would beat a 7750, you implied that the 7750 was only slightly faster than the E1400 at stock, which according the benchmarks isn't really right either.

My general point being that he'd have no problems whatsoever with playing Crysis, and wouldn't have to worry about buying things in parts, or worry about trying to overclock.

As for AM3, just because a socket that's been out for a matter of months doesn't have CPUs that are "noticeably" faster than the top end chips for a socket that's been out for years doesn't mean it's not a worthwhile advantage.

All this being said, the OP is happy with his build. He has options, I'm sure he'll take them into account.

 

[Hefemeister]

All right everyone.

The OP is happy and has moved on.

Hey Hik and SOUL its been nice talking to the two of you and thanks so much for the help!

If you two would like to continue this riviting conversation please move it to pm.