Will my PC Bottleneck the 8800gt?

Question

Core 2 Duo E4300
2gb DDR2 667Mhz
Geforce 7300GS

I want to Upgrade from my crappy 7300gs so i can play games like Crysis and Call Of Duty 4 on high settings at 1024x768 Resolution

Answer 1

Yo man honestly, with a processor that is stock at 1.8 GHz I would say it is going to bottle neck you.



Before I built a new Core i7 Rig, I had an AMD Athlon X2 5400+ stock @ 2.8 GHz + 8800 GTS factory OC-ed and I had to run Crysis at medium - settings. The 5400+ is leagues above the e4300 in terms of performance.



If I were you, I would get a higher end dual/quad core from intel and buy a rather newer model of a graphics card. 8800 gt isnt that old but will be outdated hella fast. keep your eye open and aware, there are deals all the time for expensive things such as a deal ended not too long ago on fatwallet.com where an AMD ATI RADEON HD 4890 was found for $150. Damn near 50% of other places.



In all honesty you should keep the motherboard you should get a better cpu AND better gfx card, given that you are like any other gamer and wish to play games like crysis on MAX settings without a problem.

Answer 2

Every PC has a bottleneck. 8800GT will work fine but you're not going to own Crysis with it. Crysis is the most cpu intensive game I've played. Even though I max it out with 2 4870s with my E8500 clocked at the stock 3.16 when I bump my cpu up to 3.8(20%) my frame rates still go up 10%. The 8800GT wil default at medium settings in Crysis, at least in Vista with DX10. Will probably default at medium in XP too. I'd just try bumping the shaders up at first cuz they make the most difference in appearance. Crysis gets a lot demanding especially at the end. Trick those with weaker rigs use is to turn their graphics settings down when they start to struggle keeping the frame rates up. Last thing you want is for Nomad or Psycho to be crawling when they should be running. Like someone said you should be fine with COD.

I'd not worry about bottlenecking and get the 8800GT or a 9800GT which is basically the same card. Compared to your 7300GS it will be like getting out of a dump truck and into a Vette.

Answer 3

The 8800GT will be a definite increase in performance... I have an 8800GTS and can handle most things on higher settings.

BUT, I will note that on Crysis, I doubt you could do max settings. You would have to sacrifice the anti-aliasing as I've noticed that my card can't handle the AA as well as high settings. Too much video lag.

COD4, however, you're good to go.

Just thought I'd add that XD

Answer 4

Your pc should be alright for a 8800gt. Maybe you can upgrade your ram in the near future so that your gaming experience would be even better (go for 4 gb ram so that the ram can run in dual channel instead of 3 gb ram. ps: windows 32-bit can only read 3.2gb ram)

Answer 5

The 8800GT is a giant leap from the 7300GS. Go for it.

Answer 6

the 8800 should help out a lot with that, your 7300 is pretty low end, i went from a 7600 to a 9800gt ang got a good boost with 3d games, playing far cry 2 right now