Need graphics card Upgrade Advice

Hi All,

I need advice on an upgrade i'm planning on.

my current rig is an AMD x2 4800, 2gigs ram 800mhz 500gigs sata and 8600gt ddr3 256mb graphics card. SMPS 500w Antec. Mobo is Gigabyte M2A something.

Now, keeping all things the same, i want to replace my 8600gt with a HD 4850.

Here are my questions.

1. will my processor be a bottleneck?

2. Is my power supple good nuff to add the card?

3. Will I be able to play crysis on high w/o AA?

4. if no to some or all of the above, what would you recommend?

Cheers :) Would appreciate all inputs and comments. pls pls pls :P

1. I don't really like using the word "bottleneck" but if you want a yes or no answer then yes, your 4800+ wouldn't be able to keep up with the HD4850, if you want another AMD X2 then try and get your hands on a 6400+ Black Edition. If you can spare the extra cash I would get a HD4870 but if you can't the HD4850 is still a great card.

2. Yes, make sure it has at least 1 6-pin connector but I should expect that a quality brand like Antec would do.

3. Really depends on what resolution but no I would highly not recommend it.

4. I put my recommendations above :)

cool..appreciate the insights.

rats now i need to figure out what to upgrade next...maybe i should just do a phased thing.like you said, the 4870 would be my ideal card...my 8600gt can still run crysis in medium...no point really, cuz i finished the game anayway.

will the 6400 black be able to juice it completely. I read in some other forum that 6400+ (non black), was running at 100% while the card was at 80%? i'm not really able to locate that URL now... but just for thought...would i see a performance increase now IF i added the 4850? i would typically run games at 1200x1024 something resolution. I have a 22" lcd monitor.

OR would it make sense, to ugrade my processor first and then add in a better card..say 4870... AAAGGGHHH! confused :(

1: This has been covered, but I'll point out that processor bottlenecks are only noticeable at lower resolutions - the higher you go, the more GPU-bound games become. So if you game at your monitor's native resolution of 16x10 (or 16x12 if it's a standard size monitor) you shouldn't notice too much of a bottleneck, especially in more GPU-bound games.

2: Yes, that power supply should be fine, unless it's a carry-over from a previous machine (we're talking circa 2004).

3: On high without AA? You should be able to, yes. It might be good to tweak the settings a bit though - set a few things that are less important to medium, but for the most part high across the board should not be unplayable on that machine.

4: Overclocking your CPU wouldn't be a bad idea - get a new CPU cooler first though, something like the Xigmatek S1283 is perfect for your setup.