Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hey all.

So i'm looking into getting a 7970 for eyefinity with 3x 1050 monitors, but I have a problem. The other stuff in my rig is old.

A while back I got a dell computer, threw 4gb of memory and a 4850 in it, and used it for mainly counter strike. I want to get into PC gaming more, mostly for eyefinity, and I had a few questions.

My Motherboard is really old. It only supports ddr2 RAM and has just one PCIx16 1.0 slot. The 7970 being a PCI 3.0 card, will it work with my system?

Would using DDR2 RAM cause a big drop in framerates in skyrim/BF3/Dirt 3?

Would a Q6600 at 2.4 GHz bottleneck a 7970?

I expect ill need more RAM and have to at least overclock my CPU, but do you guys think ill have to just build a new system?

Thanks in advance everyone!

I have a q6600 and those games rune fine on it

My Motherboard is really old. It only supports ddr2 RAM and has just one PCIx16 1.0 slot. The 7970 being a PCI 3.0 card, will it work with my system?

It will! PCI-E is compatible with each version! you can plug a PCI-E 1.0 card into a PCI-E 3.0 slot. or otherwise!
But performancewise a 16x PCI-E 1.0 Slot will give same bandwidth as a PCI-E 3.0 4x Slot !

AnandTech did a nice Benchmark on how PCI-E 3.0 4x inflicts Performance!

Would using DDR2 RAM cause a big drop in framerates in skyrim/BF3/Dirt 3?

mhmmm, IMHO it won't ! Had a C2D E8400 @4ghz with 4gb DDR2-800 and a HD6970 running for 3 years.... never felt like RAM would limit my system!

Would a Q6600 at 2.4 GHz bottleneck a 7970?

Definitly! Was playing the Witcher 2 in 1920x1080p on a HD6970 and C2D E8400 @4ghz and had a 50 FPS Limit when there are a lot of NPC's, because of CPU! If not FPS went up till 80! Same goes for Crysis. Limits on 46 FPS!
Now you could say that it's only a DualCore cpu. But not all games are fully optimized on multi threading
So a 4ghz Dual core surely run's way faster than a 2.4ghz Quad core.
Okay... Clock isn't all! Always depending on CPU Architecture! But in this case they're kinda similar.

I expect ill need more RAM and have to at least overclock my CPU, but do you guys think ill have to just build a new system?

Thanks in advance everyone!

You have 4gb RAM right now? Thats enuf! Don't run Webbrowser and 10 other programs while playing and 4gb should suffice. But nothing wrong with more Memory ;) Just wouldn't set it top priority.
About CPU Overclock! Thats absolutly needed if you don't want to buy a new CPU. Depending on stepping (and cooling) you might overclock your Q6600 higher than 3.8ghz. But i'd try to reach 3.3ghz at least!

It's always better to build a new system. But you know.... $$$ .... If you don't want to spend to much money and your Q6600 can get up to 3.5ghz it won't limit that hard anymore, if it even does!

Still, i'd buy a HD7950 instead!