New Graphics Card for MWLL?

[Aidan]

I will agree with the new power supply. You need to have some power to spare in your system. Doing a system power budget would help you in your decision process. A good engineering rule of thumb is to have at least a 10% margin.

[shadowkiller]

I don't think that the temperature is the problem, my CPU is at around 70° ând my GPU at 60° when I play Crysis.

70C for your CPU!?! Holy shit thats WAY too hot. Around 60-65 is the redline for most cpus. Any hotter and things start to melt. Gpus on the other hand are designed to take mugh higher temps. The redline for a gpu is around 115-120C.

[ratbuddy]

I don't think that the temperature is the problem, my CPU is at around 70° ând my GPU at 60° when I play Crysis.

70C for your CPU!?! Holy shit thats WAY too hot. Around 60-65 is the redline for most cpus. Any hotter and things start to melt. Gpus on the other hand are designed to take mugh higher temps. The redline for a gpu is around 115-120C.

No way. 70C is fine for that Q9400. On the high side of "OK" but far from overheating. GPUs should be under 100C, preferrably much lower - start worrying if you hit 90C. 115-120C would mean the card is throttling like mad and still way overheated, and I've never even heard of one hitting those kinds of temps - they usually crash out around 110.

[Aidan]

Remember in Nature there is no "free ride". The faster you go, the more it costs. In this case, one of the costs is in heat. And in electronic sub-assemblies the hotter you run them, the shorter their life.

[shadowkiller]

Well no matter what hardware you have the hotter it is the shorter the life. My radeon 4870x2 would max out at 110C (is rated to hyandle 120C before it has major probs) and still be happily chugging along. I did eventually buy an aftermarket cooler for it just because i wanted to get the most life outta this card. Cpus generally cant handle as much heat as gpus however i would be very uneasy about running ANY cpu at 70C. I start to worry at around 55-60. I run my q6600 overclocked 1ghz (2.4 to 3.4ghz) and i never go over 50C.

[dCK-Warheart]

The HD4850 is hardly adequate unless you stay on low settings. The HD5850 is one of the best cards for Crysis for the dollar amount. The new Nvidea 460GTX is not as fast but it is considerably cheaper than the 5850 (Gamestop selling 1GB versions for $169 after rebate). If you want to economize you can pick up a used 275GTX or 280GTX for about $125- $150 and get outstanding performance at high/medium settings.

Your CPU is more than adequate.

Well I thought about the 460GTX as well, but here in Germany it costs around 240€ so around 320$ that is a little to much for my budget at the moment. But I'll see what I can get. I guess I could get the money together in a month or two. Let's wait for the Crysis Wars

Also I can't get a Q9650 it's around 300€. So no way I can pay it after getting a new GPU.

[ratbuddy]

Just wait a bit longer, I think the new AMD stuff (6750, 6770) will be out real soon, last I heard was October 12th or 14th or something.