3D performance and CPU speed

[dbal]

As I 've already posted in the past, I am almost ready for upgrading my overclocked PIII@733 system to a P4@1,5G plus the Asus P4T-E and the corresponding RDRAM modules. The motive for this upgrade has been the acceptable but relatively low -considering the standards of our days- performance in 3D gaming which is not my everyday habit since I have only 3 games installed, but yes I do have a great time playing e.g. MaxPayne and of course I do want the best I can get out of this entertainment in terms of quality (enabling FSAA etc.) and speed (yes, yes that means FPS). The graphics card (Radeon VE) has been bought 3 months ago and it's not included in the upgrade of course, no matter if it was the best choice or not (plz let's not stick to that in the thread).
Question is will the upgrade give me the improvement I expect (at least 20% more FPS with all quality graphics options enabled) or it's gonna function like "a large overclocking" which from my experience and knowledge adds little in what I am asking (for example, read the IWill's XP333 review in Anand's KT266A roundup, and u see that running the AthlonXP in 166FSB and DDR333 memory adds only 7(?) fps in Quake III) maybe because of the video cards' evolution that let's them handle all the graphics load? Perhaps YES in CPU dependant games like Max but what about general performance in 3D?
Trouble is also that I ve never seen a P4-RDRAM system working in my eyes.....
Waiting for your opinions people and sorry if the post was a bit large but the upgrading confusion is larger...

 

[Innoka]

Yes, you are confused aren't you ... you'll just get told you're spending your money in the wrong places.
I am sure you are going to have a nice upgrade for playing in 640x480.

 

[AA0]

The CPU won't do anything with that card, its meant for 2D only really. Buy an athlon, save some money that way.... then you can get a good graphics card. Just upgrading your graphics on your current system will show a massive improvement, much larger than just upgrading cpu, ram, etc.
If you want to keep the dual monitor, buy a 8500 or 7500, they both have those options with much faster gaming speeds.

 

[oldfart]

Even @ 733 MHz, you are more video card limited than CPU limited. All the CPU MHz in the world wont make that VE fly.

 

[nemesismk2]

Ditch the Radeon VE and get ANYTHING, it's a POS!

 

[Spike]

The graphics card (Radeon VE) has been bought 3 months ago and it's not included in the upgrade of course, no matter if it was the best choice or not (plz let's not stick to that in the thread).

LOL, it looks like everyone is sticking to that and not answering your original question. No, the VE is not very powerful, but you will see some increase in gaming. I don't know alot about intel (I have always used AMD) but if you look on Madonions webpage, you will see that computers with the same graphics cards, but different CPU's have a wide range of results. this tells me that 3Dmark2001 is at least affected noticably by the CPU you have. Yes, with todays fast computers alot of gaming preformance is dependent on your graphics card, but from what you are saying, I take it you are not that hard core of gamer so even a moderate increase in preformace would be good.

As for a 20% increase in FPS, I doubt that, but like I said, I don't know intel CPU's at all. but hay, a p4 will run programs faster on your computer, so that has to be a plus!

 

[dbal]

Thanks a lot Spike for sticking to the original question at first......
Eventually I am being pointed towards the direction of making the upgrade, see how it goes in real life (after all a moderate boost would be a plus) and go for a new card in 6 months time. I will have a lot to deal with in that period I guess with a new system! (no complications I hope-just new interesting areas to search)

 

[Insidious]

In my upgrade saga, I (at one point) was on a PIII700 with a TNT2 video card.... (no, I am not trying to compare this to yours) anyway, I switched over to AMD Athlon 1G and saw very little difference in my games.... There have more upgrades since (see 'MyRigThingy') and I found that for my gaming, the best "bang for the buck" seemed to come from the video card update.

So my recommendation would be to consider what you want to accomplish with your upgrade, and know that you probably are not most limited by your CPU right now

Addition: (I'm not trying to diss. the P4 upgrade, they are solid procs.)

 

[dbal]

Don't think that I can't understand the fact that I am 70% Radeon limited but it's just so hard to respend your money on a card u bought 3 months ago, maybe under pressure, while I can go for a huge upgrade that might not resolve my 3D limitations I notice lately (FIFA 2002 was the bang) but surely is in a way, 100% beneficial in all other aspects....
I need more opinions though....

 

[jjm]

Just buy a new card and sell the old one. You won't recoup your original cost, but just chalk that up to the cost or "renting" it for three months.

 

[DaveSimmons]

<< Don't think that I can't understand the fact that I am 70% Radeon limited but it's just so hard to respend your money on a card u bought 3 months ago >>

So you will buy a new motherboard / CPU rather than admit to yourself that you made a mistake? Seems silly -- many (most?) of us here have made at least one mistake in buying parts. Accept it, get back what you can by selling the card, buy yourself a GF3 ti 200 for $159 (PNY or Gainward from newegg).