7900 GS and 2.4 ghz pentium 4

[blackstar4]

hey i was thinkin of gettin a 7900 gs card ($180 CDN) for my desktop.

Problem is.. my processor is a 2.4 ghz pentium 4 ( i believe it is northwood, so older generation of pentium 4). Its got 533 fsb and a L2 cache ???

Just wonderin to what extent would the vid. card bottleneck my CPU (if it does)? Should I stick with a 7600 gt or less?

 

[Stumps]

You won't be able to use a 7900GS with your P4...you don't have an PCI-E slot, unless you can get hold of a Gainward 7800GS-GSH, which is a AGP 7900GS...but they cost way too much to be worth using on a lowly P4 and are only availible in Australia and parts of Europe...not to mention only 1500 have been made, so they are pretty rare.

But your 2.4ghz P4 will even bottleneck a 7600GT, let alone a 7900GS.

you would be better off getting a 7600GS, they perform around the same as a 6800 - 6800GS so it would offer decent performance.

 

[blackstar4]

when you mean the 7600 gs , you are referrin to the one with agp slot and not pci-e. Is their any chance a 7600 gt would work because for the same price it performs much better.

 

[sieistganzfett]

you will need to look at your motherboard manual or at the board itself and see if its really using AGP. i would say yes it really is agp... then you must look for cards that are AGP since you can't use pci-e cards in an agp slot. so the answer would be no, you cant use the pci-e 7600gt.

 

[blackstar4]

details on my expansion slots on my mobo:

Expansion Bus
Bus types PCI and AGP
Bus speed PCI: 33 MHz; AGP: 66 MHz
AGP connector one
AGP connector size 172 pins
AGP bus protocols 4x/2x modes at 1.5 V
PCI connectors four
PCI connector size 120 pins

Is their any PCI card that would be recommeded that may perform better than a 7600 gs agp?

 

[blackstar4]

oh and btw, im currently running on a 9700 tx and i have plans of runnin stalker. The game runs fine at low res and settings. But will their be a significant performance leap btween the 9700 tx and a 7600 gs agp?

 

[happy medium]

If you want a cheap upgrade go for a 3.06 533 bus cpu (about 100.00$) and a 7600gt agp (about 170.00$) Your performance should double.

Do you have a Dell?

 

[Stumps]

a 7600GS will be a considerable improvement over the mighty 9700, but I would also consider a CPU upgrade like Happy said...the 3.06ghz is a good CPU and can easily be overclocked past 3.4ghz with the right mobo.

but unless you have plans of upgrading the CPU, I wouldn't bother with the 7600GT...you won't see much difference from the 7600GS when using a 2.4ghz P4.

 

[A554SS1N]

I disagree, a 7600GT would still be a nice solution for games that aren't CPU intensiveand so that video quality settings can be turned up. Of course, that CPU isn't going to handle the majority of newer games produced this year onwards, but it should still be able to handle older ones well enough.

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: blackstar4
details on my expansion slots on my mobo:

Expansion Bus
Bus types PCI and AGP
Bus speed PCI: 33 MHz; AGP: 66 MHz
AGP connector one
AGP connector size 172 pins
AGP bus protocols 4x/2x modes at 1.5 V
PCI connectors four
PCI connector size 120 pins

Is their any PCI card that would be recommeded that may perform better than a 7600 gs agp?

No PCI-express. Old PCI doesn't have anything even approaching mid-range. If you are staying with the same motherboard, stick to looking at AGP cards (7600GS is a solid mid-range card).

As for bottlenecks, please don't ask unless you have some specific app/game in mind: depending on what you take as your benchmark, memory, HDD or even optical could be a bottleneck.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: blackstar4
hey i was thinkin of gettin a 7900 gs card ($180 CDN) for my desktop.

Problem is.. my processor is a 2.4 ghz pentium 4 ( i believe it is northwood, so older generation of pentium 4). Its got 533 fsb and a L2 cache ???

Just wonderin to what extent would the vid. card bottleneck my CPU (if it does)? Should I stick with a 7600 gt or less?

yep you need AGP

and perhaps you are thinking of a 7800GS ... very nice AGP card ... especially the BFG Tech 7800GS OC which overclocks much further

it would be a very nice match for your P4 *if* you O/C it ... you should be able to easily reach 3Ghz ... certainly 2.8Ghz which would not bottleneck it [much]
:thumbsup:

 

[Stumps]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: blackstar4
hey i was thinkin of gettin a 7900 gs card ($180 CDN) for my desktop.

Problem is.. my processor is a 2.4 ghz pentium 4 ( i believe it is northwood, so older generation of pentium 4). Its got 533 fsb and a L2 cache ???

Just wonderin to what extent would the vid. card bottleneck my CPU (if it does)? Should I stick with a 7600 gt or less?

yep you need AGP

and perhaps you are thinking of a 7800GS ... very nice AGP card ... especially the BFG Tech 7800GS OC which overclocks much further

it would be a very nice match for your P4 *if* you O/C it ... you should be able to easily reach 3Ghz ... certainly 2.8Ghz which would not bottleneck it [much]
:thumbsup:

even a regular 7800GS would be overkill for a 2.4 (2.4B I'm assuming from the 533fsb) P4, they didn't overclock much past 2.7ghz and didn't have hyperthreading.

But then again at around 2.7ghz a 7800GS shouldn't be too badly bottlenecked, but it would probably be cheaper then just to go for the 7600GT which performs close enougth to the 7800GS to make it worth while.

but at the stock 2.4ghz, using a 7600GT and 7800GS just would be wasting money.

 

[apoppin]

i wouldn't go stock
[if possible ... it may be an intel MB]

that's *why* i suggested the O/C ... i believe the 2.4b is a good o/cer

THUGSROOK in OC has his non-HT P4 2.26 at 3.5Ghz ... even up to 3.91 at one time
:Q

they DO oc

 

[secretanchitman]

there is a 7600GT AGP from leadtek and xfx on newegg. should be $180 (quite steep for a midrange 7 series card but its agp) or less.