8800GTX question

[deadseasquirrel]

No reason to lower your ram down to 333, just use dividers to keep your ram at (or around) 400. One of the nice things about s939 is being able to overclock CPUs without being held back by ram. Whether or not your 3500+ would go any higher is unknown to me. But, by using dividers to keep the ram at stock, you can throw out one of the limiting factors and may find that your 3500+ can, in fact, go higher. My 3000+ is at 2.5ghz.

However, all this being said, 2.4, 2.6, whatever, you will likely not notice a bit of difference when gaming at your native resolution with your LCD (16x10).

My opinion is to keep you current 3500+ for right now. The only s939 chip upgrade that would make any sense would be to the low-end dual-core (x2 3800 or Opty 165), but even those, with games out right now, would provide little benefit for your 8800GTX at your gaming resolution. That may change in the near (or distant) future and it may become a more worthwhile upgrade for gaming at 16x10. For now, you're better off saving that $150ish and using it toward a full platform upgrade-- C2D, DDR2, etc.-- where you will really see some good benefits for your money.

 

[happy medium]

Originally posted by: Fistandantilis
well I got the 8800GTX yesterday, I reformated my drives and reinstalled windows. This card works great, not PSU problems so far, but I do see where my processor is bottlenecking this beast, I will be getting an opteron shortly.What would you guys advise, I think I remember the 170 or 175 series being talked about in this thread, what are my other options for a processor upgrade?

Thanks

I tried to tell ya! Post some benchmarks please.... so the rest can see? I don't want others to make the same $$$$$ error.

 

[Fistandantilis]

Originally posted by: happy medium

Originally posted by: Fistandantilis
well I got the 8800GTX yesterday, I reformated my drives and reinstalled windows. This card works great, not PSU problems so far, but I do see where my processor is bottlenecking this beast, I will be getting an opteron shortly.What would you guys advise, I think I remember the 170 or 175 series being talked about in this thread, what are my other options for a processor upgrade?

Thanks

I tried to tell ya! Post some benchmarks please.... so the rest can see? I don't want others to make the same $$$$$ error.

I do appreciate your effort, but after selling my 1900XT I got away with this beast for the low price of ~314.00, thats not to bad in my opinion.
as soon as I can I wil get some benches for you guys, thanks for the input fellas.

 

[deadseasquirrel]

Originally posted by: happy medium
I tried to tell ya! Post some benchmarks please.... so the rest can see? I don't want others to make the same $$$$$ error.

I don't want to discount your claim that things improved greatly for you when you upgraded your CPU after you bought your GTX. After all, it's up to each individual to judge the impact of their upgrade to their own criteria.

That said, I'm interested in seeing both yours and his benches because reviews all of the internet point to the exact opposite for the OP's gaming resolution. Again, your gaming settings could be completely different. But if the OP is gaming at his native res, there will be no CPU bottlenecking on the majority of games.

FEAR and NFS: Carbon (although FEAR res is too high to compare)
a better view of FEAR (as well as showing Company of Heroes and X3 as good exceptions to the rule)
Prey and Far Cry

There are exceptions to the rule, of course. So, it greatly depends on the games you play, as well as the settings you play them at. The GTX is a super-fast card. So fast that any bottlenecking that would occur may limit you to, for example, 95fps in Quake4, but would likely grant you something in the range of 120fps with an E6700. Not the kind of difference to warrant spending too much on a CPU upgrade at your resolution, in my opinion. Slight bottlenecks aren't exactly hurting the extreme peformance of the GTX.

But definitely do some benches as I would love to see some. See if you can overclock your chip past 2.4 (should be able to-- run your ram on a divider to keep it around 400), run the tests and record the results, then downclock back to stock or even underclock it down to 1.8ghz for fun and rerun the tests. That 600-800mhz should show you if you have any bottlenecking in your games at your settings.

 

[happy medium]

The man has a Amd 3500+, not a fx60 or core 2 duo.

Hey he sold his x1900xt and only came out 300.00$ in the red. Not bad at all!

I think mabe he should have took the 600.00$ and got a core 2 duo and motherboard and kept the x1900xt and upgraded his video later (the x1900xt is no slowpoke), but hey he's happy.

 

[Fistandantilis]

Originally posted by: happy medium
The man has a Amd 3500+, not a fx60 or core 2 duo.

Hey he sold his x1900xt and only came out 300.00$ in the red. Not bad at all!

I think mabe he should have took the 600.00$ and got a core 2 duo and motherboard and kept the x1900xt and upgraded his video later (the x1900xt is no slowpoke), but hey he's happy.

I really wanted to do exactly that, keep the ATI card and get the core 2 duo setup, I had a nice e6600 with the gigabyte ds3 mobo and 2 gigs of patriot ddr 800 ram in my wishlist but I went with the GTX instead fearing that the 1900XT wouldve held me back, and I already had a buyer lined up for it so it was convenient. I can and possibly will still get the intel setup, but I am going to wait for this "price drop" when their refresh chips come out... I am not yet done with this upgrade.
as for bechmarking, I will prolly get going on that this weekend, I got some paper to turn in on monday so I am kinda tight for time right now. I did the performance test in Company of heroes with all settings at their highest values, I got and average framerate of 67 and a min of 35, is that ok or is that shatty?
Right now I got my 3500+ running on a 220 FSB X 11 and the HT link is 1100, if i lowered my multi and raised my bus would I gain or crash? isnt it better to have a high bus and lower multi? let me know if you could, thanks

 

[deadseasquirrel]

Originally posted by: Fistandantilis
I did the performance test in Company of heroes with all settings at their highest values, I got and average framerate of 67 and a min of 35, is that ok or is that shatty?
Right now I got my 3500+ running on a 220 FSB X 11 and the HT link is 1100, if i lowered my multi and raised my bus would I gain or crash? isnt it better to have a high bus and lower multi? let me know if you could, thanks

CoH is one of those games that benefit greatly from a strong CPU-- even at high resolution settings. One of those links I mentioned above show an UNDERclocked C2D at 1.6ghz beating out an X2 at 2.6ghz. That says something about the C2D right there. At least with that game anyway. Your 67fps sounds about right when compared to the benches at legionhardware. They don't have your CPU, and they test at 16x12 16xAA 16xAF, so it's not directly comparable, but it looks in-line. But there is some interesting numbers with the AMD chips at the bottom-- going from 2.0ghz all the way to 2.4ghz will only grant you another 2 or 3fps gain with the GTX in CoH at those settings. Not a lot of gain for $100 more.

As for your overclocks, there's no way to be sure until you try it out. Try for 2500mhz first, since that's a relatively small step up from where you are. Drop your multiplier to 10x, set FSB to 250, and give your RAM a 5/6 divider (run it at 166mhz, which will become around 210 after the overclock and your ram will likely handle that fine). And, just to be safe, drop your HT multi down to 4x to keep it under 1050.

Originally posted by: happy medium
The man has a Amd 3500+, not a fx60 or core 2 duo.

I'm not sure I understand you here. Are you saying that since there is no 3500+ in the benches I linked to that they aren't relevant to discussing CPU bottlenecking? One of the links compares a stock E6300 to a 3.6ghz X6800. That's double the speed and NO fps increase in some games. A64 or not, that says something. Another uses an X2 3800+ at 2ghz. I would say that his 3500+ at 2.4ghz fits in there with those reviews somewhere.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: happy medium
The man has a Amd 3500+, not a fx60 or core 2 duo.

Hey he sold his x1900xt and only came out 300.00$ in the red. Not bad at all!

I think mabe he should have took the 600.00$ and got a core 2 duo and motherboard and kept the x1900xt and upgraded his video later (the x1900xt is no slowpoke), but hey he's happy.

Talk about a waste of money. That would have done nothing for him as far as gaming AND thats assuming he could still get the GTX after you cash strapped him with a needless purchase on a C2D setup. More than likly, like most of you, you'd blow his wad on a CPU, ram, highend mobo and now are bottlenecked with a crappy graphics card.

I don't know if you are just ignoring to benchmarks or are just dumb. To reiterate.

1) GTX is nessesary to maintain above 60FPS at his res, no other card will do it.
2) Processor makes no difference with a GTX at his resolution so why throw money away?


Fistandantilis you are not bottlenecked you would be keeping that slow 1900xt with a C2D though. You are pulling frames now at least 2x faster and most importantly everything maxed and playable..

 

[Zebo]

 

[happy medium]

What I was really trying to say... With all the new video cards comming out in the next 2 months the 1900xt is fine for now. Why not have a system (core2 duo ,ram,motherboard) in place now and worry about the video card later. Now if he had a 7800gt or 1800xt, thats a diffrent story. Look at it this way... What game could he not play with reasonably high settings with a core 2,and a x1900xt RIGHT NOW. When the new games (Crysis...ect.ect) are out then you see what card (8900's, r600) or platform (ati,nvidia)plays them best. The 8900's will use less power,cooler, and be faster. The r600 might be awsome .Who knows? For a lousy 2 months I would have stuck it out and waited for new cards and how about some good games? So he plays Company of hero's at medium/ high settings with a little aa/af instead of all maxed (like it's all that different) for 2 months is that gonna kill him? Just my 2 cent, good luck

Edit : One more thing...When I say have a system in place. I mean new cpu,ram motherboard,and overclock all settled in and then not have to reinstall windows again when you buy a new video card later. So op start backing up your files on the c: drive or start all over again in a few months when all the NEW games run better on duel core platforms and you have to upgrade your whole system. Hey but you can run games at 110fps now instead of 55fps. I'm not saying it was bad advise ...just not the best advise!

 

[Zebo]

Thats cool. I believe in buying what you need since hardware gets cheaper and faster all the time and "ready" can be done cheaper later. Like ram prices are dropping fast, C2D price cuts are commin, etc, In the mean time he really is 2x faster getting a GTX now and ready for anything. A 1900xt doesnt cut it at 16x10 with most games out now. A A64 does.