(A64)3800+ to (A64x2)5200+... noticeable boost?

[mynameisob3l]

i just ran out and blew a lot of money on a 8800GTX.

slap it in, am not noticing much a difference. under vista (more on that in a sec) my CPU is listed as the lowest score overall in the system. i went from a MSI 7800GT to an MSI 8800GTX.

i know the vista drivers are crap, so for the sake of peace of mind, i installed and updated an XP Sp2 clean install on a separate drive. still no big difference. the game i play most is WoW, and i was expecting more silky framerates flying around shattrath. both cards were giving me only about 24 FPS at 1280x1024 windowed mode with 2x AA.

i'm sure the drivers will get better, but as it stands, i want to pick my CPU up a bit to alleviate the bottleneck. i'll eventually be playing a little LoTRO (in the beta now), and probably warhammer online eventually. not a huge fan of FPSes anymore.

in making a jump from a single core 3800+ to a dual core 5200+, will i NOTICE it visibly? photoshop etc already moves plenty fast for me, and i don't pretend to be one of those people that rip DVDs while main tanking blackwing lair and burning 2 CDs at the same time. if i have more than one thing open, it's usually ventrilo, WoW, thottbot, and maybe photoshop, and my old CPU handled that all alright.

i've already thrown so much money into this upgrade (card + hefty PSU) that i don't want to buy another 250$ chip to not have much impact... but i feel if i don't make a jump, i'm not realizing the full potential of the card anyway.

any advice appreciated.

 

[mynameisob3l]

oh:


mobo : m2n SLI
ram : 2 gigs (512x4) corsair
onboard sound (finally threw the creative card away. like, in the trashcan)
+aftermarket enormous thermaltech CPU fan thing that scares me with it's weight, so i lay my box sideways.

 

[40sTheme]

Have you only tested on WoW?

 

[mynameisob3l]

at the moment, yes... i haven't had a lot of time to play with it yet. i realize WoW isn't a very precise testing platform, but it's what i play. from the reviews i read about these cards, i expected to see a drastic increase in framerate.

i got home after work with the card and PSU, took a good thorough dismantle of my box to put the new PSU in, tucking the cables all out of the way lovely, etc. fired it up, installed the new drivers, didn't see a big difference. didn't see a difference at all really...

proceeded to install XP again and patch patch patch update drivers, reboot reboot etc... fired it up again, didn't see a huge difference (saw a small one, but i'm attributing that to XP over vista at this point). i also happened to already have 3dmark05 ona spare HD, and installed and ran that. i DID notice a pretty significant speed boost in the 'boat flying over the dragon' scene, but the first space shooting scene still seemed to drag its feet.

until i get home to play with it more, i'm not giving up on the chip. while i'm stuck behind a desk for 6 more hours today until then, though, i figured i could get a litttle insight on the options while i wait.

edit: minor typos

 

[f4phantom2500]

That sounds like a low framerate, even with your old setup. Honestly I would expect a much higher framerate than that with an A64 3800, 2GB RAM, and a 7800GT. Are you sure your processor is the problem? Ask your friends what kind of hardware they have and how well their computers run the game, and if you can see if you can try your parts in someone else's rig/their parts in your rig.

 

[Zolty]

I have a 3800+ with a 7600GS 1gb of ram.

The only thing that slows my wow frame rates is when I am watching an h.264 video and trying to play wow.

Everything is fluid and pretty, wow does not need the latest and greatest hardware.

It should be said that my roomate has a 4200 X2 with a 7900GT, our systems play wow almost identically. The only differance is that he can run 2 instances of wow perfectly, where as I haven't tried it.

EDIT

Woot 2k post!!

 

[myocardia]

Umm, why did you buy the best overclocking AM2 motherboard, along with a huge heatpipe heatsink, if you weren't planning on overclocking? Your processor is only 200 Mhz slower than the 5200 now. Overclock it.

 

[nZone]

I would increase the AA and AF higher so that it is not CPU dependent. Max out other settings as well. Then tune it down until you're satisfy.

I used to have a Pentium D 805@stock with a 8800GTX. Mostly I play Titan Quest. The concept should still be the same. Need for Speed: Carbon play nicely too at higher quality settings. What I find is with GTX: low to midium quality settings seemed like I wasted money for GTX for nothing. High quality settings = I drool

I then upgrade my cpu to pentium d 945; no improvement there.