A64 single core AGP users might want to take a look at this

[RussianSensation]

A64 4000+ (single) AGP X1950Pro vs. Core 2 Duo 2.93ghz PCIe X1950Pro

For the most part, and I quote:

"Conclusion: if the performance is bounded by the video system, migration to a more powerful platform does not bring any significant effect."

Since majority of games are GPU dependent, it still makes sense to get a fast AGP card and then do a full system upgrade if one cannot afford to do a full system overhaul. Sure one could argue that Core 2 Duo system brings better minimum frames, and that over time as one has to reduce resolutions (as the graphics card becomes overwhelmed) the Core 2 Duo will be faster than A64 at 1024x768. However, by then, you'll be on your way to a new system with a new graphics card anyway. The AGP card will surely provide another year of gaming without having to do a full system overhaul saving on RAM, motherboard and cpu cost.

 

[Stumps]

why not just do what I did...a cheap E4300 + Asrock 4coreDual VSTA ...it works a treat with my AGP X1950Pro 512mb and is a massive improvement over my A64@2.87ghz NF3 setup.

 

[Falloutboy]

yup pretty much your better off spending money on a VC than a higher end cpu. 3800x2 is no slouch and going with that over a 4300 can add 100-120 to your budget that you can put toards a better VC, and be actually getting better performance in games than if you went with a intel chip

now granted this arguement is for lowend gaming rigs.

 

[apoppin]

midrange ... the 8800GTX would be a "waste" with the A64 4000+ ... you'd get lot's of *detail* but not many FPS - over with the x1950p - at even medium resolutions ... maybe if you could OC the heck outta it

that's why i picked the x1950p for my CPU as the last "reasonable" bang-for-buck upgrade in AGP

then it's Quad core, baby

 

[touchmyichi]

Yup, as far as running a single application as a game goes, there's no real advantage to using a dual core (something that people tend to forget). The improvements come in multitasking, which is well...important . I certainly think there's headroom to get out of older AGP and single core setups, but you'll only be able to hold on to those for so long.

 

[Stumps]

Originally posted by: touchmyichi
Yup, as far as running a single application as a game goes, there's no real advantage to using a dual core (something that people tend to forget). The improvements come in multitasking, which is well...important . I certainly think there's headroom to get out of older AGP and single core setups, but you'll only be able to hold on to those for so long.

Sure when comparing X2's or Pentium D's to the single core A64 and Pentium 4's there isn't any real improvement in single threaded applications, but what about a C2D?...my E4300 leaves my A64@2.87ghz for dead in both Single threaded and multi threaded applications, even a stock speeds it is considerably faster...not that I run it at stock speeds, at 3ghz (333x9) it is a monster in any game I throw at it....


just a pity I'm using Vista Ultimate...it really does hurt gaming performance, especially with only 1GB of ram

 

[Matt2]

Originally posted by: touchmyichi
Yup, as far as running a single application as a game goes, there's no real advantage to using a dual core (something that people tend to forget). The improvements come in multitasking, which is well...important . I certainly think there's headroom to get out of older AGP and single core setups, but you'll only be able to hold on to those for so long.

Those days are going to be gone soon.

STALKER and Supreme Commander are just the first games that single core CPU users are going to hate.

ALan Wake is going to be dual-core only from what I hear.

 

[touchmyichi]

Originally posted by: Stumps

Originally posted by: touchmyichi
Yup, as far as running a single application as a game goes, there's no real advantage to using a dual core (something that people tend to forget). The improvements come in multitasking, which is well...important . I certainly think there's headroom to get out of older AGP and single core setups, but you'll only be able to hold on to those for so long.

Sure when comparing X2's or Pentium D's to the single core A64 and Pentium 4's there isn't any real improvement in single threaded applications, but what about a C2D?...my E4300 leaves my A64@2.87ghz for dead in both Single threaded and multi threaded applications, even a stock speeds it is considerably faster...not that I run it at stock speeds, at 3ghz (333x9) it is a monster in any game I throw at it....


just a pity I'm using Vista Ultimate...it really does hurt gaming performance, especially with only 1GB of ram

I don't think that's a fair comparison , if you just ran a CD2 single core it would knock the crap out of either of those single or dual core. I think a more fair comparison would be an X2 vs. a single core opteron at the same clock speed and cache- its relatively similar when running just one game at a time.

Matt2- Yup, games are finally starting to take advantage of it. But for the time being, you're relatively safe on a fast single core (as far as single tasks go).

 

[Stumps]

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: touchmyichi
Yup, as far as running a single application as a game goes, there's no real advantage to using a dual core (something that people tend to forget). The improvements come in multitasking, which is well...important . I certainly think there's headroom to get out of older AGP and single core setups, but you'll only be able to hold on to those for so long.

Those days are going to be gone soon.

STALKER and Supreme Commander are just the first games that single core CPU users are going to hate.
ALan Wake is going to be dual-core only from what I hear.

Why?, STALKER runs fine on my A64 single core/7800GS OC @1024x768 medium with FDL

A few other users here run it on their P4's with pretty good results.

But I must admit...STALKER hates Vista and 1GB of ram...even on a C2D it runs pretty ordinary at times...but my other rigs that run XP...they run STALKER just fine.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: touchmyichi
Yup, as far as running a single application as a game goes, there's no real advantage to using a dual core (something that people tend to forget). The improvements come in multitasking, which is well...important . I certainly think there's headroom to get out of older AGP and single core setups, but you'll only be able to hold on to those for so long.

Those days are going to be gone soon.

STALKER and Supreme Commander are just the first games that single core CPU users are going to hate.

ALan Wake is going to be dual-core only from what I hear.

not STALKER ... it runs *Great* on my Single core P4 ... and i doubt it is because of Hyper-threading

otOh, Supreme Commander Uses *all* 4 Cores

and Alan Wake also "recommends" Quad Core .. although it is playable [evidently] on a HT P4

probably late next year, the Single core gamers are gonna feel the slowdown

 

[RussianSensation]

It is hard to ignore that a dual core or a quad core setup is more *futureproof* than a single core A64. But who knows when Crysis, Alan Wake, Unreal 3 will be released on time. By then most of today's top-of-the line rigs will be considered midrange anyway. However, a $175 AGP card can bring significant gains in gaming performance TODAY. Of course the graphics card will still be somewhat constrained by a slower cpu, but for someone on a budget AGP cards can still prove to be a viable purchase. All too often we hear how AGP users should just do a complete overhaul and get rid of their A64 3500+ or faster and rebuild their full system when they have something like a 6800nu or X800XL card.

If an older system can be sold for some value, upgrading to PCIe is recommend, but otherwise buying an AGP card today and throwing the system out in 1 year is not a bad idea (consider that a $200 investment today to prolong the system's life by 1 year will allow one to buy a quad core for $266 1 year from now vs. $850+ price today). The performance difference doesn't seem to be that great by C2D processors as most games are gpu limited.

 

[Captante]

This really isn't news ... AGP vs PCIe in itself still isn't the problem because AGP 4x bandwidth is just being saturated now & 8x still hasn't been maxed out. (although that will be changing fairly soon) .. the problem is that AGP is still at least one generation behind PCIe in GPU technology so its only worth spending a limited amount of cash to stick with it IMO unless you arn't tech-savvy enough to swap a motherboard.

Also its old news that the 3D bottle-neck moves around depending on the game, detail level & resolution however saying multi-core won't help gaming is untrue. As more multi-threaded games are released dual & quad core CPU's will also continue to make more of a difference, however I saw substantial gains in overall gaming performance moving from an A64 3200+ to an Opteron 170 (both at default) on an identical NF3/6800GT... maximum fps only increased a little but average fps went up a lot due to the second core taking over the chores of virus protection etc.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: Captante

I saw substantial gains in overall gaming performance moving from an A64 3200+ to an Opteron 170 (both at default) on an identical NF3/6800GT... maximum fps only increased a little but average fps went up a lot due to the second core taking over the chores of virus protection etc.

That may be so, but I have a feeling if you overclocked the 3200+ to 2.5ghz and upgraded to an X1950Pro, you would have netted larger gains in most games than a dual core upgrade for gaming. Anti-virus doesn't really use that much cpu power unless it's scanning for viruses (even then I think when my Norton scans, it only uses 18% cpu -- mostly dependent on Hard Drive speed). Plus why would you scan for viruses every time a game is being played? Of course for users who like to run tasks in the background like distributed computing, a dual core will be very beneficial. I dont think it's fair to say that a single core is lacking for gaming if a user is unwilling to compromise and turn off BOINC or folding@home while playing a game. A single core was never meant to perform those tasks - but that doesn't mean that it is inadequate for gaming. It's simply inadequate for gaming + other tasks simultaneously. That's a different argument. If we are discussing gaming only, a single core A64 2.4ghz+ is adequate for 95% of games that are out today.

 

[Captante]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation

Originally posted by: Captante

I saw substantial gains in overall gaming performance moving from an A64 3200+ to an Opteron 170 (both at default) on an identical NF3/6800GT... maximum fps only increased a little but average fps went up a lot due to the second core taking over the chores of virus protection etc.

That may be so, but I have a feeling if you overclocked the 3200+ to 2.5ghz and upgraded to an X1950Pro, you would have netted larger gains in most games than a dual core upgrade for gaming. Anti-virus doesn't really use that much cpu power unless it's scanning for viruses (even then I think when my Norton scans, it only uses 18% cpu -- mostly dependent on Hard Drive speed). Plus why would you scan for viruses every time a game is being played? Of course for users who like to run tasks in the background like distributed computing, a dual core will be very beneficial. I dont think it's fair to say that a single core is lacking for gaming if a user is unwilling to compromise and turn off BOINC or folding@home while playing a game. A single core was never meant to perform those tasks - but that doesn't mean that it is inadequate for gaming. It's simply inadequate for gaming + other tasks simultaneously. That's a different argument. If we are discussing gaming only, a single core A64 2.4ghz+ is adequate for 95% of games that are out today.

Unfortunatly the 3200+ was an early Winchester & a very poor overclocker that maxed out at 2.2ghz which made little to no performance difference over default ... also I compared the 0pty 170 at default speed, 2.2ghz & at 2.6ghz where it ended up & the clockspeed made less difference then the original jump to dual-core did.

The performance gains I saw when I moved to dual-core in games had more to do with higher average framerates & the only game which really saw an increase of more the 2-3 fps maximum framerate pushing a 6800GT was Oblivion which makes some use of dual-core CPU's ... note however that when I swapped out the NF3/6800GT for an NF4/X1900XTX with otherwise identical components I saw huge & dramatic performance increases in all games.

Bottom line is that although in some cases a faster/multi-core cpu will increase gaming performance, by far the best way to do it is to upgrade the video card instead & although I didn't word my post very effectively that was the point I intended to convey.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation
It is hard to ignore that a dual core or a quad core setup is more *futureproof* than a single core A64. But who knows when Crysis, Alan Wake, Unreal 3 will be released on time. By then most of today's top-of-the line rigs will be considered midrange anyway. However, a $175 AGP card can bring significant gains in gaming performance TODAY. Of course the graphics card will still be somewhat constrained by a slower cpu, but for someone on a budget AGP cards can still prove to be a viable purchase. All too often we hear how AGP users should just do a complete overhaul and get rid of their A64 3500+ or faster and rebuild their full system when they have something like a 6800nu or X800XL card.

If an older system can be sold for some value, upgrading to PCIe is recommend, but otherwise buying an AGP card today and throwing the system out in 1 year is not a bad idea (consider that a $200 investment today to prolong the system's life by 1 year will allow one to buy a quad core for $266 1 year from now vs. $850+ price today). The performance difference doesn't seem to be that great by C2D processors as most games are gpu limited.

that is *exactly* what i did

x850xt > 1950p/512M [$150 net upgrade]
P4 2.80c @ 3.31G > P4 3.4EE @ 3.74 Ghz [$80 net upgrade]
1GB PC 3500 > 1.5GB [$75 net upgrade]
... and i got 'carried away' ... for ~$300 ... 3 @ 5 minute upgrades

and to give a relative "number" ... 3DMark05 went from 6100 to 9280
... she is alive ... again ...
$100 for each 1,000 marks
[:roll:]

my old system would not have 'cut it' for my 14x9 LCD ... my CRT is probably dead

NEXT year i plan the "real" upgrade

i have been "preaching" this since December

 

[SolMiester]

This is good news for me, i never buy high end cards anymore, so another AGP purchase will do until next years total system overhaul!