Core 2 Duo with BFG 6800 card?

[tigersty1e]

I'm running a P4 2.4 Ghz with my BFG 6800 card.

Am I squeezing maximum performance out of my 6800 card?

If I bump the CPU up to a core 2 duo (e4300 or e6300) will I get more performance out of my video card?

I don't want to upgrade the video card now. I'll do it later, but just want to get the most out of my video card.

 

[Conky]

You will definitely see higher framerates with a C2D. :thumbsup:

I went from a P4 Northwood HT running at 3.45Ghz to an E6400 at 2.13GHz and my videocard was an X850XT and my framerates had huge jumps. From 50 or so in Q4 to 90-100 for example. All games improved. Improved even further after overclocking the E6400 but even at stock speed the 2.13GHz E6400 smoked the 3.45GHz P4.

 

[tigersty1e]

How does the BFG 6800 card compare to the X850XT?

Are we comparing apples to oranges here?

 

[Sniper82]

Originally posted by: tigersty1e
How does the BFG 6800 card compare to the X850XT?

Are we comparing apples to oranges here?

Its def faster by a bit as far as comparing apples to oranges probably not. If you unlock/overclock to X850XT PE speeds then probably. Thats if your 6800 is just a plain vanilla and not a GT/Ultra

 

[tigersty1e]

It's a 6800 OC...

http://www.bfgtech.com/6800OC.html


What do you think about this motherboard...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813157107


and this CPU...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115005


Will I be able to pump more out of the 6800 card over my current setup?

 

[Conky]

Originally posted by: tigersty1e
How does the BFG 6800 card compare to the X850XT?

Are we comparing apples to oranges here?

Well, according to my decoder ring© the two cards are pretty equivalent depending on the exact specs of the cards.

I am certain you would see an improvement with a new C2D cpu. The rub is that you will need a new motherboard to use it. And to re-use the AGP videocard you will need a motherboard that can do both C2D and AGP which leaves you with something like the ASRock 775Dual-VSTA which works great but doesn't overclock very well.

 

[bigsnyder]

The X850XT is way faster than a 6800 OC. Remember, this is not the same as the 6800GT. If SM3.0 is not important to you,
then the X850XT is still a kick butt card.

 

[cubeless]

Originally posted by: bigsnyder
The X850XT is way faster than a 6800 OC. Remember, this is not the same as the 6800GT. If SM3.0 is not important to you,
then the X850XT is still a kick butt card.

whut he sed... my x850xt (oc'd to pe) stomps the cr@p out of my 6800nu w/unlocked pipes and oc'd... and kids' friends 6800gt/prescott system (prescott at any ghz = doo doo in gaming... that's why scores jumped with c2d, not 2 cores)... and a pox on sm3... the 850, with it's lowly sm2 support, still wipes the floor with the 6800's in any game... and looks pretty doing it, too...

 

[Conky]

I don't care if he has a GF3. He will see a nice improvement with the C2D and that was the original topic.

 

[tigersty1e]

I just bought the E6300 Core 2 duo.

I paid 200 2 years back for the 6800 and really didn't get much use out of it. I need to get my money's worth so hopefully my performance will increase by a good amount.

 

[Jeff7181]

Ya never said what application(s) you're running or what settings you're using. For example, I doubt it would even make much of a different in FEAR at 1280x1024 with 4XAA and 16XAF. But there would probably be a difference in HL2 at the same resolution and AA/AF settings.

 

[kylebisme]

The new CPU will do much to improve your minimum framerate in many games.

 

[Sniper82]

Originally posted by: tigersty1e
I just bought the E6300 Core 2 duo.

I paid 200 2 years back for the 6800 and really didn't get much use out of it. I need to get my money's worth so hopefully my performance will increase by a good amount.

Depending on what settings you use in games and what games your looking at playing. Don't expect a huge increase by just upgrading to C2D. If you don't have at least 1gb memory don't expect any increase in games because memory is just as if not more important than the CPU and video card. It keeps things running smooth.

Also that 6800 is only 128mb. But like I said it depends on what settings you prefer in games. But going C2D and not having at least 1gb of memory is a waste IMO.

 

[tigersty1e]

Yeah, Fear runs so badly on my cpu.

I run Fear pm 800x600 with everything either off or medium.

I also get the stutter bug, although I only have 512 megs of ram, so I'm also upgrading this.

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: cubeless

Originally posted by: bigsnyder
The X850XT is way faster than a 6800 OC. Remember, this is not the same as the 6800GT. If SM3.0 is not important to you,
then the X850XT is still a kick butt card.

whut he sed... my x850xt (oc'd to pe) stomps the cr@p out of my 6800nu w/unlocked pipes and oc'd... and kids' friends 6800gt/prescott system (prescott at any ghz = doo doo in gaming... that's why scores jumped with c2d, not 2 cores)... and a pox on sm3... the 850, with it's lowly sm2 support, still wipes the floor with the 6800's in any game... and looks pretty doing it, too...

Actually is not lowly SM2.0, is SM2.0b which is simply a SM3.0 without dynamic branching, both has the same 512 shader instruction on each component, but the SM3.0 Dynamic Branching exceeds the instruction limit to unlimited, but most of the times incurrs more in a performance hit than in a performance increase, after all, there's no games which excees the 400 shader count threshold.

 

[Captante]

(1) An X850XT is faster then a 6800 Ultra in most benchmarks & even bests the 7800GS in a few, never mind a 6800nu which is roughly the same performance as a 6600GT.

(2) At 800x600 you may see some performance increases in new games by upgrading your CPU because at that resolution your card is still somwhat cpu-limited, however if you are looking to crank up the resolution & detail settings you'll see rapidly diminishing returns ... moving from an A64 3200+ to an Opteron 170 @ 2.7ghz made very little difference in gaming performance when I was running a 6800GT as an example & it wasn't until I snagged a PCIe motherboard & X1900XTX that I saw dramatic framerate increases.

Bottom line is that the upgrade to a C2D is very worthwhile overall, however to really appreciate it in games you'll need to upgrade your GPU as well & if gaming performance is your top priority I'd suggest doing it first because it will yield far greater performance increases. Then when C2D prices drop (which they will shortly) do the CPU upgrade & you'll have a balanced system ... the only problem is that your 2.4ghz P4 is very slow by todays standards & will also bottleneck a faster GPU so its a case of pick your poisen.