CPU or Vcard; which will give most performance increase for my system?

[Vostok]

Here's what i've got right now (relavent to the question):

Duron 950 (non-Morgan)
RADEON LE (OCed to 164)
Swiftech MCX370 fan
256mb 2100 DDR
ECS K7S5A mobo

I don't really use the comp for much else that is cpu limited other than games. I have some statistical proggies for biology research but there in no way stress its capabilities. Mainly, (right now), i'm playing or planning on playing: Morrowind, Warcraft 3, Il2 Sturmovik, Battle Realms, a little MoHaa.

Which to upgrade?? CPU or Vcard? I'm looking at spending no more than around 100 bucks however.

CPU:
Athlon 1800XP

Pros: About 50% faster in clock speed, next gen cpu has more power
Cons: Vcard will be bottleneck

VCard:
Radeon 8500 LE OEM (250/250)

Pros: about 75% faster vcard clock, next gen, isn't crippled like LE Radeon is (no hyper Z)
Cons: ??, hmm, only helps 3d games. Might drop in price even further after GF4 4200 is widely released (say 2 months or so), or retail Radeon drops to this price range.

Any suggestions or advice?

 

[Comp625]

I'm gonna say get a cheap CPU like an Athlon XP 1500+ (if your mobo supports it) and a cheapie vid card like a Geforce2 Ti200. Then overclock the Ti200 to Ti500 speeds (around the 200/500 area). The best of both worlds

If your mobo doesn't support XP chips, then get the highest rated T-bird you can get (I believe the T-Bird goes as high as 1.4ghz). Remember to check for BIOS upgrades as your board might not support the XP chip NOW but it might after a BIOS upgrade.

Remember, if you have a really fast CPU (1800XP for example) but have a crappy LE vid card...the LE card will hold all of your 3D games back and the games will run like a dog. If you have a really good vid card (lets say the Ti4200 as an example) but still run on that 900mhz Duron, then the Duron will be the bottleneck causing your Ti4200 to run at MUCH LESS than peak efficiency.

 

[Insidious]

Looks like you are in a spot where whichever you do first, the other is gonna be a significant bottleneck.

I suggest doing the CPU first (btw, where are you finding an 1800+ for less than $100.00?)

I don't think CPUs are going to be advancing as fast as video cards in the next several months.

So, (in my own very special convoluted kind of logic

) I think the video card prices will be comming

down faster and you will end up with BOTH upgraded sooner in the long run.

PS: I don't really know much about the others but, MOH:AA is not gonna be running too good for you
until both the CPU and Video are upgraded.

 

[John]

I would recommend getting the Radeon 8500LE first. Fire up the games you typically play to enjoy higher resolutions, image quality and framerates.

 

[hopeless879]

I'd upgrade the CPU, you will notice a better performance in all your apps. Plus your not even getting the full potential of DDR with a duron.

The K7S5A will be able to handle all AthlonXP's, but I think you need the update the bios for anything above 1900+.

The video card market is really heating up right now, with offerings from ATI, nVidia, Maxtor, Sis, and 3dlabs all coming out withing 6 months, prices should fall rapidly on the GF3 cards when these new chipsets come out. Then you can get a great video card for a cheap price.

 

[dunkster]

The upgrades that really provide a dramatic and obvious impact seem to be monitor and video card upgrades.

I recently went from PIII600@800MHz to XP1600+@1558MHZ, doubling cpu speed - plus SDRAM to DDRAM, etc.

What I got was terrific gains in benchmark numbers, but not really dramatic improvement in game-play.

I'd do the video card upgrade.

Hope this helps!

 

[Gix]

I'd go with a CPU!
i have a friend who has a gf2mx200 and i have a gf2 ultra, but his cpu is an athlon xp 2000 and mine is a PIII 933mhz and his games play faster and almost all of his benchmarks are better.

 

[Pederv]

I'd say get an Athlon XP, any flavor, the SSE support will make gaming faster.

An example of 2 systems, one with a fast CPU and a slow card, the other with a slow CPU and a faster card:
My sister has a K6-2+-550 with a Radeon 7000 and my girlfriends kid has a 1.33GHz Athlon with a ATI Xpert2000, both score in the mid 1300's in 3DMark2000.

 

[tenoc]

like a Geforce2 Ti200. Then overclock the Ti200 to Ti500 speeds (around the 200/500 area

What? What is a GF2 Ti500?

Anyway, the vid card upgrade seems most appropriate right now. The R8500 supports the 8.1 feature set and represents a quantum leap
from the original Radeon or any GF2.

 

[Rand]

Originally posted by: tenoc

like a Geforce2 Ti200. Then overclock the Ti200 to Ti500 speeds (around the 200/500 area

What? What is a GF2 Ti500?

Anyway, the vid card upgrade seems most appropriate right now. The R8500 supports the 8.1 feature set and represents a quantum leap
from the original Radeon or any GF2.

Gainward marketed a GF2 Ti/500, it was basically a regular GF2 Ti just with faster 4ns DDR SDRAM so it would potentially overclock better then most other GF2 Ti's.

isn't crippled like LE Radeon is (no hyper Z)

You know there is a reg hack to enable Hyper-Z on the Radeon LE?


I'd probably lean towards a processor upgrade, as it'll help out in many more areas then would the graphics card and a number of the games you mentioned are heavily influenced by processor performance.
From what yopu've listed I think you'd find the processor upgrade to be at least as beneficial as a graphcis card upgrade... and with the graphics card market heating up you should be able to find a much better deal 3-5 months from now then is available now, and the processor will provide a more well rounded benefit then would the graphics card.

 

[Budman]

Originally posted by: John
I would recommend getting the Radeon 8500LE first. Fire up the games you typically play to enjoy higher resolutions, image quality and framerates.

I have to agree with John here,even if you get an XP 2100+ your LE will still be your bottleneck,but if you get a nice 8500LE iit will help a lot more.

 

[BFG10K]

I'd probably recommend you get the Radeon 8500 LE first and then your framerates will scale nicely when you get a faster CPU/motherboard.

 

[Vostok]

Thanks for all the suggestions!

BTW: you can get a 1800xp at newegg (actually about 117 after shipping i think).

Hmmm, this is really a tough one for me. My SiS 735 mobo chipset is XP compatable; i have a 365 enermax ps and a great fan, so no limitations there...
A cpu upgrade will last longer imo; it seems the vcard market is the one where the most developments are. Also, it will probably take about 2 years before 2ghz cpus are really necessary. Game and software development cycles take longer each time, because of so much more content that needs to be introduced, so comps aren't outdated as fast.

But then again, the potential performance improvmentsl of getting a new vcard is higher, despite being cpu limited. Getting a new cpu might bump my framerates up by 50% at most - so if im getting 10fps in town in Morrowind, i get 15 with new cpu. But i might double that with a new vcard (Morrowind is very, very, very^5 framerate intensive. Fortunately its pretty close to being an adventure game, so high fps isn't as important.

One point that might push me towards the vcard is that i like to at least double my components effectiveness when upgrading. Ive gone from 386-25, p-60, Celery 400, Duron 950; getting a new XP will mean only about 50% clock speed improvement. Whereas, a new vcard would just be under 2x (i know clock speed isn't everything).

Of course, i just heard on Firingsquad AMD might drop CPU prices by 40% at the end of may; maybe i should just wait till then, and hopefully the Radeons will drop further as well.

 

[Vostok]

These i guess are the 'potential' vcard improvements, as from Tomshardware

Testbed: AMD Athlon 2000+XP
(ill take 10% off Radeon score because of my LE version for comparison)
% max gain is gain potential unattenuated by my slower cpu (bottleneck)


Aquanox 1024x768 32bit
8500LE: 47.2
old LE: 20.8
% gain max= 227

Max Payne 1024x768 32bit
8500LE: 75.2
old LE: 28.7
% gain max= 262

Quake 3 1024x768 32bit
8500LE: 191.9
old LE: 71.2
% gain max= 270

Does anyone have reviews of modern cards tested specificially on faster and slower systems? To see how well cards scale on different cpus...

 

[Justorq]

I'd personally get the CPU upgrade first and wait a bit for the Vid Card...

 

[Pabster]

With CPU prices falling like flies, I'd upgrade the processor and worry about better video later. A Radeon LE is not a shabby gaming card.