GeForce 3 or 4 with my system?

[Tangogulf]

Hi all;

Have been considering doing an upgrade to my entire system recently, but am hoping to delay it one year due to financial reasons. I presently have:

T-Bird 1.0 ghz
512 mg sdram
Geforce Gts 2 32 mg ddr
SB Audigy
10 Gb 5400 rpm HD (will be upgrading)
Windows 98

I have 2 questions. First I will be upgrading to a 7200 rpm 80 gb hd in the near future(running out of space). I was going to do the entire CPU and video card because I have been noticing some frame rate slowdowns with some games. However, in most instances I meet the recommended requirements with the exception of the video card. I also understand the GEForce 4's are optimized for a cpu that runs much faster than mine. I dont want to spend top dollar until I do the upgrade...esp if my present system will never see the full benefit of the GeForce 4. So here are my questions:

1/ Hard drives. A friend of mine told me that WIN98 will only recognize the first 25 gb of a hard drive. Thus making an 80 GB purchase useless. Is this true?

2/ Would I notice less bottle necking in my present system if I were to purchase a GEforce 3 with 128 mgs ram on it? ie would a video card upgrade reduce the frame rate hits that i periodically see? If so, which card is the recommended one.

Hoping for some help on this one folks. Thanks for any and all replies.

Tango

 

[Soulkeeper]

I had an 80gb hard drive it worked fine in win98 not sure where he got that notion from

I had a T-bird 1ghz system and a GF2 gts 32mb just like yurs
i found the processor to be the bottleneck in most cases (especially in UT, although somenewer games did stress the card a little more) even when overclocked to 1.3
I wouldn't upgrade that video card unless yur gonna be upgrading your cpu as well
If you need the newer directx features of a GF3 or GF4 then that could be another reason to upgrade it
the GF3 ti200 is a nice card if you wanna save some money the GF4 ti4200 is also a great card
not to mention the radeon 8500

i plan on getting a 2400+ and a GF4 ti4200 128mb maybe next week or something
it's all about UT2003
w00t !!!


have fun
--Soul_keeper

 

[Insidious]

Bang for the Buck......... Usually a Video card update leads the pack.

I've had the opportunity to put a GF4 (4400) on this system for a short period of time. (I blackmailed the friend I was building a computer for......... he had to let me try out the GF4 as the price of my labor.

The only "real" difference between the GF3 and the GF4 on my machine (gaming mostly) was the ability to use Anti-Aliasing without major frame rate reductions in games. While the Benchies went up significantly, Game performance (FPS) changed little. My CPU is an Athy 1.4 and was bottlenecking (I assume) but it had no difficulty running the GF4 card.)

When I upgraded from a GF2-GTS to a GF3 the diffference was HUGE. Not talking benchmarks here, but real life performance was not even in the same hemisphere!

I recommend staying clear of anything MX from NVidia but beyond that you will be VERY happy with either the GF3 or the GF4 and your present set-up. Let your wallet be the guide... if you can swing it, do the GF4. If not, the GF3 will serve you well.

-Sid

 

[Tangogulf]

Wow two very different responses. I do find it a very tuff call. Personally I would like the complete upgrade and can afford it if push comes to shove. Let me ask my question in a different way here:

How much time will a new video card buy me given my present processor? Keep in mind IM primarily a gamer.

Thanks for the replies

 

[Insidious]

I really don't know how much difference there is between the gaming performance of an Athy 1.0 and an Athy 1.4. All I can really tell you is that I have not been experiencing anything in my gaming that makes me think my comps. aren't up to it or won't be anytime in the near future. Nascar Racing 2002 is my most limited game in terms of CPU power. It makes me consider a CPU upgrade. But no other game I own seems limited in any way. I play at 1024X768X32 with all features turned on at all times. If you want higher resolution than this you WILL need a GF4 and more CPU. (see MyRigThingy below for my setup)

I firmly believe you will see more gain from going to a GF3 or GF4 than you would see by a CPU upgrade. (I think it will be significant and satisfying to you)

Games I play (not all inclusive list, but you get the idea):

UT
AVP II
GTA III
Americas Army
Half-life and it's mods
Empire Earth
Combat Flight Simulator 2
Mech Warrior 4
MOH:AA

 

[Soulkeeper]

Tangogulf what games do you plan on playing ??
and at what resolutions ?
If you do choose to get a GF4 or GF3 then you can always upgrade yur processor later
or overclock it a bit
it's really up to you
it's one of those decisions
the 2400+ cpu's are about 200 bucks and just getting into stores now
a GF4 ti4200 128mb is like 150
if you got the vid card you would be able to enjoy all the features as well as fullscene antialiasing since most that work is done on the card
those processors will drop in prices later on anyways
and you'll know what the bottleneck is

 

[Budmantom]

GF3 ti200 128mb $120 GF4Ti4200 64mb is $122 and is substantially faster. You will notice a substantial increase in performance if you go with the GF4, I dont think your cpu will hold you back too bad.

 

[Soulkeeper]

whatever card you get i recommend a 128mb version

 

[Tangogulf]

 

[Tangogulf]

First off, thanks to everyone who replied to me. Your comments are all very helpful.

Soulkeeper;

Right now I dabble in a whole range of games. Partially because Im searching for one that gives me decent performance with decent gameplay. I confess that since I got my 19" monitor, the minimum resolution I like to play in is 1024X768. My preference is 1280 x1024 w/o antialiasing.
Im currently dabbling in (but not limited to)

Midevil Total War
Nascar 2002
Earth and beyond
Tiger woods 2002
Il-2 Sturmovik

I can say without a doubt that anything beyond 1024 x768 with any of these games is causing the stuttering. I realize I may be picky, but pixelated objects disturb my gaming experience. The sharper the better. So now you see why Im having the troubles that I have. I'm strongly considering upgrading to a 4200 right now. I dont want to give the impression that I cannot do the total upgrade right now, but a number of factors slows me.
1/Finances could be better (having said that, I reviewed the whole thing with my wife and she says go for it)
2/Windows of opportunity. I foresee more changes with both cpus and video cards and am concerned that I m jumping into the present technology at too late a date. (If I had gobs of money, I would care less)

So when I do upgrade, I have to make it last. If I get the video card now, then I need it to buy me a year on the present CPU...otherwise its not worth it to me. I realize none of you can answer that question, but I know many of you may have done similar upgrades to similar systems.

Personally Id like to just do the video card for now. I just dont want to waste a couple hundred dollars (Canadian funds - valueless paper) and see no gain as the net result. Anyone wanna jump at this reply...please do. Im stuck here.

Regards


Tango.

 

[Soulkeeper]

well if you got a TI 4200 now then you could always get a new cpu later

on the converse you could get a cpu now and wait for the nv30 (in a couple months), which will totally rock as far as vid cards go

personally i'm in the same boat
i need a new cpu (mines fryed in my other system) and a new vid card (to play UT2003)

i recommend that in yur case you get the ti 4200 and a month or two later get a new cpu
this is if you think a ti 4200 will last you long enough

if you got a new cpu now then you could wait and get an NV30 based board in a few months, but that's only if you want the best graphics and all and have the money to spend and time to wait

Other people feel free to share your ideas recommendations and experiences
!?????!???

 

[Tequila]

I'd get the card first and cpu later -- 1ghz is good enough for now. Going from a GF2 to GF3 Ti200 was a huge difference for me with BF1942 and UT2003 but it doesn't matter so much with the older games like HL and Q3. I have a 1.4gz athlon XP but when I tried it at 1ghz there was still a huge difference after installing the GF3. The hard part is deciding on which card. For me it had to be nvidia for the opengl support in Linux. I bought the Gainward GF3 Ti200 64MB DDR golden sample from newegg for $108 which can be overclocked to Ti500 speeds but so far I'm still sticking to 200/450. The GF4 Ti4200 golden sample is $148. I'll probably regret not spending that extra $40 when Doom3 comes out but for now I'm totally satisified -- BF1942 runs incredibly smooth at 1024x768x32. Like the others said though, the GF3 takes a noticeable fps hit if you turn on AA, it made BF1942 a bit too choppy for my tastes so I turned it off.

If you get a cpu now instead of the card then you might possibly have to get another motherboard depending on what you have right now and maybe new HSF and new memory -- one thing leads to another and you spend way more than you wanted and are left with a powerful cpu but no money leftover to get a nice card for it.

 

[Tangogulf]

You fellas are coming across loud and clear. I must confess that I do like your logic. From what I have read, the ti 4200 is a good choice right now because of the ability to overclock to near ti4600 performance. Which is good. The other thing is that I will not be paying top dollar for one of the top cards and not knowing what (if any) performance gain I will get from it with the 1 ghz processor. If worst comes to worst and I buy the 4200 and I get no improvement then as you say Soulkeeper, Ill just finish the upgrade in 2 months time and do the cpu, motherboard and ram.

Also, if I hold off on the CPU upgrade for another 6 months or a year, then paying for a new video card when the ti4200 becomes obsolete does not hurt so much.

I really appreciate all of your input here and will post my results. For now its gonna be a new hd and the ti4200.

Thanks again.

Tango

 

[Pilsnerpete]

If I were you, I'd buy a ti4200--maybe a Gainward...I tend to believe the reviewers at this site. If you have the cash, get a WD special ed. 80gb hard drive w/8mb cache, too. I just bought one and it brought my framerates up quite a bit! Of course I made it my boot drive...program files are on my 7200rpm 'cudaIV. Not sure if that makes the difference or the new OS install.

Anyway, that's what I'd do until something like the Gigabyte 7vaxp drops in price. Gigabytes and Asus boards are the s*&#!

 

[Tangogulf]

Yep my intent is to get the WD with the 8mb cache'. Im really glad you posted your results with this drive, because I was a little unclear of what kind of results others were getting.

Thanks

 

[Pilsnerpete]

I got a 3dmark2k1se score of 7961 with my xp1800@1605mhz, 512mb xms2400@140 on a non-oc'd geforce3. not too bad. now to put the card to the test...hehe.

 

[Soulkeeper]

Tequila, haha we are in the same boat here
I am getting a GF4 card to play UT2003 in linux as well
ATI cards just don't cut it for linux gaming (with UT2003 atleast) with that s3tc patent hindering the open source community