How much of a difference will I see?

[woodman1999]

I am in the process of switching from a ASUS P4S8X motherboard running a P4 2.4B Cpu too an ABIT IS7-E board with a 2.4C which will hopefully overclock like a beast. I am running 2x of 512MB Crucial PC2700 RAM as a single-channel dual not being availble on my current board) with a 9700Pro.

My question is, what type of a performance gain am I looking at here? Especially when considering I mostly play games and do some light vdeo editing and such as well as using Photoshop 7. Should I upgrade to better RAM i.e. XMS PC 3200 or 3500 ( basically would my RAM be holding me back?)? Any opinions would be very helpful.

 

[Regs]

Performance gain from just upgrading the mobo? Limited to what you have on the mobo. Once you start over clocking upwards above 2.8-3.0 Ghz then you will see a considerable performance boost. That you will need better ram for. I actually have no idea how your running a 2.4c now with 2700... I'm guessing on a awkward ratio.

PC3500 will give you the max overclocking results. CorsairXMS, although expensive, is a good performer in that regard.

 

[woodman1999]

Alright, I can see limited if it was just the motherboard. But how much of a difference will I see with the new CPU as well? I am going from a 2.4b => 2.4c. Plus, my current board (P4S8X) is a piss poor overclocker, something with instability over a certain FSB. So I should be better off with the IS7-E board right?

 

[Regs]

Ah I'm sorry. I thought you had a 2.4c originally. You will need faster ram then before you can even expect to run the 2.4c. You need DDR 400, not DDR333 which is what 2700 is rated at.

And yes you will see some difference depending on the game. Maybe an extra 5 frames per second, but you will really notice a difference when you are able to overclock it to 3 Ghz with a 200+(x4) FSB . Its hard to estimate over what difference you will see in what game, but check out this chart here to get a clue.

 

[woodman1999]

Alright, so it looks pretty promising as long as I get the right RAM. Now for that, what brands are promising. I have only had experience with Crucial, but have heard good things about Corsair XMS, OCZ, and Geil. Are there any others I a should be looking at and which brand would you choose witha $200 memory budget? Thanks for the input regs.

 

[Regs]

Those are all good brands. I prefer Corsair TwinX because thats the brand I see in every benchmark.

Overall I figure you will be getting a good 15-30 FPS boost in most DX8 games. Some game engines like UT2003k you might even see a bigger increase. Time will tell though.


More benchmarks from 865 ChipSets

 

[woodman1999]

Sounds good. I guess I didn't need the new stuff, but oh how I wanted a new motherboard. This P4S8X was put too market too quickly.

 

[egale]

I think you are going to be disappointed. You need PC3200 just to run at at stock speeds. To overclock to 3.0, you need PC4000 and have the fsb running at 250. Maybe good memory will run that fast but I think your motherboard is going to fail long before that if not the memory or cpu.

 

[woodman1999]

Alright egale, you twisted my arm. I guess I will have to spring for some XMS PC4000 or OCZ Gold 4000. Gee, darn new memory. Oh well, I will have to deal with it.

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: woodman1999
Alright egale, you twisted my arm. I guess I will have to spring for some XMS PC4000 or OCZ Gold 4000. Gee, darn new memory. Oh well, I will have to deal with it.

You will maybe get a few, and I do mean very few, more Mhz out of your overclock with pc4000, but I would rather the memory timings in pc3500. Not to mention it's cheaper.

 

[woodman1999]

Rats. Now you have opened up new options. So it may be better to go the PC3500 route and get better timings?

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: woodman1999
Rats. Now you have opened up new options. So it may be better to go the PC3500 route and get better timings?

Your choice. Flip a coin. Maybe you'll get lucky.