Is this upgrade worth it?

[Gonad the Barbarian]

I'm thinking about going from this:
AthlonXP 2600
Abit KR7A-Raid
2X 256MB Crucial PC2100
Radeon 9800 128MB
SB Audigy 2
D-Link 10/100 NIC
Lucent V.92 56K
Aopen 48x24x48x16 Combo Drive
Western Digital 80GB SE HD

To this:
AthlonXP 3000
Albatron KX600 Pro
2X 256MB Buffalo PC3200
Radeon 9800 128MB
SB Audigy 2
D-Link 10/100 NIC
Lucent V.92 56K
Aopen 48x24x48x16 Combo Drive
Maxtor 120GB HD w/ 8MB buffer

Should run me about $400 before selling the old stuff off. That's a good chunk of change for me and I'm a little hesitant to pull the trigger on it. My main concern is UT2K4 performance, which is somewhat disappointing with my current setup. I'm looking for an upgrade that will get me out of the 15-25 fps range I'm getting now on the onslaught and assault maps. But with the new setup I only really gain 66MHZ on the FSB and an extra 256K of L2 cache on the CPU and I'm not sure if that will have a considerable effect. I've thought about an A64 3000 setup, but that route would be about $100 more and I'm not sure about any performance benefit plus longevity of the current A64 socket. Plus I'm thinking if this upgrade would keep me happy for 12-18 months (with a video card upgrade in their somewhere), 64-bit software, PCI-E and whatever the next RAM standard is would have had a chance to settle in by then and I can go all out with the new tech with my next build.

 

[Farmer]

$400 for a few more frames, I would really suggest against it (even more so because the upgrade is so modest). If you want to make the jump, jump to either the AMD64 (this April when socket 939 comes out), or maybe if there is going to be a x86-64 P4. Whatever the bottleneck may be, I don't think going from a 2600+ to a 3000+ XP of the same sort is worth an new motherboard, especially with the minimal performance gains. The CPU most likely isn't the bottleneck.

UT2K4 seems to quite a challenge, as your setup seems more than good enough to handle anything. Try turning settings down, or just adding ram (maybe to 1 gig).

 

[beatle]

Not worth it for the slight performance increase you'd see.

 

[Maximilian]

I think you should just upgrade the RAM and if you really need extra space the hdd as im not sure but i dont think the processor upgrade will make much if any diffrence at all.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: Gonad the Barbarian

...My main concern is UT2K4 performance, which is somewhat disappointing with my current setup. I'm looking for an upgrade that will get me out of the 15-25 fps range I'm getting now on the onslaught and assault maps. ...

You've got to be kidding... What are your video settings at? The jump from a 2600+ to a 3000+ is not going to help that much.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Originally posted by: nitromullet

Originally posted by: Gonad the Barbarian

...My main concern is UT2K4 performance, which is somewhat disappointing with my current setup. I'm looking for an upgrade that will get me out of the 15-25 fps range I'm getting now on the onslaught and assault maps. ...

You've got to be kidding... What are your video settings at? The jump from a 2600+ to a 3000+ is not going to help that much.

Sadly, I'm not.

1152x864 w/ 4X AA & 16X perf AF
dm-rankin
18.216749 / 42.644840 / 89.949265 fps
Score = 42.636868

as-convoy
13.138706 / 31.707064 / 50.527866 fps
Score = 31.818970

ons-torlan
8.593666 / 42.139362 / 78.730141 fps
Score = 42.282024

br-colossus
17.449535 / 47.768616 / 113.541885 fps
Score = 47.917274

ctf-bridgeoffate
9.412254 / 63.516735 / 128.263229 fps
Score = 63.753338

1024x786 w/ no AA or AF
dm-rankin
22.357828 / 42.794025 / 90.488632 fps
Score = 42.931309

as-convoy
13.508841 / 31.987539 / 49.688293 fps
Score = 32.100227

ons-torlan
10.495173 / 44.313622 / 80.624245 fps
Score = 44.464535

br-colossus
16.696758 / 48.111343 / 101.351593 fps
Score = 48.267395

ctf-bridgeoffate
9.692735 / 64.086670 / 134.013855 fps
Score = 64.324486

As you can see my video card isn't the bottle-neck. Eventhough the benchmark averages aren't bad, actual in-game performance is not nearly that good on the assualt and onslaught maps. I can watch the counter and it will stay purple damn near the entire map and hit red too often in heavy firefights. The other maps run fine, which is somewhat confusing since my average torlan score is actually higher than my rankin score in the benchmark. If it's not my memory bandwidth that's the bottle-neck bringing me down I don't know what is.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

The cheapest upgrade would be to buy the Buffalo and a NF7-S and overclock that 2600+. You will probably get at least 3200+ speed and there's a good chance even faster. The higher FSB and especially the substantially higher ram speed will provide much better bandwidth and should boost performance significantly.

 

[nick1985]

NO.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
The cheapest upgrade would be to buy the Buffalo and a NF7-S and overclock that 2600+. You will probably get at least 3200+ speed and there's a good chance even faster. The higher FSB and especially the substantially higher ram speed will provide much better bandwidth and should boost performance significantly.

Can I adjust the multiplier with that board? If so that might be an option, I've had this chip close to 2.3 GHz in this board, so If I could get a 11 or 11.5 multiplier at 200 fsb I'd be golden.

 

[Yossarian]

waste of money.

 

[Boobers]

Upgrade your RAM!!!

 

[sd]

More RAM and save the rest of your cash.

 

[loafbred]

I agree with DAPUNISHER, an nForce2 Ultra 400 board would help you quite a bit, even if you use your present RAM. I noticed a big difference when I replaced my KT333 board with an Abit NF7, with no other changes. Don't expect miracles from any setup if you continue to run your video settings at 4X AA and 16X AF. I run my 9800 Pro at 4X AA and 4X/8X AF in D3D/OpenGL.

I'd get an NF7-S and see what your RAM will do. It might run at 333. If you want to spend more, get 512MB of PC3200 which will run at 2-3-2 or even 2-2-2 latencies. Those two things will make a real difference.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Allright, thanks everyone, I think I'm going to go with the mobo and RAM as long as someone can confirm it won't be a problem knocking this CPU's multiplier down with the new board. I haven't really been keeping up with mobo's, but this is a trait of the all the Nforce2 boards right? If it is and unless someone can give me reasons not to I'll think I'll go with a Albatron KX18D Pro mobo as opposed to the Abit NF7-S. It's a good bit cheaper w/o all the bells and whistles of the NF7-S which I don't really need.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

The NF7-s will allow multiplier manipulation just like your current board does but you will also have PCI/AGP lock that your present board doesn't so higher FSB speeds are gravy. I would definitely get the 3200DDR as well, because in my own experience with the nF2 boards 400DDR dual channel synch mode will result in much better overall system performance than that 2100DDR is going to provide. The other plus is that you have a good overclocker just as I suspected, so 11.5x200 will make for a fast setup. The settings you use for UT2K4 are definitely intense, but the considerably extra bandwidth, 2.3ghz clockspeed, and dual channel will boost performance nicely compared to what the KT266-A offers.