Upgrade = Downgrade?

[greenspeed]

I am getting a new motherboard and processor next week, but this is still bugging me.

Last week my PIII 800 and motherboard went bye bye. I then had a P4 1600 and new motherboard added.

But...

When I reinstalled and tried to run my racing sim I had really bad performance. I thought maybe there was a chance of something beings still messed up (thanks to a friend) I formatted and reinstalled everything, and had the same result. I had doubled in speed theoreticaly, but actually lost performance.

My system was :

Win 98SE
DX 8.1
Tyan Trinity 371BX
PIII 800
256 MB PC 100/133 Ram
Leadtek Geforce 2 GTS 32
MX300 Sound Card
USB Mouse

With this system I could pull 40-50 FPS in my favorite sim with FSAA on.

The system I have in now :

Win 98SE
DX 8.1
Latest VIA 4 in 1 (first time messing with these, can a dummy like me mess them up, or are they childproof? <VBG>
PcChips VIA VT8753 (P4266)
P4 1600
256 PC 100/133 Ram
Leadtek Geforce 2 GTS 32
MX300 Sound Card
USB Mouse

With this system I could pull 20 FPS with FSAA on, 40 with it off. Graphics also aren't nearly as crisp (tried several different driver versions)

Next week I will have :

Win 98SE
MSI K7T 266Pro2-6380 V2.0 (266A)
Athlon XP 1700 +
256 Crucial DDR 2100
Leadtek Geforce 2 GTS 32
MX300 Sound Card
USB Mouse

It just bugs me that I can't get this system to run decent. I know it has to be something minor, but I just can't track it down. Any clues or things I should look for?

Billy

p.s. I am soooo glad I had this problem. I have already learned a ton reading these forums this week, and am determined my next system will be built by ME !!!! I think with the helpful info and people at this board even a dummy like me might have a shot at building a system !

 

[Rand]

<< 256 PC 100/133 Ram >>




*Closes his eyes and pretends he didnt see that*

There is a good portion of your problem right there, the Pentium 4 and PC100/133 SDRAM isnt exactly a very friendly or high performance combo. To put it bluntly the P4 is very dependent on a high bandwidth memory subsystem. It NEEDS RDRAM or PC2100 DDR SDRAM at a minimum to get good performance under bandwidth dependent applications such as games.
A P4 with SDRAM on games isnt going to be terribly friendly, you'd be better off going with a P4 of 300-400MHz lower clock and buying RDRAM with the money you saved by going with a slower processor.

 

[mindiris]

The good news is, there's probably nothing "wrong".

The bad news is PC100/133 memory will nuke the P4's performance. Deep execution pipelines and handicapped prefetch with slow memory won't do for a processor that depends heavily on bandwidth for its performance edge.

On the other hand, going from 40 to 20fps is a mighty high performance drop. If a fresh installation and using the newest set of drivers won't help, and you find the performance unacceptable, then either get a i850+RDRAM, or get an AMD+mobo+some Crucial DDR memory.

 

[Boonesmi]

when intel came out with the idea for pent4 with pc133 ram i just cringed

i felt sorry for the uninformed that i was sure would fall for the total gimic of it



hehehe intel should be ashamed of itself for ripping off the uneducated pc buyers

 

[greenspeed]

Wow, again I am impressed with this forum. Quick and educated replies. Thanks for the help.

The good news is, monday I should have this system:


Win 98SE
MSI K7T 266Pro2-6380 V2.0 (266A)
Athlon XP 1700 +
256 Crucial DDR 2100
Leadtek Geforce 2 GTS 32
MX300 Sound Card
USB Mouse

My old system was under warranty, so they charged me less than 100 to upgrade to the P4 1600 with the new motherboard keeping all of my other components.

For another 100 they are going to take out the P4 1600, and the motherboard and replace it with :

AMD Certified case and power supply
256 MB PC2100 ram
AMD XP 1700+
MSI K7T 266Pro2-6380 V2.0 (266A)

For 200 bucks, from what I have checked this is a fairly cheap upgrade considering their time and effort in putting in 2 systems.

Thanks again for the help.

Billy

 

[Jgtdragon]

Stay away from P4 with sdram. The P4 was made with Rdram (Pc800) in mind. Lucky you have an option to change though.

 

[Jacmert]

<< hehehe intel should be ashamed of itself for ripping off the uneducated pc buyers >>



Why should they? That's the only thing their good at!

 

[Maniac9127]

<< For another 100 they are going to take out the P4 1600, and the motherboard and replace it with :

AMD Certified case and power supply
256 MB PC2100 ram
AMD XP 1700+
MSI K7T 266Pro2-6380 V2.0 (266A)

For 200 bucks, from what I have checked this is a fairly cheap upgrade considering their time and effort in putting in 2 systems.

Thanks again for the help.

Billy >>

Heck, the 200 bucks could have been spent on the labor alone . $200 wouldn't even cover the CPU and motherboard, but you get RAM a case and labor.

See, OEMs aren't that bad after all. Well, they did give you a P4 with SDR.....

 

[greenspeed]

[/i] >>

Heck, the 200 bucks could have been spent on the labor alone . $200 wouldn't even cover the CPU and motherboard, but you get RAM a case and labor.

See, OEMs aren't that bad after all. Well, they did give you a P4 with SDR..... [/i] >>





Yes, I know that. The guys at this shop have been great to me for the last 2 years.

*The monitor started making a funny noise, they gave me a brand new one, no hassle, no charges.

*I upgraded a year ago, wasn't happy with the changes, they changed it again, no charge for any of it.

*I started having some heat issues earlier this year, the installed 2 more fans, didn't charge me for any of it.

*Last week my PC and Motherboard fried, they did all the changes from the above thread giving me credit towards the upgrade since my origional mobo and processor were still under warranty.


I guess I am lucky and picked a computer store that believed in top notch customer service. They rely on repeat customers, and word of mouth advertising which I tell to anyone locally who is going to buy a system.

 

[sandorski]

Either(Any) way you look at it, you're better off with the Athlon system.

 

[greenspeed]

UPDATE >>>>>>

Well, so far my switch to AMD has been a pleasant one. So far I have had no problems, and system is running fast and stable. I don't have the XP 1700 yet, they had a problem with something, so for now am using all of the above specs, but with an Athlon 1.4. They will put the XP in next week. I am not seeing a huge difference in my favorite sim, but think that the Video card is the bottleneck there, as all other applications and benchmarks are WAY up.

I might start with some of the BIOS tweaks to try to get a few more FPS, but might just leave it like it is for awhile.

Thanks again for all of the advice.

Billy