Upgrading from an 2800XP to either A64(754) 3000+ or A64(754) 3200+.

[TeejayV]

Hello. At the moment, i'm running

AMD 2800 XP barton 512kb
ATI x800 pro
1 gb ram
Asus A7N8V-deluxe

This rig has gotten me very nice performance in many different games. (Doom3, Farcry, etc.)

I have some cash to spend, and I want to upgrade to a socket 754 (939 out of my budget). I can afford either a a64 2800, 3000 or 3200. The price jump between a 3200 and a 3400 is still quite a bit (I live in Canada). Unless someone can convince me to shell out the extra 80 or so dollars and get a 3400 instead of a 3200, for now I would like to know the performance difference of a stock 3000 and a stock 3200.

I will probably not use the DFI lanparty's (hard to find them in Canadian shops), so i'll probably be using the Soltek nforce 3 board. THG.com said it's the fastest 754 board at stock. So as I stated earlier, unless one can convince me to just get the 3400 (if it's really really really worth it), what is the perf difference in some of the games that i would run between 3000 and 3200?

Thanks in advance.

 

[bcoupland]

Go to ncix.com and they have the LanParty in for $169. They are a great canadian computer parts retailer. However, If you say your setup is working fine for D3 and farcry and you have an X800Pro, maybe save that money. I'd save the money.

 

[TeejayV]

well my performance in Doom3 and Farcry have been very nice, yet I want to be able to run other games that I play in high/max details with AA on and all the bells and whistles. I know I won't be able to do that for Doom3 and for Farcry, but in games like:

Warhammer: Dawn of War, Ground Control II, - medium settings for an RTS? ouch. High is hardly playable 20-30 FPS

Sacred - Again a struggle to run it at 1280x1048 on high.

Final Fantasy XI - I have a feeling my bottleneck in this game is the cpu. Even though the game is capped at 30 FPS, it can still be improved in some of the busier areas.

Rome: Total War - Same story again, wish i could run it on high/max detail.



Saving the money is a nice idea, but I really would like to upgrade to a 754. So please let me know if you have the performance difference between a 3000 and a 3200 (or blow my mind with a 3400 specsheet).

Thanks in advance!

 

[Zebo]

Unless you can get an AX newcasle 3000 get the 3200. First it's underrated, should be labled a 3300 . Second all 3200's are AX revision, which means 2.5 on stock HSF is pretty definite.

For mobo chaintech VNF3-250 seems to be a real winner with it's rock bottom price and very good user feedback. The ultimate is the DFI, but it costs twice as much.

 

[TeejayV]

so you're saying that the 3200 is an underated 3300? Does the 3200 even compare to the 3400 then? Or does the 3400 blow the 3200 out of the water like say how the 3000 xp blows a 2500 xp out of the water at stock speeds.

On the DFI lanparty nforce3, what would be the speeds i can get the 3200 to on stock HSF compared to the chaintec vnf3-250 on stock HSF?

Thanks in advance.