Video Card Recommendation, Please Help

[Marsumane]

I say get the GT. Its not about initial balance, but more about upgrading one component at a time and not ever being bottlenecked by your newest buy. The GT will rarely bottleneck that processor. I reccomend getting that graphics card, and then waiting a bit to upgrade the processor when a faster one gets somewhat cheaper. This will enable you the best route in upgrading considering gaming is your priority.

Your processor isnt THAT bad, and holding off may yield the best results for your wallet. The GT will not be severely bottlenecked by the processor. You still will get ~75% of the card's usage at worst. And when u get a new proc, you can just oc the GT up to ultra speeds and have a more balanced system. The fact is, that no processor today can even use the power of an oced GT to its fullest potential on quite a few games. The card is a great investment for your now and future rig.

 

[Jeff7181]

I didn't feel like reading the whole thread... but what resolution do you play games in? If you play games at 1024x768 like I do, say hello to free 4XAA and 8XAF with a 6800GT because at 1024x768 the GT is CPU/platform limited with all but the best stuff out there.

 

[karlreading]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation

Originally posted by: karlreading
i dissagree, if u look here, <a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.xbitlabs.co...l.../doom3-cpu_3.html
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<b">http://ww...l.../doom3-cpu_3.html
</a>
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you will see how much diffrence there is on doom 3 between all those cpus. theres a 40 fps differntial across the pack, all using a 6800 ultra, and the bottom of the chart is a 3 ghz p4 ( 800 fsb, dual channel ddr, HT )

so if that cpu with a monster card is 40 fps slower on doom 3 than the same card on the top cpu of the pack, imagine what diffrence there would be with a old 533 fsb p4 on a single chgannel platform ( and u know netburst NEEDs dual channel / as much memory bandwidth it can get to perform well )

yes, i know doom 3 isnt the be all and end all, but its gonna be a popular engine in the next 3 years, and i really feel a 6800gt would be wasted in a oldskool 2.4 p4.
karlos

If you are going to provide a decent link to a review, it often makes sense to read the full review before you post the link. Actually, Xbitlabs goes to show that a proper way of benchmarking doom 3 is not with a Prerecorded time Demo you just posted above but using a real game test method that incorporates min frame rate as well. Cheers

Now to me it seems P4 3.0 isn't so bad afterall? But more importantly, looking at just 1 game isnt an indication of what would be a better upgrade for him for gaming (a cpu or a videocard)

If you feel 6800GT is a total waste for a P4 2.4ghz, then it would be nice if you provided some benchmarks because what you "feel" and what is "real" are 2 different things . Please refer to my previous post for actual benchmarks.

Even if we did assume that 40FPS slower was an important number, by looking at the Recorded Demo we can see that even the slowest cpu did more than 60FPS, plenty for a single player game. Since most people with 6800 or x800 series cards will enable AA/AF and play at higher resolutions, the significance of a faster cpu is even less relevant.

I do agree with you that coupling the fastest components will produce an optimal gaming system. But for the $$$, almost nothing beats a faster videocard. (Disclaimer: Anyone out there, Please don't pair P2 233MMX and 6800Ultra)

Hans, if you are willing to part with more $$$, then in that case I stand strong behind Karlreading's recommendation for an overclcoked A64 3000/3200+ setup. Perhaps you could consider Epox 8Kdaj socket 754 mobo as well.

But if you are on a budget, just get 6800/6800GT and overclock your cpu for now.

what the man above points out is very true, nv40 still very fast on a p4 2.4ghz. my benchmark was a lttle misleading, i had read the rest of the review but it was late and i wanted something that supported my view and and delivered a great impact, and at the time that benchmark provided me with such effect. however, i should never knowingly have used a fraudgelent / misleading benchmark as a way of helping me ( supposidly ) apply my views on others. however i stand by my beliefs, i do believe a 2.4 ghz / 533 fsb p4 will not come close to delivering a card of a nv6800 gt/ultras calibre's potential.

herea a link to a more thuaght out review:
<br>[url]http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sectio...Id=10178&amp;PageId=1
[/url]

in the review the reviewer pits a 6800ultra on a 2.4 p4 and a a64 3800+.
tests worth noting are unrela tornament 2004 where at 1024*768 theres 26 fps diffrence between the two systems, and 16*12 theres 7 fps.
yes the diffrences are no ware near as dramatic as iis implied by doom 3 tiedemos, infact the figure at the end of this review is set at around 15%, so by all means zap out and grap a nv 40, the frame rates will still be off the hook ( british street talk for good ). ill be honest i not long upgraded from a xp 2800+ to this current set up, and there are times when i wish id done the graphics card as well, but i have always found that a well baalnced system is more favourable then a system ware the graphics card costs more than the rest of your base unit.

anyway, my apologise to anyone out there who felt my advice / use of links was incorrect, it was, and i appologise. at the same time, i think you could do worse than buy a nv40 and then overlcokc what u have now if your still wanting for more.
karlos

 

[HansGroenewold]

Apoppin,

You asked what type of motherboard I had and it is a ECS Elitegroup L4S5M, and is about 3 years old. I looked at the bios setup and there is a section called:

Freq. Volt. Control, the next section reads:

CPU Host/SDRAM/PCI Clock, the choices for that are:

default (currently selected)
100/100/33 MHZ
100./133/33 MHZ
100/166/33 MHZ
105/140/35 MHZ
108/144/36 MHZ
112/140/31 MHZ
100/200/33 MHZ
133/100/33 MHZ
133/133/33 MHZ
133/166/33 MHZ
133/160/33 MHZ

Are these settings for overclocking? If so, any recommendations? I also went to the web site for my motherboard and found a AGP Driver that was just released in May of this year that I downloaded. I assume that would be wise to update the driver, you think? As I mentioned, my main reason for wanting to upgrade is to be able to run first person shooter games such as Far Cry at their higher or highest levels. I also like to run Microsoft Flight Simulator as well. Thanks to all for your informative replies, this forum is top notch.

Sincerely,
Hans Groenewold

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: rogue1979

Excluding the newest generation of video cards, the 4X to 8X AGP thing makes little difference.

Is there any data that shows that 4x vs. 8x affects performance for the new generation of cards? hmm.....just curious

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: VIAN

Athlon64 3500 - 374, a little bit off in price, cheapest chip they have, but at this point socket 939 is a must get for the enthusiast. Socket 754 will stay as an entry level socket.

The funny part is, 3400+ @ 2.4ghz on socket 754 will beat 3500+.

Woulnd't you agree Vian that most likely next time he decides to upgrade, a new motherboard will be in order....oh well simply because he'll probably want a new graphics card with PCIe support. Also by the look of his videocard and cpu, it doesn't sound like Hans upgrades earlier than 1.5-2 years, in which case K9 and P5 will probably be out => new motherboards. So why spend extra $$$ on less or equal performance for socket 939?

And Karlreading, there is no need to apologize to anyone for anything. This is a discussion forum and everyone's opinion is welcome. Your advice is right on the ball, because to fully take advantage of the latest graphics card, of course it would be better to have as fast of a cpu as possible. It is up to Hans to decide whether or not it is worth it for him to upgrade the cpu and motherboard as well (I don't know how much $$$ he wants to spend).

 

[xgi]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation

Originally posted by: rogue1979

Excluding the newest generation of video cards, the 4X to 8X AGP thing makes little difference.

Is there any data that shows that 4x vs. 8x affects performance for the new generation of cards? hmm.....just curious

As a matter of fact... there is... there's 3 part of it.. 1 explanation, 1 general comparison, 1 specific card comparison.

Click here to view the article

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: xgi

Originally posted by: RussianSensation

Originally posted by: rogue1979

Excluding the newest generation of video cards, the 4X to 8X AGP thing makes little difference.

Is there any data that shows that 4x vs. 8x affects performance for the new generation of cards? hmm.....just curious

As a matter of fact... there is... there's 3 part of it.. 1 explanation, 1 general comparison, 1 specific card comparison.

Click here to view the article

Thanks for the link.

This is what it says in the conclusion:

"Before we conclude, one must remember what the AGP interface is all about. To summarize that, it is basically a fast dedicated graphics bus that is linked to the system?s main memory for storing of excessively large textures and other information should the local memory of the graphics card be depleted. In other words, it is an extension of the graphics cards? own frame buffer. Considering that graphics cards are increasingly being mounted with larger and larger amounts of local memory buffer, the actual usage of AGP to store excess graphical information to the main memory should be on the fall."

Since the new generation of cards have 256mb of memory on board, they shouldn't have problems holding enough textures for most games. Doom 3 currently uses 500mb maximum in Ultra mode requiring a 512mb graphics card for best operation. Since AGP 4x runs at 1.06Gb/sec bandwidth, even if you have an AGP 4x card and the new say 6800GT with 256 memory, if a game as intense as doom requires 500mb, the bandwidth is fast enough to send the data back to the videocard. Later on when games start to use more than 500mb of data, AGP8x with 2.0gb of bandwidth might become more important (and importance of PCIe is certainly in far off distant future, but I suppose the massive adaptation of that interface will take 2-3 years at least; so this gives game developers and consumers time before PCIe does become a necessity for graphics bandwidth).

But for now, "we are certain many of you readers would have been able to conclude that the AGP 8x interface does not give any tangible gains yet and is not much of a reason to upgrade your graphics card at all." The difference in real-world gaming was <1%.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: HansGroenewold
Apoppin,

You asked what type of motherboard I had and it is a ECS Elitegroup L4S5M, and is about 3 years old. I looked at the bios setup and there is a section called:

Freq. Volt. Control, the next section reads:

CPU Host/SDRAM/PCI Clock, the choices for that are:

default (currently selected)
100/100/33 MHZ
100./133/33 MHZ
100/166/33 MHZ
105/140/35 MHZ
108/144/36 MHZ
112/140/31 MHZ
100/200/33 MHZ
133/100/33 MHZ
133/133/33 MHZ
133/166/33 MHZ
133/160/33 MHZ

Are these settings for overclocking? If so, any recommendations? I also went to the web site for my motherboard and found a AGP Driver that was just released in May of this year that I downloaded. I assume that would be wise to update the driver, you think? As I mentioned, my main reason for wanting to upgrade is to be able to run first person shooter games such as Far Cry at their higher or highest levels. I also like to run Microsoft Flight Simulator as well. Thanks to all for your informative replies, this forum is top notch.

Sincerely,
Hans Groenewold

They are very limited in their o/c'ing choices - say compared to a newer (abit/asus) MB. You might be able to do something

YES, you (generally) want the latest drivers . . .

and head over to CPU/O'Cing Forum . . . really nice guys over there and helpful

(unlike video)



:Q




(j/king)

 

[HansGroenewold]

Hello again,

I'm not opposed to replacing the motherboard along with the processor and video card and would prefer to do it at the same time to see the difference. If the extra expense of doing all three will result in a signifigant improvement, I'll all for it. If I could get by with just the motherboard and video card, that would be fine too.

I bought this PC two and a half years ago, but the technology has not changed dramatically to justify a major upgrade. My first PC in 1995 was 100 MHZ, the fastest available then. Three years later, I went to 500MHZ, the fastest available then. Four years later, I got the 2.4 GHZ, again, the fastest at the time. In two and a half years, it's only gone to 3.02 GHZ, not exactly a qauntum leap. From what I hear, that's about as far as Intel can take the present design becuase of heat considerations.

Since I seem to have a lot people with experience responding to this thread, what would be a good combination of Motherboard, video card, and processor? Or could I get by with just replacing the motherboard and video card. Other people have stated here that a motherboard replacement is not that critical. What's your opinion? Thanks.

Sincerely,
Hans Groenewold

 

[RussianSensation]

Athlon 3400+ 2.4ghz Newcastle core (socket 754) $280
Chaintech VNF3-250 - $75 or Epox 8KDAJ - $100
Zalman CNPS7000 - $30

if you want to save some $$$, get A64 3000+ for $160 or 3200+ for $200.

Also P4 can go up to 3.6ghz not 3.02 and they should introduce 3.8 and 4.0 before the end of this year.

 

[HansGroenewold]

Russian Sensation,

What about the motherboard and video card, what would be your preference to round out the combination of all three?

Sincerely,
Hans Groenewold

 

[HansGroenewold]

Apoppin,

If I selected the the setting at the bottom of those options, I would have to get a larger heatsink, would I not? Or are those different settings intended to be used without any modifications to the cooling system?

Sincerely,
Hans

 

[VIAN]

The funny part is, 3400+ @ 2.4ghz on socket 754 will beat 3500+.

According to this http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2065 they are similar in performance, but the 3500 is always on top.

Both are 2.2GHz, but 3400 has 1MB of cache, 3500 has 512MB of cache, but has Dual channel to make up for the loss.

Woulnd't you agree Vian that most likely next time he decides to upgrade, a new motherboard will be in order....oh well simply because he'll probably want a new graphics card with PCIe support. Also by the look of his videocard and cpu, it doesn't sound like Hans upgrades earlier than 1.5-2 years, in which case K9 and P5 will probably be out =&amp;gt; new motherboards. So why spend extra $$$ on less or equal performance for socket 939?

You are correct, and the fact that Dual Cores are due next year raises the question on how long 939 will be in effect. No too long possibly, or will become the new low end.

You know, it would probably be better to go for the 754 because of price. S939 would have been better because of it was supposed to last long, but it doesn't look like it. It's just a stupid dream anyway.

A64 3400+ (S754)
MSI Nforce3 250Gb (S754)
2x 512MB PC3200 Corsair Value
Geforce 6800 GT

 

[HansGroenewold]

Vian,

What motherboard would go well with that 754?

Sincerely,
Hans Groenewold

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: HansGroenewold
Apoppin,

If I selected the the setting at the bottom of those options, I would have to get a larger heatsink, would I not? Or are those different settings intended to be used without any modifications to the cooling system?

Sincerely,
Hans

hi again . . .

you do have LOTs of good questions . . . most are beyond the scope of a single thread . . .

i'd suggest using "search" and also "hanging out" in General Hardware and CPU/OverClocking . . .

after you have more "basics" you can ask more specific questions.

 

[HansGroenewold]

Hello Apoppin, or anyone who can help me,

I need help. After reading all the info here in this thread and feeling frisky, I played around with my BIOS settings and screwed something up, big time. As soon as I made the change, the PC promptly shut down, nothing. When I try to start it up, no screen whatsoever comes up to allow me back into the BIOS to change the setting back. Fortunately, I know what setting I changed. I went into this setting:

Freq. Volt. Control, the next section reads:

CPU Host/SDRAM/PCI Clock, the choices for that are:

default (currently selected)
100/100/33 MHZ
100./133/33 MHZ
100/166/33 MHZ
105/140/35 MHZ
108/144/36 MHZ
112/140/31 MHZ
100/200/33 MHZ
133/100/33 MHZ
133/133/33 MHZ
133/166/33 MHZ *************************************
133/160/33 MHZ


The original setting was on default. Like a fool, I went and changed it to the setting with the asterisks next to it. I don't have a rescue disk either. How can I get into the BIOS when I can't even get a screen to come up? I pressed F8 trying to get it to come up in Safe Mode and that didn't work. I also tried Holding "delete" as it tried to boot, no luck there either.

Any help would be deeply appreciated. I opened up the case and the CPU fan and video card fan still work, so I guess I didn't fry anything. Thank you. I also posted this in the Technical Support forum as well. Please help, I'm desperate as you can probably tell. Lesson learned, don't dabble or make adjustments in settings you're not comfortable or familiar with.

Sincerely,

Hans Groenewold

 

[apoppin]

The original setting was on default. Like a fool, I went and changed it to the setting with the asterisks next to it. I don't have a rescue disk either. How can I get into the BIOS when I can't even get a screen to come up? I pressed F8 trying to get it to come up in Safe Mode and that didn't work. I also tried Holding "delete" as it tried to boot, no luck there either.

Any help would be deeply appreciated. I opened up the case and the CPU fan and video card fan still work, so I guess I didn't fry anything. Thank you. I also posted this in the Technical Support forum as well. Please help, I'm desperate as you can probably tell. Lesson learned, don't dabble or make adjustments in settings you're not comfortable or familiar with.

oops :Q

i guess you are in too much of a hurry to exercise patience LEARNING first.

abyway, if you cant get back into BIOS, you're gonna have to reset your CMOS back to default. Probably by either removing the CMOS battery and/or using a jumper to reset back to default.

Do you still have your MB manual?

If so, (please) RTFM first; if not - got to your MB mfg's web site and RTFM off PDF . . . it will tell you how to reset to default.

After you are back to where you WERE then try my earlier suggestion:

i'd suggest using "search" and also "hanging out" in General Hardware and CPU/OverClocking . . .

after you have more "basics" you can ask more specific questions

You need to KNOW more

 

[HansGroenewold]

Apoppin,

Thanks, I do still have the manual and will check that out. You're right, I should have RTFM. I did the same damn thing I would have laughed at others for doing, no excuse and thanks for not being too brutal on me. You guys are great.

Sincerely,
Hans