W2k & AGP & AMD760

[Theeqq]

Hi!

How is the AGP/graphics performance with W2k and AMD760 chipset?

I am right now using an Asus K7V (KX133 VIA Chipset)
And I would like to know if the graphics will be faster in w2k with the amd 760 chipset.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

thanks
/
q

 

[MGMorden]

Your graphics scores are going to be much more affected by the card you actually have and it's drivers than the mobo chipset. Certain chipsets don't like certain hardware though, so you may have to check on compatibility, but overall no, you chipset is gonna make much of a difference.

 

[Theeqq]

I have a Geforce 2 Pro.
K7 850, 384mb pc133 @ 133 mhz (cas3)

and my scores are way below average, compared to a P3 800, w2k, geforce2 GTS 64.
(that is with Intel motherboard chipset)

It's like this, I would get around maybe 5300 3dmarks, and my friend with Intel p3 gets closer to 7-8000 ....

So I thought that maybe the AMD chipset is better than the VIA chipset I have now.

What do you think?

 

[MGMorden]

Do you have the Via 4-in-1 drivers installed? Try that.

 

[Brazen]

Your K7 is your bottleneck for 3D performance since you have a plenty powerful graphics card. You should upgrade to at least a Thunderbird processor system on a KT133, KT133A, or AMD760 chipset motherboard.

 

[Theeqq]

I have installed the AGP driver from via 4in1...

brazen: why do I get plenty of more scores in w98, and why does my friend who has 50mhz less, get more than me ? (using a slightly less powerful video card,)

thanks for the tips, but I think I have done everything in trying to get better performance in w2k.

I think, it's the agp drivers fault.
My main question was (although I realize now that I didn't state it clearly): is the AMD 760 AGP driver better optimized in w2k ?

 

[Brazen]

Sorry,

Did updating the 4-in-1 drivers bring your scores up to that of your friends?

I guess I should have asked: What processor do you have?

Graphics performance is affected by both your graphics card and your processor. Also, any sort of graphics benchmark will score higher in Win98 than in Win2k using the same hardware due to the nature of the OSes.

 

[Theeqq]

When I say I have installed AGP drivers, I meant, I have always had them installed.
I remember in the old days when the VIA agp drivers would crash if you had DIMM Interleaving enabled..
They are now stable, but I don't think they are optimized.
That's why I'm thinking of switching to the AMD 760 platform, I thought that AMD's drivers might be faster ?

 

[Brazen]

What processor are you currently running on? A K7 Athlon, right? A Pentium III at similar clock speeds is excpected to score slightly higher than a K7 Athlon. If you upgraded to a 1Ghz K7 Athlon (the cheapest, easiest solution), you should get better scores. You could upgrade to a similar clocked Thunderbird on a KT133 motherboard. You would get better scores with that.

If you have the money to blow, go ahead and get a 1.2Ghz Thunderbird, AMD760 motherboard, and DDR RAM. That would blow away your friends PIII setup, and at that point your graphics card would probably be a bottleneck for any higher performance.

Now, VIA has not had the best reputation with its busmaster drivers, but a Thunderbird on a KT133 motherboard, has been shown to perform equal if not better then a Pentium III at the same clock speeds.

 

[Brazen]

By the way, I would also suggest that, whatever you decide to do, stick with ASUS motherboards.

 

[Theeqq]

Okay. That is the case for win98, but are you sure it's the same for windows 2000 ?

I mean.... If I would install w98 on my computer, I would get higher scores than my friends p3.
But I hate win98, will never go back to that.

I have heard some bad things about the ASUS 760ddr motherboard, but I have always had asus in the past, so I will probably stick with it.

 

[Brazen]

If your friend is also running Win2k, you should have better scores while also running Win2k. Although, I have heard that Win2k has a problem with VIA chipsets, but SP1 may have fixed that since I have not heard anything on that for quite awhile.

From my personal experience: I have a Duron 700, overclocked to 900, on an ASUS A7V (KT133 chipset) with a Geforce2 MX card. The university that I work at has Gateway computers with PIII 866 on i815 chipsets with TNT2 graphics card. Granted this is a slightly lower-end graphics card but it is the best comparison I have. I am running Win2k, while the PIII systems are running Win98SE. I have never ran benchmarks on any of these computers, but just from using them, both productively and doing some fraggin', my system seems to run faster.

Really when you think about, you could actually build an AMD760 system and still spend less money than your friend spent on his PIII system. If you want to look up info on some AMD760 motherboards, try www.tomshardware.com they have a link right on the homepage to a AMD760 motherboard roundup. Personally, I have seen such better results from my ASUS than any other motherboard I've worked with, it will take something big to turn my preference away. Of course, I must admit, four years ago I felt the same way about Aopen.

 

[Brazen]

You should also be sure you have the latest BIOS and drivers for everything, but you probably already new that.

 

[Theeqq]

Thanks for all the tips.

I will save up money for a 760 rig I think.

and yeah, bios. I have newest

 

[Brazen]

Sweet. I hope I helped.

 

[Brazen]

. . . and good luck.