What's the MINIMUM CPU that will take Advantage of the Next Gen Videocards?

[apoppin]

Like (just about) everyone else here, I am seriously considering a Radeon 9700 or a NV30.

Obviously a PIII 500Mhz CPU will be a serious bottleneck for the videocard. Where is the "break-even" point? I guess from reading the videocard/CPU scaling articles, even 1Ghz is considered "too slow" nowadays.

What's an entry-level CPU and platform that will really use these next gen Video cards? 1.2Ghz? 1.5Ghz? Faster?

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: apoppin
Like (just about) everyone else here, I am seriously considering a Radeon 9700 or a NV30.

Obviously a PIII 500Mhz CPU will be a serious bottleneck for the videocard. Where is the "break-even" point? I guess from reading the videocard/CPU scaling articles, even 1Ghz is considered "too slow" nowadays.

What's an entry-level CPU and platform that will really use these next gen Video cards? 1.2Ghz? 1.5Ghz? Faster?

I'd say 2.0 would be the minimum I'd personally want to match with these cards. And 2.0 P4s are rapidly becoming the entry level chip.

 

[apoppin]

We have one vote for 2.0 Ghz. Thanks.

I of course, have motives in wanting to know . . . I just upgraded my 1.2Ghz Tualatin Celeron (100FSB) to 1.5Ghz (125FSB) by buying a cheap MB that allowed for O/C'ing. According to the benchmarks, it is now more or less equivalent to a 1800Mhz P4/XP 1800 or 1.4Ghz Athlon (being especially held back by its SDRAM platform).

I am going to get a next gen video anyway in hopes of taking full advantage of it with a complete platform upgrade (soon) . . . I know that my 3d gaming performance will be better than with my current Radeon 7200 (1st Gen Radeon/64MB DDR).

How badly will my system bottleneck this videocard? How do I shift more of the "work" to the GPU and away from the CPU? Higher resolution and FSAA enabled?

 

[bjc112]

yes higher res. and FSAA is one way to pull all the strees from the CPU/GPU to just the GPU....

But as for my vote...

I think you could actually be saying 2.4.ghz, that's when you see those cards really scale...

 

[apoppin]

2.4 Ouch!

Well, how much of a "bottleneck" would a 1.5Ghz CPU be - compared with a 3.0Ghz CPU?
(I guess I'll find out - but I'd like a guesstimate)

What kind of CPU speed platform were these GPUs designed to work best with? Certainly the ATI and Nvidia engineers had "something" pretty specific in mind(?)

 

[Wolfsraider]

<---with a gleam in his eye he whispers go for it....but upgrade soon.....it'll be the perfect excuse

but honey i didn't know the card was such a monster it is sucking the life right out of my processor, can't you see how it keeps crashing(silently ugraded the nvidia drivers the night before )

two weeks later our hero after trying every thing to get the problem fixed upgrades to a p-4 2.26 533 fsb or amd 2200+and woot the processor is no longer sucking it down

er not that i would do something like this i mean ...

seriously who knows what the best would be for the card its new and therefore unless a few guinnea pigs try it at different level systems we may never know

I just upgraded my 1.2Ghz Tualatin Celeron (100FSB) to 1.5Ghz (125FSB) by buying a cheap MB that allowed for O/C'ing. According to the benchmarks, it is now more or less equivalent to a 1800Mhz P4/XP 1800 or 1.4Ghz Athlon (being especially held back by its SDRAM platform

sdram and celeron in my book these are going to hurt you but the question is how badly i mean the card is a big upgrade and if you are really planning on upgrading again then yes i'd say go for it it sure can't hurt except for maybe your wallet and the bonus is the fpu side.i think it would be comparable to a ti4600 in terms of bottleneck at least you may find benchmarks that might clue you in better

ok i am also looking at this card too but i have a p-4 1.5 and 256 rdram and gforcemx100/200 64mb card lol

my other system is a 2.4 533 fsb with 512 rdram and an ati aiw wonder radeon lol yes an upgrade is definately due

edit for missing words sp?

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Wolfsraider
<---with a gleam in his eye he whispers go for it....but upgrade soon.....it'll be the perfect excuse

but honey i didn't know the card was such a monster it is sucking the life right out of my processor, can't you see how it keeps crashing(silently ugraded the nvidia drivers the night before )

two weeks later our hero after trying every thing to get the problem fixed upgrades to a p-4 2.26 533 fsb or amd 2200+and woot the processor is no longer sucking it down

er not that i would do something like this i mean ...



sdram and celeron in my book these are going to hurt you but the question is how badly i mean the card is a big upgrade and if you are really planning on upgrading again then yes i'd say go for it it sure can't hurt except for maybe your wallet and the bonus is the fpu side.i think it would be comparable to a ti4600 in terms of bottleneck at least you may find benchmarks that might clue you in better

ok i am also looking at this card too but i have a p-4 1.5 and 256 rdram and gforcemx100/200 64mb card lol

my other system is a 2.4 533 fsb with 512 rdram and an ati aiw wonder radeon lol yes an upgrade is definately due

Thanks for the humor!

And the serious part of the reply. Really, the question is "How Badly"?

Fortunately (or unfortunately), I have no "honey" to answer to (just my CC and wallet). As everyone here who knows me is aware, I am really cheap but still like good performance. Upgrading my current rig from 1.2 to 1.5Ghz was VERY noticeable (the Tually Celeron is crippled at 100FSB) and it cost me less than $30.

My current Radeon 7200 is sufficient for current games but is beginning to show it's age. Of course, I will wait for the price drop on the R9700 and the early buyer "guinea pigs" to work out the earliest driver flaws.

The articles on CPU scaling with fast GPUs deal mostly with 1.0Ghz CPUs. Mine is more or less equivalent to a 1.8Ghz P4. I KNOW I will need to upgrade but want to wait for 1) the P4 die shrink and the 2) P4 price drop - and MAYBE 3) DDRII MBs (or dual channel DDR) or even 4) Hammer(!).

The reason I want to upgrade the GPU first, is that I firmly believe it will be sufficient for games all throughout 2003 - despite my "slow" CPU (currently). But How Badly will my current CPU hold back my new GPU?

 

[BD2003]

It isnt like back in the days where everyone ran at 640x480 and nothing like higher res or FSAA or AF to suck away extra performance.

You can play most of todays games at 60fps with a Geforce1, if you run at low res.

So basically, more or less, new video cards will net you high res, more features, etc, but your speed will always be limited by the CPU.

At 1.5ghz, I wouldnt worry.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: BD2003


At 1.5ghz, I wouldnt worry.

Thanks, I am not overly worried . . . I am looking forward to FSAA and decent frame rates. And I will upgrade my CPU (eventually, if not sooner).

However, what do you think the ATI and Nvidia engineers are aiming for as a CPU platform for their next gen videocards? Is there any way to be reasonably certain as to "suggested minimum" CPU speed for the R300 or NV30?

 

[DaveSimmons]

Based on track records it will be early next year before either chipset has good, stable drivers (since it seems to take ATI a few extra months). So I'd say skip on upgrading for now, if you wait until Feb 2003 you can get 2.8+ GHz for today's 2.4 price and get the Radeon $50-100 cheaper than intro price.

Pay off any credit card debt and build up your savings while you wait. Play something your current setup handles well, and pick up some games you've missed out of the bargain bin.

 

[apoppin]

Pay off any credit card debt and build up your savings while you wait. Play something your current setup handles well, and pick up some games you've missed out of the bargain bin.

How do you know about my credit card debt?
That's what I AM doing . . . always good advice. I am on Deus Ex and Thief II right now (sad that I lost my Deus Ex "saved games" when I changed MBs/reformatted).

Interestingly, this showed up at Toms:
Interview With Tim Willis Of id Software , Lead Designer / Program Manager for Doom III

Doom III is targeted mainly at the GeForce 3 series cards and the Radeon 8500 cards. Other cards will be able to run the software, but of course the graphics will be scaled down from those cards on the target platform.

Due to the complex nature of the graphics fidelity that we are trying to present in Doom III, the game is more video card dependent than CPU dependent.

80MB textures are not uncommon for Doom III.

Soooo, it looks like the (soon-to-be even cheaper) Radeon 8500 128MB card will be sufficient for NEXT year's games also.

 

[N8Magic]

Originally posted by: apoppin
Soooo, it looks like the (soon-to-be even cheaper) Radeon 8500 128MB card will be sufficient for NEXT year's games also.

Exactly.

As attractive as the performance stats of the 9700 or NV30 are, i'm going to grab a 128MB 8500 for the time being. Why pay $399.00 for a video card when game developers are still catching up with the technology from the previous generation of cards?

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: N8Magic

Originally posted by: apoppin
Soooo, it looks like the (soon-to-be even cheaper) Radeon 8500 128MB card will be sufficient for NEXT year's games also.

Exactly.

As attractive as the performance stats of the 9700 or NV30 are, i'm going to grab a 128MB 8500 for the time being. Why pay $399.00 for a video card when game developers are still catching up with the technology from the previous generation of cards?

Thank-you . . . it looks like I am finally catching on. And I feel hundreds of dollars less poor. (plus, I won't have even think about whether my video card will be "held-back" by my CPU)

 

[Acanthus]

i would honestly say these cards are gonna be CPU limited even by the fastest CPU until DX9 games come out that will actually tax the cards. These things eat 3dmark 2K1 alive (cant wait for 2K3), and scale extremely well with CPU, indicating its CPU limited. There is a Powercolor Radeon 9700 without overclocking the card at the top of the charts for 3Dmark 2001, it was using a 3.1ghz overclocked rambus system, but the card was at stock speeds (why it isnt OCed i dont know)

 

[BFG10K]

It depends entirely on what games you play and at what settings you use. However a lot of today's games are extremely CPU dependent so a fast processor will always help, even at high detail levels.

My absolute minimum recommendation would have to be a DDR (or RDRAM system) paired with a Palomino (1600XP+) or Northwood processor (1.6 GHz) or faster. Buy the fastest processor you can afford because if you don't you might be left scratching your head as to why your shiny new R300/NV30 isn't performing as good as you'd expect it to.

 

[apoppin]

Thr final words on this subject come from Anand's own Radeon 9700Pro review (page22):

Before the 933MHz mark, the Ti 4600 is actually faster than the Radeon 9700 Pro; slower PCs should definitely not be equipped with the Radeon 9700 Pro, you would not be getting your money's worth. It isn't really until you reach the 1.33 - 1.40GHz mark that the 9700 Pro really begins to pull away.

Just made it.

IF I get a 9700.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: apoppin
Thr final words on this subject come from Anand's own Radeon 9700Pro review (page22):

Before the 933MHz mark, the Ti 4600 is actually faster than the Radeon 9700 Pro; slower PCs should definitely not be equipped with the Radeon 9700 Pro, you would not be getting your money's worth. It isn't really until you reach the 1.33 - 1.40GHz mark that the 9700 Pro really begins to pull away.

Just made it.

IF I get a 9700.

those are athlon XP DDR GHz too.

 

[apoppin]

Close enough for rock and roll.

And an "incentive" to upgrade the CPU platform. Tom's Hardware showed much the same thing even using a PIII 800Mhz (NOT recommended for the 9700).