Will a vanilla 6800 be overkill for an XP chip

[globalcitizen]

I purchased an athlon 64 setup w/ a 6800 vanilla from Leadtek last year but unfortunately had to sell mobo+CPU. I still have the 6800 since I was planning to move to s939.

Unfortunately I will be going with an old 266 mhz FSB Athlon XP 2400+ since I am a bit short on money. Is the 6800 gonna be overkill for this or am I better off buying a 9800 Pro or lower?

 

[TGS]

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Though I'm not sure if you would be able to downgrade the card, and pickup a cpu/mb combo and not be forced to pick up a really low end card with the remaining funds.

Depending on how cheaply you can pick up a 9800 with an A64 rig you should do fairly well. At the time I ran a A64 3000+ with a 9700 pro. For pretty much everything at 1024x768 2xAA 4xAF with a little more on some games. Though the performance for the cost now would be pretty decent, seeing as how you could pick something up in the 97-9800 range very cheap. Though by going the AGP route you lock yourself out of a cheaper PCIE upgrade(if subsequent releases are only PCIE). If you picked up a low-mid PCIE card, you could save yourself the cost of a board for a PCIE upgrade later. If you don't have plans for much past a x800XT PE when they really start to come down, than grabbing an AGP board shouldn't be an issue.

 

[globalcitizen]

Originally posted by: TGS
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Though I'm not sure if you would be able to downgrade the card, and pickup a cpu/mb combo and not be forced to pick up a really low end card with the remaining funds.

Depending on how cheaply you can pick up a 9800 with an A64 rig you should do fairly well. At the time I ran a A64 3000+ with a 9700 pro. For pretty much everything at 1024x768 2xAA 4xAF with a little more on some games. Though the performance for the cost now would be pretty decent, seeing as how you could pick something up in the 97-9800 range very cheap. Though by going the AGP route you lock yourself out of a cheaper PCIE upgrade(if subsequent releases are only PCIE). If you picked up a low-mid PCIE card, you could save yourself the cost of a board for a PCIE upgrade later. If you don't have plans for much past a x800XT PE when they really start to come down, than grabbing an AGP board shouldn't be an issue.

Pls note that I am going with an Athlon XP setup not and Athlon 64

 

[Fern]

Just use the 6800. I've downclocked my rig to 2500+ speeds with my 6800GT and didn't notice any big performance hit in D3 FarCry etc.

While the 2400 runs at a slower FSB speed than the 2500, your card is also not as powerful as my GT.

If you're doing FPS, you want a card that's ahead of your CPU anyway.

Fern

 

[BobDaMenkey]

Nah you'll be fine. I've got an Barton 3000+ (333mhz bus) and I'm only a few % behind my friend who has the same videocard and ram but an A64 3200+.

 

[Spike]

I currently run a Athlon XP 3200+ with a 6800GT running at stock BFG speeds (370/1000). The card is a great one and my scores are almost identical to a friend running a A 64 3200+ (venice) @ 2.4ghz and a X800XL. We both have slightly over 5000 on 3Dmark 2005 and when playing BF 2 together our fps are withing 5 almost at all times.

Those old AXP's still have life left in them, enjoy it until it is truly eclipsed.

-spike

 

[Kogan]

I agree with all of these guys. I had an amd xp 2400+ system with a 6800nu and it was great. Upgraded to an amd64 2.7ghz, and damned if it goes the exact same speed at high resolutions as the XP Should have spent that extra $$ on a better video card rather than an amd64 if all I wanted was to play games.

 

[Dreamcat]

Just upgraded from a 9600pro to a 6800GT (oc'ed at 400/1100) ona Athlon XP 2.0ghz.
My FPS and 3dMark05 score are right up there with the A64 systems.
I thought I would be bottlenecked, but took the chance, and it was worth it!

 

[MX2]

I run a 6800 mated to an XP mobile 2400 and I all I see is higher performance

 

[globalcitizen]

Thanks guys. Looks like i will keep my 6800

 

[Susquehannock]

Yeah, the 6800 runs great in my Athlon / nForce2 system so you should be fine.

 

[Budarow]

Originally posted by: MX2times
I run a 6800 mated to an XP mobile 2400 and I all I see is higher performance

Same here...with a 2400+ Mobile and an upgrade to a X800XT PE from a 9800 Pro, I got a ~50% gain in FPS (46 fps with 9800 Pro:68 FPS with X800XTPE) in Doom 3 (timedemo demo1) on High Settings and resolution of 800x600.

I don't understand all the peeps putting so much emphasis into modest CPUs bottlenecking high end video cards? Sure, a very fast CPU+high end video card will provide more FPS, but as long as you've got a mean average 60+ FPS, you most likely won't have too many "laggy" moments while gaming. Works for me!

Hell...I upgraded the video card in my first PC (with a lowly Pentium II 350 MHz CPU) 3 times (Rage3dCharger with 4MB RAM<Orig. 3DFX Monster with 12MB RAM<TNT1 16MBer<Radeon7000 32MBer) and was able to play newer, more visually intense games as a result.