Will my Athlon 1600mhz (it's overclocked) be able to push a Radeon 9700?

[SickBeast]

I'm just curious. I notice that all the reviews have been done on P4 systems. Will I notice a big difference over the Radeon 8500 that I'm using now?

--dave.

 

[CelticDemolition]

ive been wondering the same thing.. you can see my sys specs below. im gonna wait a while to upgrade, but it may not be worth getting the 9700 if i have to swap out my mobo and cpu too, right? damn that athlon fsb bottleneck!

 

[BFG10K]

It depends entirely on what games you play at what settings you play them at.

 

[SickBeast]

i play at 1600x1200 and i'm into driving and fps games. i would want to be able to run doom 3. will my system do the job?

 

[CubicZirconia]

i would want to be able to run doom 3. will my system do the job?

Assuming the geforce 3 will run doom 3 at 30 fps like its supposed to, your system should do just fine. Whether it will run fine at 1600x1200 is another story though.

 

[BFG10K]

i would want to be able to run doom 3. will my system do the job?

I doubt a R300 or NV30 will be able run Doom3 at 1600 x 1200.

With regards to your main question, you will notice a big difference in just about every game you play if you upgrade your 8500 to a 9700 and you play at 1600 x 1200.

 

[SickBeast]

i've heard that doom 3 will use upwards of 80mb of textures...doesn't that rule out the gf3 and other 64mb cards? i think i'm just going to wait for a few months then buy a r9700 when the price cools off a bit. thanks for the insight guys.

--dave.

 

[Ryan abandoned account]

How many forums did you post this question at?

 

[SickBeast]

just this one...why do you ask?

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Doom 3 will be designed to run on systems of a wide variety of specifications... from 600MHz? to 2.53GHz, Doom 3 has to be playable on slower systems otherwise id wont get the desired sales, either that or high end system sales will skyrocket

Depending upon the detail settings and the resolutoin you play the game at, a wide variety of video cards will be supported for the game I am sure. Needing at least a GeForce 3 seems like an absurd requirement for id to make, and 30fps a GeForce 3 will be able to deliver is probably at high resolutions and high detail.

I doubt a R300 or NV30 will be able run Doom3 at 1600 x 1200.

I think the R300 or NV30 will be able to run Doom3 at 1600x1200, at playable framerates as well. Anand tested a pre-production Radeon 9700 with drivers I am sure aren't the best for the board, and UT 2003 was playable (keyword playable) at 1600x1200 with 4x FSAA enabled. Keep in mind that 4x FSAA is a killer on performance as opposed to 2x or none at all. Anand also commented that UT 2003 was silky smooth at 4X FSAA with the res notched back to 1280x1024...

With that in mind... Doom3 is probably a harder hit on system performance than UT 2003, but UT2003 was playable @ 1600x1200 and 4x FSAA on the 9700. I seriously doubt Doom3 @ 1600x1200 and no FSAA is a harder hit on system performance than that...

The 9700 won't show a huge difference over an 8500 unless you are playing the newest games at the highest resolutions and have FSAA and/or Anisotropic filtering cranked up. A 1600MHz CPU is more than enough especially if you plan on playing that games a the highest resolutions where games hit a bottle-neck at the GPU and not the CPU. Get a faster CPU if you want eleventy-billion fps at 640x480...

 

[BFG10K]

i've heard that doom 3 will use upwards of 80mb of textures

Correct.

doesn't that rule out the gf3 and other 64mb cards?

No, enabling texture compression, lowering the resolution, lowering the texture detail and using 16 bit colour will help to lower texture memory requirements. Of course for a full experience you'll need a 128 MB card as a minimum with a 256 MB card being the ideal situation for very high resolution and detail settings.

I think the R300 or NV30 will be able to run Doom3 at 1600x1200, at playable framerates as well.

Maybe at 16 bit colour with everything on the lowest settings. At the highest settings you can completely forget about it, even if you give FSAA and anisotropic filtering a miss.