XP1600+, is 2600+ worth (for 3dgames) ?

[gryfon]

My current rig :

XP 1600+ (Palom) @ 1.5V
Shuttle AK35GTR v1.2
1x256MB Apacer PC2100
1x256MB Generic DDR PC2700 (hynix chip)
XFX Geforce 5900 SE @ stock
SB Audigy2 ZS Platinum Card + Platinum internal drive
Integral internal 56K modem
D-Link DFE-538TX Ethernet 10/100
Maxtor 60GB 7200 pata
Seagate 7200.7 120GB 8 MB cache pata
Asus 52X CDROM
Liteon 48x12x48 CDRW
Pioneer DVD-106
Enermax EG465P-VE 460W

just upgraded from gf2mx to gffx 5900, the thing is that i still get "heavy framerate" with several games unrealII, Ut2k3, halo, traod, using 1024 res, no aa no af. My 3dmark01 (if it's necessary) : 10500, 3dmark03 : 4300, aquamark 3.0 : 31.5 fps. Is it worth upgrading to XP2600+ ? can't go beyond that unless i can find a barton that can be unlocked, since my mobo is designed to run fsb 266, so no pci 1/5 and agp 2/5 multiplier, and no dual channel thing. Am i going to see *significant* performance increase ?

thanks for the advice

 

[Richdog]

I just looked your mobo up on Google and it seems it is limited to CPU's that use 266Mhz FSB, right? If so then upgrading to a 2600+ clocked at 2.08Ghz will give you a speed increase but not a massive one. 266Mhz FSB is a major bottleneck nowadays.

If you want to future-proof you're rig for a couple of years and do justice to that 5900 then you need to invest in a motherboard capable of handling 400Mhz FSB such as an ABIT NF7 2.0 Nforce2 which can be had for a ridiculously low price nowadays. Added to that, get yourself a cheap 1700+ or 1800+ AMD T-Bred which can be had cheaply second-hand too. Some value PC3200 RAM capable of 400Mhz FSB won't set you back much and will mean you can get that T-Bred to at least 10*200 which will give you a MASSIVE boost due to the increased system bandwidth. You're looking at about $120 max if you shop around.

Of course if you don't want to spend any money then disregard the above advice and as I said earlier, a 2600+ 266Mhz FSB WILL provide you with a speed increase, but quite a skimpy one.🙂

 

[gryfon]

thanks for replying, yup u're right, as in my original post, the mobo is limited to 266.
i already spent around $450 for soundcard, vga, and psu, and i don't think i can afford more, perhaps i should upgrade the platform instead than buying vga, but i'm getting impression that the axp is in it's limits before getting replaced by opteron and 64 bit amd platform right ? the soundcard and the psu should hold long enough, and also in my country, i won't get those equipments for $120, the mobo itself already costs $90🙁. a mid level 512 mb ddr400 is around $80. not to mention the cpu

*But* i do interested in what you're saying about axp 1700+ / 1800+ becoming 10*200, if i can get tbred unlocked (as most of it are, if i'm correct🙂 ) than i can get a cheap upgrade by buying it,then running it on 15x multiplier right ? saw your sig on 1800+, wow i'm on a turtle shell for a long time maybe. is there some mark/production code i should recognise/seek before deciding to buy an 1800+ / 1700 ? something to avoid maybe ? maybe dlt3c also ?

thanks

 

[robcy]

I went from a GF2TI to a 9700PRO with a 1600+ and the diffrence was extreme. I later went from the 1600+ to a 2600+ (266fsb), and the difference while not as large as the GPU change was still very noticeable. You will be gaining 733mhz (1400mhz to 2133mhz) which is not something to sneeze at. I would recomend it. If you ever upgrade to a NF2 motherboard you can always take that 2600+ and run it at 11X200 which is what I did when I first purchased the MB on my sig. This way you can upgrade in little by little.

 

[gryfon]

robcy, when you upgrade 1600 to 2600 do you use 266 or 333 for mem ? so u only upgrade the cpu and still using kt266a class mobo ?
also i don't want to be rude or questioning your statement, but *how much* is your definition for noticeable ? i need something not *abstract* for comparison and to make the decision.

thanks a lot

 

[robcy]

I used the 266fsb 2600+ (2133mhz) on a K7S5A v1.0 with 512mb DDR2100.

3Dmark01
1600+ GF2TI 5.7k
1600+ 9700PRO 10.9k
2600+ 9700PRO 15.1K

In game play is where you notice it most, while most of my Max FPS went up 5% to 10%, my average and minimums went up 20% to 25% in some cases more because the CPU will not be the bottleneck. In areas where you now dip below 30fps and get a quick slide show, you will zip right along. I play IL-2 FB with all to eye candy, and during heavy action it can dip into the low 40's, but it continues to be seemless, with the 1600+ that same area would dip in the 20's and while game play was possible, it was very fustrating. I later bought a NF2 MB and now I just bought Barton with DDR400 to continue to overclock, taking it step by step, or the wifey will kill me. 🙂

 

[gryfon]

that increase is not bad at all. thanks for sharing robcy

 

[BFG10K]

Most of today's games are very CPU limited so you'll see a large difference in your gaming performance with the faster CPU.

 

[gryfon]

i see.
If the game is cpu limited, will turning aa & af on my video card using current cpu could make the game fps drop again ? i'm asking this because on unrealII using aa 4x & af8x i'm getting around 50-26 fps with average 30-35 fps mostly. Without both the average is about 45-40 fps, is this what i should get ?

in 3dmark01 with aa4x af8x i get around 7900 @400/700

will buy the new cpu increase the performance when i turn on aa & af ? or it just stay that way, because the video card becomes the limiter ?

thanks

 

[robcy]

Your average FPS will go up no matter how you measure it. Puter are only as fast as its slowest component, and 1600+ can push a 8500/GF3 card to its max. Once you jump up into the 5800/5900/9700P/9800 series cards a 1600+ is not able to feed this card all the information it can handle. Hell, the 5950/9800ultras are still scaling good with AMD FX/P4 3.2 EE cpu's, and will scale higher with the next few new cpu's.

 

[BFG10K]

If the game is cpu limited, will turning aa & af on my video card using current cpu could make the game fps drop again ?

No. If you're CPU limited then increasing the detail settings usually results in a minimal performance hit because your CPU still can't keep your card fed fast enough.

i'm asking this because on unrealII using aa 4x & af8x i'm getting around 50-26 fps with average 30-35 fps mostly. Without both the average is about 45-40 fps, is this what i should get ?

If your performance is significantly decreasing when you increase the game's detail settings then the settings you're using are GPU limited and thus a faster GPU will help you.

However a CPU upgrade is still important as it increases your baseline performance overall and any game that isn't GPU limited will receive a benefit.