ASUS a7v600
Athlon XP 2500 Barton
1.5 gig mushkin 3200 ram in 333 mode (cause mobo crashes otherwise)
Geforce 5900XT
400 watt ps
Question is I play alot of DAOC, runs fine in 1280x1024, tried to play COD2 fps is ehhh, I wanted to play GUN, the new D&D online game or new warhammer, what should i do first?
1. Was thinking a decent 8x AGP card for while, which one? this is the cheapest way to go $250ish
2. Other choice- Mobo $100
Athlon XP venice or similar $200
PCIE-16 vid card $cheap 200
512 more ram $40
3. Mobo $100
Keep same Barton processor
7800gt $300
512 more ram $40
Was thinking #1 but would the rest of the system slow down the new vid card (6800gs?) and make the change not worth it? Concerned with buying an AGP now and upgrading rest on computer mebe fall 06 and having to buy another vid card. Which mobo for cheap?
There is no need for more memory. The video card is the bottleneck in your system.
And you can't keep the CPU if you are upgrading to a PCI Express motherboard since there is no Socket A motherboard with PCI Express.
There is only two possible upgrades for your system:
1. Buy a new graphics card. Like a X850XT for a bit under $300.
2. Buy a new PCI Express motherboard, an AMD64, and a nice graphics card (like the 7800GT).
The first upgrade will be alot cheaper. But the second one is more future safe. If you do the first upgrade you have to buy a completely new system within a couple of years.
There is no need for more memory. The video card is the bottleneck in your system.
Not necessarily, the CPU and memory ALSO going to be a bottlenecks in some games.
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There is only two possible upgrades for your system:
1. Buy a new graphics card. Like a X850XT for a bit under $300.
2. Buy a new PCI Express motherboard, an AMD64, and a nice graphics card (like the 7800GT).
The first upgrade will be alot cheaper. But the second one is more future safe. If you do the first upgrade you have to buy a completely new system within a couple of years.
You forgot option 3, the FAR better option of him buying for now IMO. Get an X800GTO or GF6800GS, and then move with that capable card to a MoBo like the Uli which has all the bells and whistle of the AMD64 systems, but with BOTH AGP + PCIe;
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813157081
Thus having a easier/slower tansition to the newer technology, and still having the best of both worlds without feeling you're limiting your options by getting something good for right now.
What games uses more than 1.5GB of memory at the resolutions his 5900 can handle? Answer: None.
No, the answer is you're an idjit who doesn't bother to think before posting, or do you just play one for everyone else's entertainment?
Memory size isn't the only considerartion DumbA$$, speed and width matter just as much if not more. Would've thought you'd learned that already in a Graphics forum, or do you believe that a 256MB MX4000 beats a 128MB GF6600GT?
Single channel DDR333 memory WILL be a HUGE drawback for the latest games regardless of how large it is. And we're not just talking about his FX5900, but what he's replacing it with and THAT's where it becomes an even greater issue. Since the limitation will mean little benifit from the switch.
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And the CPU isn't that important when it comes to high-end gaming. Today it's all about having a good graphics card.
Seriously you don't know WTF you're talking about. Todays games are just as CPU limited as they ever were. Some games more VPU limited, some more system limited. But when dealing with a truely slow CPU like the XP2500+ it has a big impact on the overall performance, especially trying to get the most out of that new card.
If you crank the settings high enough then they all perform equally poorly because of the VPU restriction but we're talking about low FPS anyways which may be where you're system limited anyways thereby making the move from an FX5900XT to X800XT or X800XT to GF7800GT nearly pointless. What people should be most interested in is max playable, and that would be far lower with a sluggish CPU and underperforming memory. And anything that relies on system resources will simply make things worse.
So the Guru, eh?
Is that like some kind of play on words, like how little john isn't litte?
After reading a few of your posts in the forum you're far from being a Guru of anything. Should actually have them ban the name, because you have to EARN the title Guru, not just give it to yourself.
No, the answer is you're an idjit who doesn't bother to think before posting, or do you just play one for everyone else's entertainment?
Memory size isn't the only considerartion DumbA$$, speed and width matter just as much if not more. Would've thought you'd learned that already in a Graphics forum, or do you believe that a 256MB MX4000 beats a 128MB GF6600GT?
Ad hominem. You lost the argumentation before it even begun. Where did you get your education?
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Single channel DDR333 memory WILL be a HUGE drawback for the latest games regardless of how large it is. And we're not just talking about his FX5900, but what he's replacing it with and THAT's where it becomes an even greater issue. Since the limitation will mean little benifit from the switch.
The difference is not HUGE. There might be a notable difference but that is for games that are CPU demanding.
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Seriously you don't know WTF you're talking about. Todays games are just as CPU limited as they ever were. Some games more VPU limited, some more system limited. But when dealing with a truely slow CPU like the XP2500+ it has a big impact on the overall performance, especially trying to get the most out of that new card.
Battlefield 2 http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/c [...] mes_3.html This test uses a low graphical detail compared to the graphics card. None plays at 200FPS, what you do is increase the graphical detail. And when you do the CPU will become less important. But I can agree with you that BF2 uses more CPU power than other games. But still if you take a look at this chart: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/c [...] es2_3.html The game is playable with all CPUs.
So, in this case the game doesn’t really care what CPU is installed in your system, so F.E.A.R. should definitely be excluded from the list of CPU dependent games of today.
In the previous article we said that the CPU speed affects the gaming performance in Quake 4 quite tangibly. This time we are about to take these words back. Once we increased the screen resolution and set the graphics quality to the maximum all high-end and mainstream CPUs started running equally fast.
If you crank the settings high enough then they all perform equally poorly because of the VPU restriction but we're talking about low FPS anyways which may be where you're system limited anyways thereby making the move from an FX5900XT to X800XT or X800XT to GF7800GT nearly pointless. What people should be most interested in is max playable, and that would be far lower with a sluggish CPU and underperforming memory. And anything that relies on system resources will simply make things worse.
If you take a look at the games above there are two games (Serious Sam 2 and Half-Life 2) where the CPU made a difference for the user. But both these games are quite easy to run. In the other 4 games the CPU made no difference in the users experence. And that is what counts.
When you increase graphical detail you move the strain from the CPU to the GPU so when you are running high graphical detal the CPU doesn't matter which you can see in the F.E.A.R benchmark above.
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So the Guru, eh?
Is that like some kind of play on words, like how little john isn't litte?
After reading a few of your posts in the forum you're far from being a Guru of anything. Should actually have them ban the name, because you have to EARN the title Guru, not just give it to yourself.
You are acting like a kid. Please grow up. If you are saying my posts are wrong you could at least specify where they are and what is wrong.
Your Cheapest and most rewarding option is to do the motherboard,video card,CPU and the new Power supply. You could re use the existing Mushkin 2X512 and keep out the 3rd to run dual channel. Find a good affordable and stable board(Biostar T-Force 4 Ultra or Asus A8V-E SE good examples). Whatever your bugdet can afford for an Atholon 64 Socket 939. For Video either 256mb version of the 6600gt or an X800GTO or GTO2 in PCI-E form. I say the power supply because you are using a ATX 1.0 20 pin Power Supply and most newer boards Require ATX 2.0 and above 24 pin Power Supplies. You could invest in just the Video card but AGP is dead. I hope this is the kind of info you are looking for
Ad hominem. You lost the argumentation before it even begun. Where did you get your education?
Only and idiot would post a definition for his argument and then misspell his next phrase.
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The difference is not HUGE. There might be a notable difference but that is for games that are CPU demanding.
That's actually across the board. Single channel DDR333 would matter more than 512MB vs 1+GB.
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I was exaggerating a bit but I still believe a good graphics card is much more important than a CPU.
But it's not an either/or proposition, his upgrade is not done in a vacum, it relies on all the other aspect of the system.
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But here you are a wrong.
Battlefield 2 http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/c [...] mes_3.html This test uses a low graphical detail compared to the graphics card. None plays at 200FPS, what you do is increase the graphical detail. And when you do the CPU will become less important.
However once again that's not irrelvant to the point, since they are talking about it's affect alone, and it's still above minimal, what it will do is lock performance at a certain level. It's not a question of whether it limits you at low settings or not, but that it limits you BEFORE the VPU does. If you can play @ 1600x1200 with an FXseries CPU but the XP2500+ always maxes out at 1280x1024, then it's a limiting factor, and that's the point.
You say Quake4 isn't CPU demanding but the difference between an Semp2800+ and an AMD64 939 3200+ is 12fps/~20% which is still significant enough considering that many graphics cards don't post that large a difference either. As for FEAR they've reached the MAX for the GF7800GT, not the system limitation, therefore you don't see the same effect which is obviously there based on the lower reslution, once again it's finding the happy medium.
Even their lowest CPU is far from a single channel DDR333 XP2500+, so you can expect the low points to be much lower. Even he difference between the 2 AMD3200+ procs showed almost 5 fps difference, so despite your quoting their statement of minimal difference, it's still large enough to be noteworthy. And with something like COD2 comparing non-playable frames is as pointless as saying a low-end graphics card is better than it's compeittior because it gets 4fps @ 1920x1440 instead of the 4 fps of the competitor. You seems to be missing the concept of system limitation. If you drive the graphics low enough the system isn't the limitation anymore regardless of setup. But we're once again talking about most playable, not 30fps. You also seem to forget that it's minimum FPS that would be the biggest factor not, avg.
Once again the CPU in question here is even less than the lowest CPU tested and even Xbit in their conclusion said that the truely low end were indeed a factor;
The low-end processors is a totally different story. Here we can actually see that the CPU speed does affect the fps rate in many latest gaming titles.
Even their Caveat about FEAR simply follows what I said before, that some are and some aren't.
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If you take a look at the games above there is two games (Serious Sam 2 and Half-Life 2) where the CPU made a difference for the user. In the other 4 games the CPU made no difference in the users experence. And that is what counts.
Actually no, only 1 game made no difference, everything else was affected, by between 15-30% and that's more than the difference between competing VPUs in most games.
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When you increase graphical detail you move the strain from the CPU to the GPU so when you are running high graphical detal the CPU doesn't matter which you can see in the F.E.A.R benchmark above.
Only when you move BEYOND the point where the system is the limiting factor. showing a point at which everything plays at 40FPS doesn't show anything other than that setting is above the capability of the graphics card to maintain playable framerates, not that the CPU is totally uninvolved. And like I said, one of the few whose impact is limited.
You said NONE, I proved most are influenced. You want to provide something more, that's fine, but right now I proved my point, and you haven't.
Only and idiot would post a definition for his argument and then misspell his next phrase.
"Only and idiot" ? seems like I'm not the only one misspelling. And by the way. English is my tertiary language. Try and write something in Swedish or Norweigan...
And you did an Ad hominem again. Don't they have education in Canada?
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That's actually across the board. Single channel DDR333 would matter more than 512MB vs 1+GB.
No It wouldn't If I lower the memory speed to DDR333 on my motherboard the difference is hardly noticable but If I remove 512MB DDR all games will start to chop. Try it for yourself.
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You say Quake4 isn't CPU demanding but the difference between an Semp2800+ and an AMD64 939 3200+ is 12fps/~20% which is still significant enough considering that many graphics cards don't post that large a difference either.
And with something like COD2 comparing non-playable frames is as pointless as saying a low-end graphics card is better than it's compeittior because it gets 4fps @ 1920x1440 instead of the 4 fps of the competitor.
If you lower the graphic detail a little bit from the ones used in the test it will be playable. 35FPS is almost playable. But it really depends on the game some games have a pretty stable FPS while others have FPS drops as soon as you enter a larg area.
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Actually no, only 1 game made no difference, everything else was affected, by between 15-30% and that's more than the difference between competing VPUs in most games.
Only when you move BEYOND the point where the system is the limiting factor. showing a point at which everything plays at 40FPS doesn't show anything other than that setting is above the capability of the graphics card to maintain playable framerates, not that the CPU is totally uninvolved. And like I said, one of the few whose impact is limited.
You said NONE, I proved most are influenced. You want to provide something more, that's fine, but right now I proved my point, and you haven't.
Well I said I exaggerated. And if you read the second test you linked to they said several games where NOT CPU DEMANDING.
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Whopee, now go run to momma, as if someone cares!
Well I'm sorry for you that you can't act more mature. How old are you anyway?
Ja, men halften amerikan och bor i kalifornien. Jag bodde i stockholm i ett par ar.
Hur är det därborta? Är det lätt att få jobb? Är folk trevligare än i "Det kalla Sverige"?
Okay, the Great Grape Ape is the real butthead in this thread, but you guys should seriously take your personal conversation in Swedish to private messages. As a fluent speaker of German, I know how irritated people get when I start using a foreign language in an English language forum. Or are you just running up your post count?
To add something useful to my post besides a reprimand for forum abusers:
