upgrade advice

[bartpieters]

I am looking into upgrading my system. I have read through some of the threads on related topic and I found some answers, but, naturally, I have some specific questions.

My current system is:
P4 2.6
1,5 Gb non-dual channel (recently updated from 512)
AGP Ati 9500 Pro 128 Mb
on board Realtek AC97

If I need to list more items, let me know.

From another thread I understood that 6800XT > 6800GS > 16000XT > 6600GT > 16000Pro > 6600LE and that there is a chance to OC GS to XT, Pro to XT and LE to GT but that there are no real guarantees in that respect.

I was wondering how the X800 and the X800 Pro and 850Pro figure into this series. Am I correct by saying that these, especially the X800 Pro, is quicker in raw power but uses a little older technology and therefore is missing some newer features? If so how does it work out: how much quicker and which exact features are missing and how important is the performance gain and the missing features.

This brings me to my next question. Since my system is a bit older, how much will be the net benefit of using a superspecced video card. Will I really notice a difference going from a 6600 LE to a X800 Pro or will the rest of the system prove to be too much of a bottle neck?

This brings me to two last questions. Firstly how power hungry are these cards and in relation to that how can I find out how much power my system can deliver and how much has been used already. This in order to figure out if and for which cards I’d need to upgrade the powersupply. Secondly, I heard I can free up some CPU usage by using a separate audio card and disabling the on board sound. Would this be adviseable or is the CPU load probably not the issue. Also how much extra power would this cost?

 

[Snorkius]

Your list is a bit off:

X850>X800XL~6800GT~6800GS~X800PRO (game, price, bundle dependent)> X800GTO> X1600XT> 6600GT> 6800XT*> x1600Pro.

*The 6800XT sucks as is, but the AGP version has a high chance of unlocking and turning into a 6800GS/GT for cheap, but this is still a very risky purchase so I don't recommend it to anyone but myself.

That's probably about right - I get confused with the whole alphabet soup sometimes.


If you check these benchmarks , you'll see that, while the CPU does matter, it doesn't matter as much as one might think, especially in heavy graphics games like FEAR. Overclocking your CPU to 3.0 or so Ghz would cure most any bottleneck I can think of. Anyway, a 7900/X1900 series would probably be too much for your computer, but you can't buy those for AGP boards anyway. All those other cards on the list above would see a huge performance jump and the difference between a X1600 Pro and X850 would be like night and day.

Older technology: yes, the Nvidia 6 series cards support SM 3, ATI's x8s don't. BUT - SM 3 takes too much power to use, power that those cards don't really have to spare. i.e. You can activate SM 3 and forget about FSAA and AF. I prefer FSAA.

Sound card: always a good idea. Sound is better, system is faster. But don't get a cheapo one for $10; that would hardly be a replacement (it could be worse, actually) . Someone here could probably recommend a good card.

 

[unsmart]

Well whats your budget,do you game and how long do you plan to have it. I'm a big fan of turning old systems it to htpc so x1600[avivo] would be my pic but if you play older games and plan on sell it go for fram rate.
I think x1xxx's will do better in vista, just a guess.

 

[bartpieters]

Thanks for the replies!

I plan on using this PC for another year of 2 after which I will give it to my brother or let my kids use it. The reason for upgrading is gaming, but not for older games: I plan on using for Oblivion for now and, if they keep their schedule, for LOTRO later this year. I got a nice HDTV so I won't be using it as HTPC.

I found a X1600 512Mb pro for 140, a 6800 GS 256 MB for 182 euro, a x800 GTO 256 MB for 178, a X800 pro 256 MB for 199 euro and X850 Pro 256 MB for 237 euro and one of those will probably be my pick. Because the X1600 was recommend for HTPC I will be decide between the last 4.

I am still wondering about the power usage though: how power hungry are these? Or are they not more power hungry than my current 9500 Pro?

How hard is OC-ing the CPU? As unusual as it may be on these forums, I never tried anything like that

 

[unsmart]

Those are all good cards, the x1600 is still a good deal if youre not it is too high rez. It does all the eye candy in the new games. Check the benches and see whats on top in your price range ,I think it's the 6800.
For power, if you're over 350w you should be fine. Most would recommend 450w if OCing.
Overclocking the cpu can be easy if the board is setup for it, if not, try clockgen http://www.cpuid.com/clockgen.php it's a windows base OCing app for mobo's with locked bois. You may need after market cooling if you plan on going very high you can check temps with speedfan http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php . Some more info on your setup may help, like mobo, ram and psu wattage and amps on the 12v rail. If you have a retail system it's not going to go very far.