e6600 upgrade for need for speed most wanted, is it worthy?

[chrone]

hey guys, just want to know: is it worthy to upgrade a pentium 4 2.4 prescott to core 2 duo e6600 in order to be able to play need for speed most smoother in 1024x768 resolution full detail (full FSAA & Texture filtering)?

here is my current spec.:
intel pentium 4 2.4ghz (fsb 533mhz, socket 478)
intel d865perl (no lan and raid)
2gb of corsair vs1gbddr400c3
his ati radeon x1600pro ddr2 256mb agp
wdc se 120gb
simbadda 500watt

future spec.:
intel core 2 duo e6600
asrock 775dual-vsta
other hardware is the same as in the current spec.

will it increase the fps of need for speed most wanted in 1024x768 resolution full detail? i found with fraps software that in 1024x768 i often got 15-25 fps. the keyboard response became slower, it's like lagging or so on, and then when i pushed the direction button (left or right) it responsed slow to the game, so that it became hard to play that game. but when i choose to set to lower resolution 800x600 full detail, the response was good, though sometimes there's kind of paused screen for less than one second and then the game back to smooth.*

or perhaps the bottleneck is not on the cpu, but the x1600pro cannot handle the 1024x768 resolution full detail in need for speed most wanted?

the main reason for me to upgrade is only to be able playing need for speed most wanted and future need for speed games in a smooth game play.

so, any opinion would be much appreciated!

*sorry for the grammar and vocab, i can't write english well..

 

[darkstar782]

Hm, I used to find that game 100% smooth at 1024x768 with a 6600GT and an Athlon 64 3200+ (2.0GHz single core).

The only thing I didnt have maxed was FSAA.

 

[chrone]

well, i enable all the FSAA and the Texture Filtering in the option video menu of NFSMW. the picture turns out to be awesome!

darkstar782: is 6600GT equivalent to x1600pro? if it is, then perhaps your cpu is much better than mine, and that's why the game becomes 100% smooth.

i've tried to disable the FSAA and the texture, and it went a bit smooth and the response was good.

so i wonder if i upgrade the cpu, would it be much better for gaming, especially need for speed most wanted?

 

[evilr00t]

how much ram do you have?

 

[chrone]

it's 2gb ddr400 running on ddr333 due to the cpu fsb is only 533mhz.

 

[3Ball]

I would buy these for around $250, and it would be cheaper and easier for you to be able to just swap out parts with ur current machine and then clean up your OS alittle bit then you should be good to go for that game, if you are looking to play other games besides that then I would go with conroe, but just for that game this will work great!


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102606

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819116215

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835185114

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835100007

Best,

3Ball

 

[ArbY]

For games, the best upgrade investment is usually with the video card.
In your case, the X1600 isn't a graphic power house by any stretch. It'll plow you through many games, but high detail settings, high resolutions, and other such visual features will bog it down quickly.

According to Newegg, the E6600 is $360.
In my opinion, those $360 will go a lot further if they are put into a video card, rather than the CPU upgrade. Again using Newegg as a reference, here is what I'd recommend:
Sapphire Radeon X1900XTX 512MB GDDR3 - Link ($373.99)

I'd actually recommend getting a straight ATI Radeon, rather than a card through a secondary vendor like Sapphire ... but they're out of stock at Newegg, so I'm using the Sapphire as a reference point.


ArbY

 

[chrone]

thank you 3Ball, based on your posting it seems for me to upgrade the vga card. but still didn't answer my real questioning, which is:

"is it worthy to upgrade my current cpu to e6600 by still using x1600pro vga and is able to play NFSMW with full detail (high setting enabled on all option except for the vsync) in 1024x768 resolution?"

if i had joinned this forum before i bought that x1600pro card, argh! i bought that vga 3 months ago after seeing apple mac specification using that one too, and i didn't plan to buy new vga in the near future.

 

[chrone]

Thank you for the information. It really helps.

Well, guess all of you were right and i have to be patient for awhile to gather the money first, then build a new system. my mobo can't support agp, and IMHO it's not worthy to spend $300+ to agp card.

have a nice sunday!

 

[3Ball]

oh well in that case, no its not worth it to upgrade to the 6600 as far as price to performance goes when only playing that game. here is an option though! You could put ur recently bought video card on ebay and get maybe $40 - $60 for it and then buy the setup I showed and that would help your overall computer and the game run much better, which would be well worth the upgrade and cost less than just the e6600 alone, but u will then need a new motherboard and ram and if u cant find a motherboard with an AGP slot then you will also need a new video card anyways...so this could turn into almost a whole system just by going with the e6600, which makes this not worth it unless you go with something similar to what I said...also this comes down to how bad u really want to run that game at those settings!

Best,

3Ball

 

[darkstar782]

I'm not 100% up on ATi cards other than the x1900s, but I'm pretty sure the x1600s are better than the 6600GT I mentioned, and the CPU I was comparing it with isnt that hot either.

FSAA however is a killer for all but the top Gfx cards, 8x FSAA (the max setting in NFSMW) is a Supersampling mode if I remember correctly.

This means, that for every pixel you see on the screen, the GPU has to draw 8 of them! Instead of 784k per frame, the card is rendering 6.29 million, this is like a 3072*2048 resolution, hence why it slows down!!

To answer your original question however, as you are talking about max FSAA settings killing your framerate, and it being smooth without FSAA, I think you'll find the Gfx card is the limiting factor and not the CPU.

 

[chrone]

all of your explaination cut down my will to spend money on core 2 duo right now just because of my curiosity on upgrading cpu in order to get a smoother game play.

thank you 3Ball, Arby, and darkstar782 for the helping hands.

 

[Newf]

thank you 3Ball, based on your posting it seems for me to upgrade the vga card. but still didn't answer my real questioning, which is:

"is it worthy to upgrade my current cpu to e6600 by still using x1600pro vga and is able to play NFSMW with full detail (high setting enabled on all option except for the vsync) in 1024x768 resolution?"

if i had joinned this forum before i bought that x1600pro card, argh! i bought that vga 3 months ago after seeing apple mac specification using that one too, and i didn't plan to buy new vga in the near future.

3Ball tried to steer you into a newer/better videocard because that's where your main bottleneck is. Yes, the P4 needs attention also, but it would not keep you from smooth-high detail gameplay. This is the old issue of a gamer with an AGP card who really needs better video but spending $300 on another AGP card makes no sense.
To answer your question directly: No. Keeping the x1600pro is what holds you back. An E6600 will not fix this, even using an AsRock AGP/Skt775 motherboard. Save up for a new system as you find a new home for your current one.

 

[ArbY]

You're very welcome.

 

[chrone]

thanks again Newf.

 

[PX7800GT]

Need For Speed Most Wanted is one Demanding Game...
ATI Cards Will Performe Much Better in NFS Most Wanted than nVidia Cards (Like Oblivion)...
but the point is you can get MUCH more frame rates if you drop some of it`s details with out loosing any eye candy graphic...
try using these settings :
1024x 768
set everything to max but :
Shadows to 1/2
world Detail to 2/3
road reflection to 2/3
AA to 1/3
i use these setting and now my frame rates improves to 50~80 from 30~70 (at max)
on the topic E6600 WILL boost your performance MUCH , but you should get a better video card if you want to play Need For Speed Carbon @ Max setting...
as the others said something like X1900XT or X1800XT will do the work...
enjoy the Race :twisted:
oh and one more thing is if really like Need For Speed Games, you may want to get Logitech MOMO racing...it will Double your Game Play...

 

[chrone]

thanks PX7800GT, i'll try your setting and post it later here with current system. finally a need for speed gamers

do you know when will the new need for speed carbon show up? is it like the underground? i wish it has the option to tweak all the car sparepart like it had in underground 2. i could make nissan 240sx became the fastest in drag race by tuning to the finest

 

[impreza]

if you upgrade you will also need to upgrade the ram and probably the gpu, but a faster cpu should make a diffrence.

 

[f1nal_0men]

thanks PX7800GT, i'll try your setting and post it later here with current system. finally a need for speed gamers

do you know when will the new need for speed carbon show up? is it like the underground? i wish it has the option to tweak all the car sparepart like it had in underground 2. i could make nissan 240sx became the fastest in drag race by tuning to the finest

NFS carbon should be out this year. As far as I know, it's going to be just like the rest of the latest NFS games (since underground 2). Free, open world, tunable cars, and drifting is coming back! WOO!

 

[angry_ducky]

Your CPU and video card are holding you back, but because you already have 2GB of DDR, then you should go with AMD socket 939. The boards are cheap, and so are the processors. You can get an Athlon 64 3000+ (which will blow away that Prescott crap) for like $65 on newegg. A good board will be about $70-100. Then you should upgrade your video card to a Geforce 7600GT, which will KILL the X1600Pro. eBay your current VGA.

Here are links to all the parts which I mentioned:

CPU: Athlon 64 3000+ Venice: $64

Motherboard: EPoX EP-9NPA7I: $60

Video card: BFG Geforce 7600GT: $114 after $30 MIR

 

[carpcmelee]

u will need ddr2 ram also

 

[f1nal_0men]

Your CPU and video card are holding you back, but because you already have 2GB of DDR, then you should go with AMD socket 939. The boards are cheap, and so are the processors. You can get an Athlon 64 3000+ (which will blow away that Prescott crap) for like $65 on newegg. A good board will be about $70-100. Then you should upgrade your video card to a Geforce 7600GT, which will KILL the X1600Pro. eBay your current VGA.

Here are links to all the parts which I mentioned:

CPU: Athlon 64 3000+ Venice: $64

Motherboard: EPoX EP-9NPA7I: $60

Video card: BFG Geforce 7600GT: $114 after $30 MIR

He isn't running a prescott. I don't remember the name of the core, but it's the second revision of the P4s, dubed as the "P4b"

Although, I agreed, but I would spend the extra 88$ and get dual core, if your going to upgrade, might as well make it worth while. Yes, the 3000+ is faster than the old P4b, but the x2 3800+ is faster yet. But you should make up your own mind, and here is some the benchmarks you need to do just that.

They don't have your exact processor, but your cpu would fit somewhere just underneath the P4 2.4 northwood.

Make sure you look through all the benchmarks, because when these benchmarks were concieved dual core wasn't really supported in games, and now they are alot more. But if look at the xvid conversion benchmark, the P4c 2.4 gets it actually done faster then the athlon 64 3000+. Back to what I said earlier - if your going to upgrade it, make it worthwhile. The x2 3800+ does the same benchmark in nearly half the time.

Also I would recommend THIS board instead, seeing as it's a higher quality brand name, and it's cheaper after MIR.

 

[chrone]

thanks Jumping_Jack. if i upgrade to e6600, will i again extra 10fps? just curious with the probability here, hehe

impreza, angry_ducky, CarPcMelee, F1nal_0men: at first place i'm planning to go on asrock 775dual-vsta which can make my x1600pro agp and ddr400 last longer 'till i have the money to update step by step in a first thing first order. i really want to get the feeling of that new ride, but it's kind of risky to a person like me who didn't make enough money if converted to US $.

after doing some searching in this forum and reading all the above statement, i kind of lost my will to upgrade to e6600 & asrock 775dual-vsta. i think next year is a year of full with new things on computer such as windows vista, new ddr3 chipset, the quad core processor, directx 10 vga card, and what else i don't know yet.

my temporary conclusion right now is to wait and see, and be satisfied enough of my current rig. i think it will be much better for me to wait for next year and save some money, perhaps around US $1,500, then see what are the option, and upgrade or build from scratch again.

thank you all for the input, i really appreciate it!

 

[f1nal_0men]

thanks Jumping_Jack. if i upgrade to e6600, will i again extra 10fps? just curious with the probability here, hehe

impreza, angry_ducky, CarPcMelee, F1nal_0men: at first place i'm planning to go on asrock 775dual-vsta which can make my x1600pro agp and ddr400 last longer 'till i have the money to update step by step in a first thing first order. i really want to get the feeling of that new ride, but it's kind of risky to a person like me who didn't make enough money if converted to US $.

after doing some searching in this forum and reading all the above statement, i kind of lost my will to upgrade to e6600 & asrock 775dual-vsta. i think next year is a year of full with new things on computer such as windows vista, new ddr3 chipset, the quad core processor, directx 10 vga card, and what else i don't know yet.

my temporary conclusion right now is to wait and see, and be satisfied enough of my current rig. i think it will be much better for me to wait for next year and save some money, perhaps around US $1,500, then see what are the option, and upgrade or build from scratch again.

thank you all for the input, i really appreciate it!

Good plan.

To CarPcMelee: He wont need DDR2 with socket 939.

 

[PX7800GT]

if i upgrade to e6600, will i again extra 10fps? Razz just curious with the probability here, hehe

yes ,i think you will gain more than 10fps...

my temporary conclusion right now is to wait and see, and be satisfied enough of my current rig. i think it will be much better for me to wait for next year and save some money, perhaps around US $1,500, then see what are the option, and upgrade or build from scratch again.

best idea 8)