Will my CPU bottleneck an upgrade?

[reyesc]

Hey guys, I've been lurking on these forums for a while, however I'm on the fence about a card upgrade and figured it's time to step in. I searched but couldn't find anything really pertaining to my problem.

To start off, I have an older system.

Sapphire Radeon 9600XT
Asus A7N8X-X
Oc'd 2500XP-M @ 2.2Ghz
generic psu (Future Power?) w/25A on +12v Rail
1 gig of pc3200 RAM (I think, it's been a while)

So i've had this system for years, I built originally on a 1700XP cpu, but upgraded to the 2500-M back when oc'ing those were a big deal (2.7ghz on air!! ).

Anyway, my 9600XT has been a champ, allowing me to play pretty much every game (granted on lowered settings) except games with sm3.0 requirements (meh).

Like I said I've been thinking about tossing a new video card in there, the baords 8x AGP, and so I was eyeing a ati 1650pro gddr3 card or something in the mid 7xxx's from nvidia (trying to stick around $100 US). But as I was browsing these forums I'm realizing my processor isn't nearly as up to date as I thought it was.

Anway, I was jsut wondering if anyone knew if my cpu would actually bottleneck any performance gained from a relatively newer card, or am I just being overcautious. This'll probably be the last upgrade this machine see's, just want to make sure everythigns fitting together. If the CPU were to bottleneck, what type of card would I be able to toss in here and get the msot out of it?

thanks in advance.

 

[utaka95]

I just gave away pretty much that exact setup - I wouldn't bother with a hotter card because on some games (not all) it will be a bottleneck. Man those NF2s with XP mobiles are some of the best, most reliable PC's I ever built.

 

[enforcerfx]

I don't think a X1650pro would hold your processor back at all. Maybe in some higher CPU consuming games such as SupCom and C&C. But otherwise, it would be fine.


I would consider a X1650XT and/or X1950GT in my opinion. And a powersupply too, here is a good model:



http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817104954


Good luck.

 

[purdueguy]

With your XP oc'd to 2.2GHz, you will dramatically get better framerates with a better video card.

This will answer all of your questions.

Bottom line, you can get an X1950Pro but you'll need a better PSU.

 

[kaotao]

If you're trying to keep it around $100, an X1650pro or a 7600GS would be a fine fit for your system, and both would be quite the upgrade from your 9600XT.

 

[burn-e86]

if i remember the -x on the mobo means its a budget version, I seem to remember having an A7V8-X which was a POS since it was not only a crap board but also built on the KT400 chipset which was crap.

 

[reyesc]

Thanks for the replies guys.

@utaka: yea I love this machine, my first custom box and it's lasted my through college perfectly fine.

@burn-e86: It is a -x which is the budget model, but it's built on the nforce2 chipset, it just doesn't support dual channel ram or whatever it is.

Thanks for the card recommendations guys, I was actually looking at this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102057

linked in another post. Seems to be the best deal I could find.

 

[burn-e86]

I just remembered that tom did a review on how older CPUs bottleneck performance
check it out below
using a XP2500+
http://tomshardware.co.uk/2007/01/10/agp-platform-analysis-uk/
using a AMD64 3400+
http://tomshardware.co.uk/2007/02/01/agp-platform-analysis_uk/

 

[reyesc]

a great read, thanks a ton