X1900XT help with eehhh (Pt2)

My X1950PRO does way better than that... but that goes with my best guess so far.. your CPU is too slow.. I feed my RV570 with an X2 4600+ EE and I feed that with 2GB of DDR2 800

The X1950 PRO would have an agvantage over it for sure, but if the maximum framerates are being limited by your 1.6 Ghz Sempron... you might not see a difference.

I benched a bunch of games with an Athlon XP 2500+ and some games were very much bottlenecked by the Athlon XP:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/0 [...] -analysis/

FEAR was definitely bottlenecked on an Athlon XP 2500+. Oblivion showed gains with the X1950 PRO on that CPU, but your CPU is even slower and might be bottlenecking that as well.

As for Crysis... well, It's not even working for you, but that's the most difficult-to-run game ever made. Even a top end system can't run it at full detail, I'm not surprised you're having some troubles with that one...

It's pretty rare that insufficient power will cause poor framerates; it'll usually cause crashing.

You can see from those benchmarks on an Athlon XP 2500+ that FEAR at least will probably run the same on a 7600 GT or X1950 PRO.

Granted his Athlon64-based Sempron should be a bit faster than an Athlon XP in many cases, but it might still show some bottlenecking with it's dismal cache of 128k, compared to the Athlon XP 2500+'s 512k cache...

I'm voting for CPU bottleneck on this one. Definitely try to find a faster socket 754 CPU for that board, and a true Athlon 64 instead of a Sempron. It should make a world of difference, and you can probably find 'em cheap on ebay.

A socket 754 Athlon64 3000+ to 3400+ or faster would be nice, that'd be alot faster than your sempron... assuming you could get it cheap enough to make it worth your while.

The Model of my psu is
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817159062

Ppl on newegg are saying it runs great on a x1950xt even. so i dont think its the powersupply.

please don't insult other PSU's by claiming that is a psu, you'll hurt their feelings.

LOL Stranger, couldn't have said it better myself!

Sean, calm down buddy. Snapping at people isn't going to get you any help. He is right, that is a pretty bad PSU. First, never listen to what the "reviews" on newegg say. Lots of idiots/people buy stuff from them, and haven't a clue as to what they should have done. If you do believe them, why did you buy that one, as the review summary is almost even? (just as many people hated it as liked it, 25%.)

That psu can be underpowered. While there is almost 32A on the 12V rail, that is assuming the 3.3V and 5V aren't drawing much. Notice that all three rails together can only draw 475.5W, and the 3.3V and 5V rails can take as much as 275 of that! That leaves a meager 200W for the 12V rail, just under 17A. There is no way that will power a x1950. The last problem with that PSU is that coolmax isn't known for making quality parts. Your issue could be dirty power, or some other such thing.

You said you already ran cleaner pro, so its probably not caused by Nvidia crap hanging around. Looking at your PSU, I'm getting more convinced thats the problem. Your lack of CPU power and low memory amounts will prevent your x1900XT from running as fast as it could, but insufficient power is probably the reason why its slower then your 7600GT. Try using speedfan or pc probe to make sure your rails are near what they are supposed to be. See if anyone of your friends have a better PSU, barrow it to see if that is the problem.

LOL, read this then tell me you still want to get an Apevia PSU.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/arti [...] VzaWFzdA==

Sorry, but that Apevia isn't any better then the unit you already have. You said you had a $60 budget, lets get something half way decent. Try this one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817104954

The 12V rail can supply a max of 29A. (The x1950 calls for a PSU that can supply 30A, but you'd be fine with this one.) The 3.3V and 5V can take up to 150W of the 450W available. This leaves you with a minimum of 25A on the 12V rail, which would probably still be enough. Its a little over your budget at $63 counting shipping, though there is a $5 MIR which would bring it down to $58. If you can swing a large rebate, take a look at this gem.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817371007

This one has even more power. 12V rails combined can output a max of 34A. Even if the 3.3V and 5V consume as much as they are allowed (130W), that still leaves 370W for everything else. (370W / 12V = ~31A.) The problem with this one is that it will cost you $90 counting shipping. It does come with a $40 MIR, which brings the price down to $50.

I'm not familiar with Silverstone, so I'd do a lot of research before I buy them. Of those that you listed, the only one that I'd pair with an x1900/x1950 is the Earthwatts 430. It would be able to supply enough power, but its more expensive then either of the PSUs that I linked. I looked for the EW430, but found it was to much. FSP is a good company, he shouldn't have any problems using one of theirs.

And yes, you are right about the ram and CPU, but lets take care of this x1900xt < 7600GT problem first.

Keep us posted. I don't think it will make everything better, but it should bring you back to the performance you had with the 7600GT, maybe a bit more. Once you've got it running, you need a faster CPU (overclock the one you have???) and more ram.