3850 Rig... With No Bottleneck

[SavageNorseman]

Ok guys here is my situation. I was given a HIS IceQ3 AGP HD3850 for my birthday as an upgrade for a recent P4 build I made... Don't ask why I built a P4 system in this day and age... It previously had a Radeon X850Pro in it which I thought worked quite nice, however my dad insisted that the 3850 seemed like a good upgrade and so he bought one for himself and one for me...

Well because of the CPU bottleneck on a 3.0Ghz P4 I am seeing almost 0 improvement over the X850Pro. I am mostly using this system to play Counter-Strike Source (yeah I know old game by now huh?). Well I am not happy at all with the result if I am not mistaken the 3850 is about the ATI equivalent of an Nvidia 8 series card. I also own a PCI-E system with a 8800GTS 640Mb and it gets exactly twice the frame rates and twice the 3dMark06 points as the P4 system. So needless to say I am a little upset that this 200 dollar gfx card did nothing to improve performance on my system.

The system consists of the following:
Corsair 650W PSU
Asus P4R800VM Mobo (With Radeon 9100 IGP Onboard)
2 Gigs Gskill 400mhz Ram (Currently at 333Mhz in Dual-Channel cuz the mobo I chose is goofy as hell???)
P4 3.0Ghz with HT
AGP 8x HIS 3850 IceQ OC'ed edition
WD 320Gig Caviar IDE HD
Asus DVD/CD-Roms/RWs

I am looking at getting the "ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2 LGA 775 VIA PT880 Pro/PT880 Ultra ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail" from Newegg.com as well as this processor "Intel Core 2 Duo E7600 Wolfdale 3.06GHz 3MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail" and this ram "mushkin Extreme Performance 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model 996521 - Retail"

I have a wish list saved but I dono how to safely post it or post a pic of it, but you get the idea. this motherboard has been talked about to death on this forum already but what I want to know is (money aside - we already dropped the 200 on the gfx card and there's no looking back) will this mobo and dual core processor/ddr2 ram overcome the bottleneck of a P4 system and finally get me the 200+/- FPS I am expecting from CSS as well as about 8000-9000 3dMark06 points like one reviewer on newegg stated?

Currently my CSS frame rates are horrible - In actual play on a full server of 20+ players it will drop down to 20fps or below (of course the game settings are all set to high with HDR enabled, 4x AA 4x AF the whole 9 yards and at 1280x1024 Res) This causes lag which is unacceptable for such an expensive setup. If the dual core platform will unlag my game then I am willing to drop the cash and re-build this pos one more time... So does anyone seem to have any experience with this type of setup? It seems like everyone on newegg's reviews for 3850 AGP cards seems to think that dual-core is the only way to go and currently the ASRock is the only mobo offered at retail now with both AGP and dual core support.

Additionally if anyone can remember a good intel dual-core/AGP board from Asus or Gigabyte etc. that I can look up on ebay that would be good as well. I don't really want a AMD socket 939 because they go for too much money and most used processors on ebay seem a bit shady.

If you guys think or can prove that dual core+this card will yield almost no benefit let me know. I am perfectly willing to drop the 200-250 dollars to get the right performance out of this gfx card that I can't return, and I will just revert the P4 system back to it's X850Pro and give it to my mom or something. But if this card just can't perform because it's AGP I will just give up on the idea of upgrading it altogether...

-Thanks in advance for any insights.

 

[Proximon]

This is really just sad. Your $200 AGP graphics card is worth about 60-80 bucks in performance in a PCI-E equivalent.

Roughly the same as a 4670, at best:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161273

Grab a cheap AMD CPU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103680
(still about the same speed as an E7400)

And a board that will still be useful when you want to upgrade:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131381

And some RAM:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231166

All that, with the card, comes to under 300.

Maybe get some money back from ebay on the AGP card.

 

[josherrr]

lol get with the times dude anyone that drops a dime on a p4/agp sys for games is just not smart for under 600 bucks you can build a mini atx system with a 9800gtx and 4 gigs of ram hell even a cheaper am2 brisbane x2 with a 8800gt will smoke what you got and that is about a 350 bucks worth of used parts off ebay

 

[SavageNorseman]

lol get with the times dude anyone that drops a dime on a p4/agp sys for games is just not smart for under 600 bucks you can build a mini atx system with a 9800gtx and 4 gigs of ram hell even a cheaper am2 brisbane x2 with a 8800gt will smoke what you got and that is about a 350 bucks worth of used parts off ebay

Yes, but as I already stated I am stuck with the 3850 with no way to return it. I also have a very nice and more than adequate PSU that probably isn't being used to it's full potential yet. And the other components in my setup like the HDD and Opticals are fine as well. I am only interested in upgrading the mobo and goin dual core if it can be proven to be a performance boost over the P4 single core that I have now. I don't care that it would cost exactly the same as a similar PCI-E setup cuz I am stuck with the 3850 one way or the other, PLUS a P4 board and proc. and another 8x AGP card (the X850Pro). Yes it is alot of crappy outdated hardware but I am forced to make due with it. I am already pulling my hair out over the costs that this system has run me, but I just want to see the 3850 get put to good use. I already own a gaming laptop with a 9800GTS 1gig in it with 4 gigs of ddr3 and a C2D in it as well as a desktop system from 07 with a 8800GTS 640mb and a Athlon X2 5600+.

 

[SavageNorseman]

Miyagi99
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg

"Rating + 5 Good at what it does

Pros: Had a good AGP card and DDR400 RAM and wanted to upgrade to better CPU. Found this board and bought a E7300 Core 2 Duo. Everything worked great from the start. Haven't overclocked the CPU and don't plan to, but others have had success in doing so. Very stable with no crashing issues. BIOS is not very robust, but very easy to navigate and make basic changes.

Cons: Very limited on which graphic cards you can use. Make sure you get a card listed on their site. I've had better luck with ATI on this board as compared to Nvidia. Had a 6800 GT which gave me some issues. Sapphire 3850 runs very well and CCC overclocks it nicely. Limited to 2GB RAM, so IMO, limited to running XP.

Other Thoughts: Running a E7300, 2GB DDR400 AGP Sapphire 3850, Seagate 400GB SATA. 3DMark06 at 9900 and running Fallout 3 at 60fps 1680x1050. It's a good hybrid board. It's not a top of the line, but does what it says it will. It will be interesting when I through a high end PCIE card in it."

See what I mean guys, this dude claims he got 9900 3dMark06 Points. My 8800GTS 640MB system from '07 only gets 7580? So is there truely hope with this upgrade path? I need someone in here with experience.

 

[josherrr]

Miyagi99
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg

"Rating + 5 Good at what it does

[strike]Pros: Had a good AGP card and DDR400 RAM and wanted to upgrade to better CPU. [/strike]Found this board and bought a E7300 Core 2 Duo.[strike] Everything worked great from the start. Haven't overclocked the CPU and don't plan to, but others have had success in doing so. Very stable with no crashing issues. BIOS is not very robust, but very easy to navigate and make basic changes[/strike].

[strike]Cons: Very limited on which graphic cards you can use. Make sure you get a card listed on their site. I've had better luck with ATI on this board as compared to Nvidia. Had a 6800 GT which gave me some issues. Sapphire 3850 runs very well and CCC overclocks it nicely. Limited to 2GB RAM, so IMO, limited to running XP[/strike].

[strike]Other Thoughts: [/strike]Running a E7300[strike], 2GB DDR400 AGP Sapphire 3850, Seagate 400GB SATA. 3DMark06 at 9900 and running Fallout 3 at 60fps 1680x1050. It's a good hybrid board. It's not a top of the line, but does what it says it will. It will be interesting when I through a high end PCIE card in it."[/strike]

[strike]See what I mean guys, this dude claims he got 9900 3dMark06 Points. My 8800GTS 640MB system from '07 only gets 7580? So is there truely hope with this upgrade path? I need [strike]someone in here with[/strike] experience.

[/strike]

 

[josherrr]

first link is your garbage p4

http://service.futuremark.com/search/3dmark06.action?_product_displayed_=3DMark06&product=3dmark06.action&doSearch=true&page=&receiver=%2Fajax%2Fsearchresult3dmark06.action&_cpuId_displayed_=Intel+Pentium+4&cpuId=31&cpuSpeedFrom=&cpuSpeedTo=&_logicalProcessors_displayed_=All&logicalProcessors=-100&_physicalProcessors_displayed_=All&physicalProcessors=-100&_hyperthreading_displayed_=All&hyperthreading=-100&_gpuId_displayed_=ATI+Radeon+HD+3850&gpuId=392&gpucorespeedFrom=&gpucorespeedTo=&gpumemoryspeedFrom=&gpumemoryspeedTo=&_gpuMemory_displayed_=All&gpuMemory=-100&_shadermodel_displayed_=All&shadermodel=-100&_cooperativeGpus_displayed_=All&cooperativeGpus=-100&_graphicsdriver_displayed_=WHQL+drivers+-+FM+approved&graphicsdriver=3&_operatingsystem_displayed_=All&operatingsystem=-100





second link the core 2 duos with a max cpu of 2700 mhz

http://service.futuremark.com/search/3dmark06.action?_product_displayed_=3DMark06&product=3dmark06.action&doSearch=true&page=&receiver=%2Fajax%2Fsearchresult3dmark06.action&_cpuId_displayed_=Intel+Core+2+Duo&cpuId=223&cpuSpeedFrom=&cpuSpeedTo=2700&_logicalProcessors_displayed_=All&logicalProcessors=-100&_physicalProcessors_displayed_=All&physicalProcessors=-100&_hyperthreading_displayed_=All&hyperthreading=-100&_gpuId_displayed_=ATI+Radeon+HD+3850&gpuId=392&gpucorespeedFrom=&gpucorespeedTo=&gpumemoryspeedFrom=&gpumemoryspeedTo=&_gpuMemory_displayed_=All&gpuMemory=-100&_shadermodel_displayed_=All&shadermodel=-100&_cooperativeGpus_displayed_=All&cooperativeGpus=-100&_graphicsdriver_displayed_=WHQL+drivers+-+FM+approved&graphicsdriver=3&_operatingsystem_displayed_=All&operatingsystem=-100



ill draw you a picture if this dont help