Help with CPU Vs. Graphics Card

[BobbyDigital]

I have a Pentium P4 1.6 with a Gainward GeForce 5600 Ultra with 256Mb. Will upgrading my CPU to a 2.6Ghz make any significant difference; i.e. is £150 or so for a CPU upgrade justify the performance boost of the game?

 

[Ganache]

IMO you don't need to upgrade yet. I still got a XP1600 and a GF2 GTS. I waiting a bit to upgrade my GPU. Just upgrade when you have performance problem, not just to feel good.

 

[Ryan_Plus_One]

That 1.6 is a pretty shady chip. Aren't those the equiv to a PIII 1000 or so? I would say that the performace boost that CPU upgrade will give to your system overall would be worth it to me. Boot times, office apps, not to mention gameplay. However I have no idea how much £150 is lol.

<font color=red>Proudly supporting the AMD/Nvidia minority</font color=red>

 

[ufo_warviper]

Williamette had some probs, but it wasn't THAT slow. His CPU & graphics cards is probably ok, but an upgrade will probably help things out. However a CPU upgrade will probably help you most. If your running a Williamette board, (423 pins???) than you will only be able to upgrade to 2 GHz and then after tha Overclock it to faster if you can or want to. If your running an older Northwood based board, I beleive your board will accept the newer CPUs but won't be able to run them at anywhere close to their full FSB speeds. If that be the case, I don't know what you can upgrade to because the only P4 system I have is my DELL laptop, and I don't know how far the FSB & clock mutliplier would go on a desktop board. Personally, I don't like the GeForce FX cards because of the skimpy Pixel SHader 2.0 performance in DX9 apps. Your card will proably beat a Radeon 9600 Pro in UT2k3 but might peform a about 1/2 to 3/4 the performance of a Radeon 9600 Pro in fully DX9 capable games like Half-Life 2. But like one of the other fellas here said, only go for the upgrade if perfomance is un-liveable for you. But that's just my 2 centavos worth.

My OS features preemptive multitasking, a fully interactive command line, & support for 640K of RAM!

 

[endyen]

Greetings. Two questions for you. What mobo do you have? What is the model of your video card?

The reason I ask about your video card is because Gainward's 256m 5600s are non-ultras. If you bought an ultra-pack 780, this is a non-ultra card (really bad deal if more than 125 quid). If you can, exchange it.
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by endyen on 09/06/03 04:21 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[sjonnie]

a CPU upgrade justify the performance boost of the game?

Depends entirely what game(s) you are playing and what your current FPS are in that game. If they are falling below 25 then check out the CPU useage at that time, if it is 100% there is a strong chance that a CPU upgrade will improve the FPS. Of course, some games constantly aggisn 100% CPU time to the game process so you won't be able to check in that case. Then you could try with a friend's CPU and see if that helps. The other possiblity is if you have an old motherboard the memory bandwidth is limiting.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/myanandtech.html?member=114979" target="_new">My PCs</A>

 

[tombance]

£150 is about the right price for the UK. Its the equivalent of about $225 which may be a bit expensive for the US, but everything is more expensive here.

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6752830" target="_new">Yay, I Finally broke the 12k barrier!!</A>

 

[speeduk]

Sticking a 9800pro in your system wont make much of a difference, believe it or not. Get the best cpu you can and if you need to, replace the motherboard to take advantage of a 2.4ghz P4 (800fsb). Or if money is a big factor, buy a cheap nforce 2 mobo for £60-80, a 2500 barton and some 200mhz memory. I did this because I was sick of spending lots of money on hardware that doesnt last more than a year. I'm now running my 2500 @ 2300mhz and it only cost me about £230 for a whole new platform, and with the money I saved, I can get a better graphics card later on.

JFYI a 2500 @ 2300mhz is roughly the same speed as a 2.8 or 3ghz P4 depending on what motherboard/memory its using. And if I need some extra speed for free later, I can take it to 2446mhz.

Best £230 i've spent on my pc! Especially considering its faster than a 3200xp, runs cooler (1.63 volts 50c full load temp with stealth fan or 44c full load with tornado) and was 5 times less expensive!

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6936722" target="_new"> My rig </A>
<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=1150155" target="_new"> 3D-03 </A>
<font color=red> 120% overclocker </font color=red> (cheapskate)