Will this upgrade matter?

[BigMac]

Guys

I have no clue as where to post this question, so I just put it up here and will put out references to it in the Mobo and Memory forums.

I have a two year old rig AMD 1800+XP, 512Mb RAM, MSIK7T266 Pro2 mobo (AGP4x supported), and I am upgrading from a GF3ti500 to a 9600XT (128mb), in an attempt to keep my rig game worthy without putting too many extra bucks in it (euro's in my case).

Some of you may say that the 9600XT is too many bucks but I get HL2 for free with it so that seems to balance out).

Uptonow I have not experienced any probs with the 512Mb but I am wondering whether some memory upgrade can be useful for gaming. Is it worth 50 bucks to add another 256? Will that improve or lengthen the lifetime of the system significantly? (bear in mind that I will have a complete new system one year from now). Also I am not really willing to put the money needed to go to 1Gb unless there is a very good reason for it.

Hope someone can help this newbie out here. I'm not into overclocking/finetuning my system but have some basic knowledge about the components I use. I considered upgrading my cpu but I cannot go over 2100+ without a change of mobo and I dont wanna do that, and I cannot find any 2100's on the market anymore. So I decided to leave that for now and focus on the memory question.




BigMac

<A HREF="http://www.p3int.com/product_center_NWO_The_Story.asp" target="_new">New World Order</A>

 

[pitsi]

My opinion is to stick with the 512MB you currently have. Although more RAM helps system's performance improve, I don't think you will see any significant difference. Also, you already have 512MB RAM which you won't be able to use at your next upgrade. I don't think there is any reason to increase them to 768MB, especially since you are going to upgrade in one year from now.

 

[SoDNighthawk]

The 9600XT supports 8X AGP does your Motherboard support 8X or is only 4X you realy will not benefit from the new card unless the MoB supports the card.
However it should still function and you can always upgrade the main board at a later date. The memory you have could be PC2700 at a speed of 166MHz if you get a new board using PC3200 at 200MHz the new card would be wonderful, then you will see some great game time. Now saying all this makes me now reflect on your CPU you would like to have at least an AMD 2800+ to get any real performance out of the system.

Or you could simply purchase a store made PC that has an Intel CPU and with the memory and motherboard supporting 8X AGP then put in the 9600XT card. ATI already has a deal with DEL and are producing computers for sale with the set-up you are looking for.

You could get the whole box without any peripheral hardware for a reasonable price.

Barton 3200+ 400MHz
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SONY RW 52x/24x/52x
SONY DVD 16x/40x

 

[HardWareBoss]

IMO buy a TI4200 if you can get them where you live. Next spring new vid cards are do. Since you will be upgrading your puter next year. Unless you want half life buy 9600XT

 

[shadus]

As always, spouting crap you know nothing about. Do you actually know ANYTHING about computers sod? Are you capable of not spewing inaccurate bs in every post you make?

To the original poster:
There is a minimalistic difference in performance between agp8x and agp4x (<5%). You would probally notice more eyecandy changes and in newer games you would definetly get better performance in them. On the issue of the ram, I'd say if the gameplay is tolerable, stick with the 512mb, the 756mb would be an improvement but I don't know that it would be enough to justify ram that you're going to have to trash in such a short upgrade cycle. If you decide to build a new pc I'd highly suggest waiting until q1/q2 next year at the earliest so you can get the new tech that's coming out (ala pci express, ddr2 memory, next gen vid cards, etc.) Really at this point the longer you can wait, the better off you're going to be... I'm currently holding onto my money and waiting for the new chipsets and video cards to hit the market before I rebuild my pc... thus far I've been able to resist the call of a new graphics card

Shadus

 

[GIPNOR]

Forget about the 8X AGP stuff, it's not going to make a difference for you. Forget about your memory clock speed, you'll probably get your best performance running in synchronously (133) with your processor... if you upgrade your processor and MB, then there's an advantage, otherwise, run it syncronously.

You should get a pretty good boost in gaming performance and your bottleneck will likely be your processor now. You might want to consider a 9800 non-pro, but maybe the free game justifies the 9600XT (not sure what it's costing you, I assume it's similarly priced to 9800 non-pro).

G'luck!

 

[SoDNighthawk]

Don't Listen to Shadus he was born with way to much anger the problem is he's only 4 and a half feet tall and he has to climb up on his Box just to see out the window. That is why he is afraid to upgrade because its hard to find those large wooden floor model computer cases.

Barton 3200+ 400MHz
A7N8X Deluxe
Liquid
2x512 KinstonHyperX PC3200
GeForce FX5900
Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus9@80Gig
SONY CD 52x
SONY RW 52x/24x/52x
SONY DVD 16x/40x

 

[SoDNighthawk]

HardwareBoss they have the driver version up to 53.03 win/xp at the Nvidia website for the GeForce cards. I still have my GeForce Ti4200 in another computer and I am not parting with it. It's going to be hard to get one of those.

Barton 3200+ 400MHz
A7N8X Deluxe
Liquid
2x512 KinstonHyperX PC3200
GeForce FX5900
Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus9@80Gig
SONY CD 52x
SONY RW 52x/24x/52x
SONY DVD 16x/40x

 

[Vapor]

Dude, you are dumb...do have a clue what you just said or what you meant to say?

Damn Rambus.

 

[MrPanther0]

WTF Shadus is totally right... AGP 4x versus 8x is a bandwitdh thing... its comparable to getting a card with 128MB versus 256MB... again not much point in it. The only time i saw in a benchmark when 8x beat 4x was in 1600x1200 with AA at max and the 9600XT will not be able to handle that anyways. My opinion is to get a 9800 NP, 9700, 9500 pro ( if you can find one) or the geforce ti 4200. I also think Half Life will not be sitting on shelves until around mid Febuary.

 

[Zoron]

I still have my GeForce Ti4200 in another computer and I am not parting with it. It's going to be hard to get one of those.

First he says Shadus is afraid to upgrade, then he says he's going to cling to his Ti4200 despite there being better cards on the market. Are you afraid to upgrade too?


<font color=red> If you design software that is fool-proof, only a fool will want to use it. </font color=red>

 

[SoDNighthawk]

You are right about the bandwidth issue with the 4X and 8X AGP Bus, however the 8X AGP bus was designed to eliminate bottle necks in bandwidth in the new faster chipsets.
Older computers that do not function at high bandwidths will not see any improvement in performance.

The fact that most older computers do not support higher bandwidths is evident in the fact that they do not have support for AGP 8X in the first place.

If you take a system designed for AGP 8X and use memory hard drive and system board + CPU and run a benchmark you will get a numerical score.

Now take a AGP card only rated for 4X AGP and put it into that computer and force that machine to run in AGP 4X and run the same test, you are going to see some pathetic numbers.

Remember they are advancing the technology not making it regressive!!

Barton 3200+ 400MHz
A7N8X Deluxe
Liquid
2x512 KinstonHyperX PC3200
GeForce FX5900
Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus9@80Gig
SONY CD 52x
SONY RW 52x/24x/52x
SONY DVD 16x/40x

 

[SoDNighthawk]

You should read the system spec on my current machine at the bottom of my posts Moron I mean Zoron.

Barton 3200+ 400MHz
A7N8X Deluxe
Liquid
2x512 KinstonHyperX PC3200
GeForce FX5900
Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus9@80Gig
SONY CD 52x
SONY RW 52x/24x/52x
SONY DVD 16x/40x

 

[Zoron]

When you start giving accurate advice, I'll leave you alone, SoD. However, since I don't see that day coming, we'll be here correcting you.

The fact you recommended a Dell speaks volumes on your knowledge of computers. I am also having a hard time believe you actually bought a GeForce 5900... the worst of the high-end cards on the market. The least you could have done if you were going to buy nVidia is get a 5950. Mind you, DirectX 9 will have a way of making that card obsolete that much sooner...

<font color=red> If you design software that is fool-proof, only a fool will want to use it. </font color=red>

 

[Vapor]

WTF Shadus is totally right... AGP 4x versus 8x is a bandwitdh thing... its comparable to getting a card with 128MB versus 256MB... again not much point in it. The only time i saw in a benchmark when 8x beat 4x was in 1600x1200 with AA at max and the 9600XT will not be able to handle that anyways.

Try telling SoD that...he'll never listen or give accurate advice.

Damn Rambus.

 

[Spitfire_x86]

You've REALLY started to bother me. I would like you even if you were like popey. You're simply an idiot, who isn't funny at all.

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[CaptainTrap]

yo you have almost the same sys as me, do you know how high you can clock the 2800+? im considering getting a fx5900ultra, any suggestions? the one by asus in particular

Asus A7N8X Ultra Delux w/ AMD XP2800+Barton
Corsair XMS Twinx DDR400 1gig
Geforce 4 TI4600 128ddr
Audigy 2 Platinum
Samsung Silent 7200rpm 80gig
WD Secondary Crap 5200rpm 40gig

 

[Vapor]

Now take a AGP card only rated for 4X AGP and put it into that computer and force that machine to run in AGP 4X and run the same test, you are going to see some pathetic numbers.

No you won't!!! I'll let my 4400 at stock speeds take on any 4800SE (EXACT same card, just 8x AGP), no more than a 5% <b>AT MOST</b>.

The fact that most older computers do not support higher bandwidths is evident in the fact that they do not have support for AGP 8X in the first place.

*cough*RDRAM systems*cough* RDRAM with PC1066 has the same 6.4GB/s bandwidth throughput of dual channel DDR400 (might be equal to dual channel DDR333, either way, its bandwidth is very competitive with the newest chipsets). Oh yeah, the i850e chipset is the only chipset that supports RDRAM PC1066...it also happens to only be 4x AGP. So, in fact, total bandwidth does not relate to having AGP 8x.

You are right about the bandwidth issue with the 4X and 8X AGP Bus, however the 8X AGP bus was designed to eliminate bottle necks in bandwidth in the new faster chipsets.

There aren't many bottlenecks in the 4xAGP bus...not many cards can push it. And since the AGP bus exclusively deals with the graphics card, there is nothing else to add any sort of bottleneck. I'm not really sure you know what you are talking about when you say it will eliminate bottlenecks in newer chipsets, since it's only repsonsible for the graphics card's bandwidth.

Remember they are advancing the technology not making it regressive!!

Agreed that technology doesn't go backwards, but there is nothing that really taxes the 4x bus too much (newer cards tax it easier, but that can generally be counteracted with 256MB of VRAM.

Are you sure you know anything about computers???

Damn Rambus.

 

[Vapor]

You're simply an idiot

Yup! Too bad n00bs listen to him (his advice doesn't even make sense, so how they make sense of it is beyond me).

Damn Rambus.

 

[Zoron]

You should read the system spec on my current machine at the bottom of my posts Moron I mean Zoron.

Ohhhh... that's so cuuuute! Did you come up with that on your own or did your Momma help you? I've seen better retorts from 5 year-olds.


<font color=red> If you design software that is fool-proof, only a fool will want to use it. </font color=red>

 

[Spitfire_x86]

n00bs listen to him, because they are n00bs.

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<b><A HREF="http://geocities.com/spitfire_x86" target="_new">My Website</A></b>

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[SoDNighthawk]

I have it running at 2.25 GHz and it has been at that setting since I made the computer about 3 weeks ago.
Even with the Nvidia chip set on the new board if I push the system a little higher it seems ok but I have left it at the 2.25GHZ setting and it does everything it is supposed to rather nicely.
No need to melt it down but I have other things to consider when overclocking I run a liquid cooled system and I have to do things carefully.
I have a friend with basically the same system and he is air cooled and also running at 2.25Ghz and is having no issues.

Barton 3200+ 400MHz
A7N8X Deluxe
Liquid
2x512 KinstonHyperX PC3200
GeForce FX5900
Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus9@80Gig
SONY CD 52x
SONY RW 52x/24x/52x
SONY DVD 16x/40x

 

[Crashman]

STFU moron, 8x/4x doesn't make a difference in performance with this card. I'm tired of trying to undo the damage you do here, leave now lamer.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
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[Crashman]

Normally I'd suggest the 9600 Pro as it's $50 cheaper than the 9600XT, but since you'll get a certificate for a free $50 game, you might as well get the XT.

Anyway, it will work fine for your system. This card can't benifit from 8x bandwidth, even the 9800 Pro only gets a 1-2% increase in performance using 8x instead of 4x, and that card is far more powerfull (as well as far more expensive).

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[Groveling_Wyrm]

Since your mobo is a 266 fsb mobo, you may actually be able to slap an Athlon XP 2400+ into your system, as long as the voltage is set correctly. You may want to check with your mobo manufacturer to see what they say are voltage specs, and research the possibilities...




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