Upgrading to Pentium 4 from Athlon? Help

[kimbers]

Help. I'm thinking of upgrading my PC. I currently have an AMD Athlon Barton 3000+ but was thinking of Upgrading to a Pentium 4. I'm not up with Pentium processors. I've read that hyperthreading will really boost performance but i'm slightly confused by these new Prescott chips, do these have hyperthreading?

Am i also going to see much of a performance boost by upgrading to a 3.2 p4 with HT from an Athlon.

 

[Mephistopheles]

The new prescott chips have hyperthreading alright, and a somewhat improved version of it. They are reasonable chips; not the best, but good. Typically, A64 will do better.

Also, I'm sorry to ask, but I just had to: <i>Why</i> do you want to upgrade that computer? It is still quite a respectable one!...... Your choice, of course.

And as for a 3.2 P4, yes, it will probably be quite a bit faster than your 3000+ Barton. Your Barton is probably equivalent to a 2.6Ghz P4 or maybe, best case scenario for you, 2.8Ghz at most...

If I were you, I would only upgrade by the time that made a big difference (like 150+% of performance, or whatever...) For what will you be needing this computer?

 

[kimbers]

My PC is used primarily for Games. I'm abit of a junkie for high detail & resolutions, I have a 19" monitor & try to run them at 1280x1074 resultion with the detail turned up. I have 1GB of ram & a 128mb Radeon 9800 pro

This has been ok up to now. Call of duty runs a treat with detail switched up. To my surprise Doom 3 faired quite well too. However, i've just recently down;loaded the demo of Medal of Honour pacific assault & my PC ground to a halt, it seemed to struggle to almost Far Cry proportions.

I switched the settings down to 1024x768 with medium detail which was fine.

What i'm trying to gauge is whether ugrading to a p4 3200+ is going to make a vast amount of difference, i'm keeping the graphics card & memory as they are.

 

[RichPLS]

I don't think HyperThreading will help you on most games. It has to have programs that are multi-threaded to gain a boost from this feature. Your 98pro is probally the culprit behind D3 failing to run at your desired resolutions. Not the processor.
I am mostly on the Intel camp, but I work with pro-graphics and video editing which makes my claim easy, but is also good for gaming.
But for a game junkie, I can not help but to wonder why you would want to go Prescott, verses AMD64-3800+ with the ATI-X800XT graphics card.

========================
Try everything...
Do not be afraid of failure, for this is how we learn and grow...
Live life to the fullest...
Do not regret what you have not yet done!!!

 

[RichPLS]

But seriously, if you just upgrade your grafix to the X800XT (~$500), and keep your current rig, you'll probally be somewhat satisfied with Doom 3 action.
If not, then look at mobo with chip upgrade, after that.



========================
Try everything...
Do not be afraid of failure, for this is how we learn and grow...
Live life to the fullest...
Do not regret what you have not yet done!!!

 

[RichPLS]

I gotta say, I wish I could afford to upgrade every 6 months or so to the newest latest and greatest!!!
Will you send me your old crappy board and processor when you upgrade???


========================
Try everything...
Do not be afraid of failure, for this is how we learn and grow...
Live life to the fullest...
Do not regret what you have not yet done!!!

 

[kimbers]

Usually i'm quite up on whats new etc but i've not been reading much about the new cards & stuff recently.

I need to try & keep my costs to about £250 ( $450), buying an x800xt will mean a new m/board too.

I sell my old components on Ebay every time i upgrade to help offset the cost. I can usually cover approx 50% of the cost.

So can i assume that 64bit Athlons are better then the P4s?

 

[kimbers]

Also, whats the best AGP card on the market at the mo?

Are we looking at the geforce 6800 ultra?

 

[lb19984]

I try to build people computers before the value of the computer goes down (typically every 3 or 4 months) I dont lose a penny
plus i make a few houndred for myself

I think you should keep saving up
then buy the x800 and a new board

System Spec's:
Asus P4c800-E 3.2e @3.8ghz
1gb corsair xms pro2-2-2-5 aiw 9800 pro
audigy 2zs klipsch ultra's
74gb raptor wd 2000jb
pioneer 108 pioneer 120s

 

[coylter]

Wow your all have some kind of problems....the x800 run way slower than the 6800 in Call of duty AND doom3...A 6800gt(100$ less) will get you x800xt performances and more in those games....LOL

Click <font color=blue><A HREF="http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/you.html" target="_new">HERE</A></font color=blue> if you realy are an <font color=red>idiot</font color=red>.

 

[RichPLS]

The ATI X800 Pro and XT versions come in AGP or PCI express.
So, should work fine in your board...and can take it along with next one.



========================
Try everything...
Do not be afraid of failure, for this is how we learn and grow...
Live life to the fullest...
Do not regret what you have not yet done!!!

 

[o1die]

Have you tried overclocking your cpu? My 2.8c runs fine at 3640 (260 fsb).

 

[RichPLS]

Coylter,
Hold on there, Not way behind, try only about 10% on two games for now, and that is only until driver improvements are made by ATI. The raw graphic processing power is clearly faster on ATI's X800-XT.
And what about Unreal, Halo, Far Cry??? ATI is clearly faster there.
anyways...

Both the nVidea 6800 Ultra and the ATI X800-XT are top graphic dogs in the gaming world.

It boils down to personal preference, and I put my money on ATI for mine.


========================
Try everything...
Do not be afraid of failure, for this is how we learn and grow...
Live life to the fullest...
Do not regret what you have not yet done!!!

 

[Mephistopheles]

In the high-end graphics cards, the 6800GT is probably your best bet, unless you want the best of the best cards... It has all 16 rendering pipelines active, like the $500 graphics cards, but is also quite cheaper. It will kill the X800 Pro because of the 16 pipelines.

 

[HardWareBoss]

Not if he OC's that X800Pro to XT speed. Plus pick up those extra 4 pipes.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Picking up the extra pipes is risky as hell, much more so than overclocking. I wouldn't recommend it.

Plus, this "oh, OC and mod it and they'll be the same" is not quite a good argument... the GT can easily be overclocked as well and might even reach Ultra speeds. If this guy gets it to 400+Mhz, it'll topple even the X800 XT...

(that's the problem with <i>if</i>)

 

[RichPLS]

I agree that flashing BIOS to unlock extra pipes is risky business, and I sure would not do this to a new card.
Compareing boxed cards is the key, o/c'ing is another.

========================
Try everything...
Do not be afraid of failure, for this is how we learn and grow...
Live life to the fullest...
Do not regret what you have not yet done!!!

 

[Mephistopheles]

Flashing the BIOS?

I was under the impression that you actually had to change the physical layout of the board's interconnects in order to free those extra four pipelines. Flashing the bios is a comparatively hazard-free operation......

 

[RichPLS]

The way I understood it, you flash the BIOS with a modded one to unlock the other 4 pipelines.
I have also heard of using a modified driver to unlock the pipelines.
I have not heard of hard modding it to unlock them, but who knows? Could be a way.
And flashing with a modded BIOS does carry risks.
Using manufacturers BIOS to flash carries only the usual risks, ie a power failure.


========================
Try everything...
Do not be afraid of failure, for this is how we learn and grow...
Live life to the fullest...
Do not regret what you have not yet done!!!

 

[RichPLS]

Here is a link for soft modding several ATI cards with other info.

http://www.techpowerup.com/softmod/faq.php

========================
Try everything...
Do not be afraid of failure, for this is how we learn and grow...
Live life to the fullest...
Do not regret what you have not yet done!!!

 

[Spitfire_x86]

Don't upgrade your CPU right now. Upgrade your graphics card to GeForce 6800GT. Radeon X800 Pro is an inferior card and there's no point of buying overpriced GeForce 6800 Ulta and Radeon X800 XT

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