Justifying an Athlon 3700

[jiffy]

I already have a P4 2.8 OC to 3.36 and have two sticks of Geil PC 4400 on its way and will try OC some more. I also have a BFG 6800 U on its way and a new PS to boot. Chin, chin, so do I really need to consider an Athlon 64 3700 also? Just that if I’m going to get one, it might as well make a difference. Most games I play will be off line and the only game I play on line is UT, which I believe is a DirectX 7. So would the 64 3700 be that noticeable to justify getting it and a new mobo? For now I guess I’ll see how the new card and memory work.

 

[peteroy]

Not worth the upgrade.

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[Rugger]

Not unless you have the money to burn and don't mind burning it. Yes, the AMDs perform better at games than the Intel chips, but that's a whole lot of cash to lay down for that performance increase. The <b>real</b> question is whether or not your system performs at the level that you want it to perform. If you are happy with the systems performance in the games you play, then don't upgrade. If you're not happy, then try to eeek out a little more performance from the parts you have on order. If that doesn't satisfy you, then consider going AMD.

"He who will not risk, cannot win"
- John Paul Jones

 

[ChipDeath]

Very little difference. especially if you OC that P4 some more.

Is that a Northwood or prescott? If it's a scotty then It would be easier to make the system quiet whilst still nice and cool if you switched to an A64, but even then it would probably cost a bit less to just get watercooling on the scotty anyway.

There's certainly not a justifiable performance increase to be had if you ask me. I find it hard to justify any sort of upgrade on my system, and I only have a XP @2.3Ghz and a 9800Pro... I'd get quite a substantial improvement in benchmarks and games, but I simply don't need that extra power enough to warrant spending the cash.

So in short, unless you have very stupid amounts of money available, I wouldn't bother switching. Buy some beer instead. ....

---
"Sex without love is an empty experience...
But as empty experiences go, it's one of the best" - Woody Allen

 

[jiffy]

Thanks All.... It bothers me now, but when the card gets here I’m sure I’ll get over it. I just hope it doesn’t give me any trouble and is as stable as my system is now. To spend more might hurt, so I’m glad everyone is in agreement here, at least if I’m satisfied with the results. I would think it will be much better then what I’m use to.

I have a Northwood and think I can reach 3.5. I did the other day with good tempts. I updated my BIOS, plus took out one Ram that wasn’t matching and moved my memory. I reach 3.5, but would freeze when I played UT on-line. At that point it didn’t matter what the settings were. It took me a good part of the day to realize my Ram wasn’t in tight enough, because I was thinking it was the new BIOS. Oh, I rebooted about 50 times that day, so I haven’t mess with it since, but will when the new Ram comes.


OK, thanks for the advice All and I’ll see how things go. I haven’t played Farcry, since I got to the boat, so I’ll try that and turn back on the shadow in D3 for starters.

 

[jiffy]

Sweet thanks. I got the ram and card today and got my MHz up to 240 with no problem which is just a 20% OC. Even got 250, but now I’m having troubles just OC and have to figure out why. I was playing Farecry, but that got borrowing.

 

[jiffy]

Well that was fun while it lasted. I wonder how well Geil guaranties their memory. Rather have a REFUND. Ha Ha ha. One of the stinks doesn’t want to play anymore. It won’t even run at 240MHz and should be able to run at 275MHz.

 

[Cybercraig]

Turn the Vdimm up! Those sticks need 2.8v+

Abit IS7 - 3.0C @ 3.6ghz - Mushkin PC4000 (2 X 512) - Sapphire 9800Pro - TT 420 watt Pure Power
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[jiffy]

Holly sh*t it booted again @ 240MHz! Thanks. I didn’t know what volts were safe to use. I let auto handle it, plus saw it was at 2.75v and thought maybe that did something. It was OC like there was no tomorrow and then nothing. I put one dim in and it booted, but the other wouldn’t. Thanks again, because you saved me from trying to figure out how to use memt32 before I would have sent the Ram back. MS has a memory test, but I get an error when trying to boot from the floppy. I get errors when trying to update my BIOS from a floppy as well or file not found and it’s there, so that isn't helping.

 

[jiffy]

I boot ok at 240MHz, but I’m having trouble coming out of stand by. The PC turns on, but not the monitor, unless I use boot up setting S1. I've been running my CPU at that for about a year with no prob.

 

[jiffy]

I’m back to thinking it’s my ram. I’m pretty sure one ram will boot at lesser then 2.85v or auto setting, but the other ram needs 2.8v to boot. The same thing with coming out of sleep mode, even at 2.85v one ram will not wake up the monitor. This is the last time I try to save money, unless I’m wrong, but I don’t think so. So much for a refund, but i should be able to get it replaced.

 

[jiffy]

I got to have the sleep mode I got use to it. Also, I’ve had my P4 for over a year now and it has always been OC to 240MHz and the Ram (PC2400) just under 200MHz. I’m alright at 230MHz, but after spending $300 on the Ram I’m taking a step backwards with my CPU. If I take out the Ram that is giving me trouble I can reach 250MHz, maybe more. Either way it’s got to go back.

 

[jiffy]

Thanks. Hurray! You’re definitely getting your moneys worth. My CPU will support 240Mhz with no problem and if I don’t get that out of the ram there isn’t to much I can do about it. I’m already paying a $45 restocking fee. I heard good things about Crucial Ballistix PC3200, but just wondering if I should get more Mhz. What do you think about that?

About my card: What can I say besides Holly Sh*t! (Nvidia the way it’s meant to be played) Assuming you can play it at ALL. Ha Ha ha!

UT…I have to play in OpenGL to smooth it out, but I’m not complaining with full details @ 8X16.

UT4…Yikes! The graphics were all screwed up? I deleted some left over registries and tried the 67.03 driver and all is well. 8x16 on large map with 30 boots runs pretty good with only 500Mb of ram.

MOHAA SH…Sweat!
FarCry… Sweat!

Midnight Club II…Refuses to run and it doesn’t look like they give out patches.

So far three out of five games I had to do something. Actual four since I needed the latest patch for FarCry.

It doesn’t look like I need a new CPU. I also, heard a lot of complaints of Athlons 64 rebooting the system after playing UT4 with a 6800 card.

 

[jiffy]

Thanks it was a tough decision and I decided to just have the ram replaced, since I didn’t like the ideal of the restocking $45.