New Card or cpu mobo then later new card

DuncMac · Jan 13, 2005

Hi All

I've looked at all the graphs and a few post but I want others opions.

Currently I have;

Barton XP @ 3200 speeds
Msi nforce 2 ultra board
1Gig corsair 3200LL
9700pro
480watt antec trupower

I play online multi players and my fps are around 30-50 but I feel sick after playing for a while at 30 fps.

I cant justify both a new cpu/mobo and a graphics card at the moment. But I can get one or the other (3200 64bit amd (939) and a good mobo. OR a decent card eg 6800GT or X800 XT)

Now dont say get both coz I cant. ( God but I want to thou... ) But with a gun to your head which would you go for ??? And pros and cons plse.

Thanks

Duncan Esq
London
England

cleeve · Jan 13, 2005

You are in precisely the same boat I am, sir. (observe my specs below)

My plan is to wait for the K8t890 PRO motherboards to arrive this year. They have the capability to offer both AGP and PCIe graphics slots at the same time... when someone manufactures such a board, I will upgrade to the A64 platform, keep my videocard... and upgrade to an X800XL when they've hit the $250 price point sometime later.

As for the rationale to upgrade the platform first; Many of the newer games are CPU limited. Where a new videocard might give you nice maximum framerates, I find a superior CPU will give you more consistant MINIMUM framerates, with fewer slowdowns.

I'd rather run at a consistant 45 fps than get 80 fps with occasional 15 fps slowdowns, if you get my drift.

________________
Radeon 9700 PRO (o/c 332/345)
AthlonXP 3200+ (Barton 2500+ o/c 400 FSB)
3dMark03: 5,354

DuncMac · Jan 13, 2005

Yep! That sounds good to me.

Do you reckon manufacturers will provide the AGP+PCIe option thou ?

RX8 · Jan 13, 2005

your barton is still good in your nforce 2 board, your better off getting yourself, a X800XT or a 6800GT this will be awsome on your machine.

Dont bother getting a board with a agp plus PCIe slots the bridge is totally crap for the agp slot. lets say you upgrade to a XP3500 64bit winchester core and keep your current agp card LOL, your score in 3dmark 03 or 05 will drop not increase with the cpu upgrade because the bridge on most PCI-e to AGP restrict the agp cards big time, there are some reviews out there on this.

These are your options wait till you have enough money to do a graphics card PCi-e, CPU 939, MB PCI-e only upgrade (by this time newer stuff could be out!)

OR

just change your gfx card to a 800XT or 6800GT and then upgrade to a 939 MB with a AGP ONLY slot NO PCI-e, (considerering you will upgrade your GFX and CPU in another 1 1/2 to 2 years time the second option sounds good as a 64bit 3500 is not going to be cutting edge in 2 years or would a x800xt, and a PCIe Motherboard or AGP MB made today will not be worthy of a upgrade in 2 years time so you could stick agp for the next 2 years and upgrade over the next year.

PCIe is good but i wouldent recommend a AGP + PCI-e motherboard in 1 i dont think its the best option for performance.

cleeve · Jan 13, 2005

The K8T890 PRO will not require an AGP-to-PCIe bridge, unlike the crappy ECS solution out there for the P4...

The K8T890 PRO is capable of handling a full native 8x AGP and full native PCIe videocard slot at the same time, without the performance penalty that would otherwise accompany a bridged solution (from what I've read).
Do an internet search on it, it's AGP & PCIe capability is getting some hype so I assume *some* mobo manufacturer will take advantage of it.

The Barton is still good, but check the benches; Doom3 and Half Life 2 are quite CPU limited.

Depends on how you look at it I suppose. Me, I upgrade for the long-term if I can help it; so the combination mobo will be my route.

You'd certainly see better performance from a 6800GT with your Barton in the short term, so it's up to you mate.

________________
Radeon 9700 PRO (o/c 332/345)
AthlonXP 3200+ (Barton 2500+ o/c 400 FSB)
3dMark03: 5,354

RX8 · Jan 13, 2005

Thanx Cleeve i dident Know it was only limited to the ECS brand P4 MB`s. I will keep that in mind for future reference.

cleeve · Jan 13, 2005

Well, ECS is the only one who offers a dual AGP/PCIe board at the moment.

But I've just learned that I'm going to have to eat my own advice... the original info VIA gave out said that the K8T890 PRO would support both AGP and PCIe:

<A HREF="http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/chipsets/display/20040201182440.html" target="_new">http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/chipsets/display/20040201182440.html</A>

BUT... VIA has since changed their tune and now says the first iteration of the K8T800 PRO will be PCIe only...

<A HREF="http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/chipsets/display/20040926022823.html" target="_new">http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/chipsets/display/20040926022823.html</A>

"VIA, who once promised to be the first on the market with PCI Express-supporting chipset and swore to provide clients a flawless transition to PCI Express technology by incorporating support for both AGP and PCI Express graphics slots, now ends up with a chipset that sport only AMD64 processors and only one PCI Express x16 slot for graphics...

'we have decided to develop a number of different variants of the PT890 Series and K8T890 Series chipset cores with different feature sets targeted at specific segments of the market… We are continuing engineering work on the AGP/PCI Express implementation and will be integrating this feature in future products in both the PT890 Series and K8T890 Series so that we can provide our customers with a complete family of solutions for different segments rather than a single “one-size-fits-all” PT890 and K8T890 product'"

Well, my upgrade plans have gone to hell. With this in mind, I'm not sure what I'm going to do anymore... hmmmm... socket 754 is good & cheap and has the advantage of being able to use my old 9700 PRO AGP. But I really had my heart set on a nice Socket 939 Athlon64 with PCIe and all socket 754 has to offer for the future is new Semprons.

This is a tough one. Well, as for me, I'll be sitting on my current platform for at least another 8 months until I can figure out what to do. Hopefully VIA will get their $hit together and make good on a true AGP/PCIe solution in that time...

The 'ol AthlonXP and 9700 PRO can still play the newest game titles to my satisfaction, but I wanted to upgrade my platform for 3dsMAX work.

________________
Radeon 9700 PRO (o/c 332/345)
AthlonXP 3200+ (Barton 2500+ o/c 400 FSB)
3dMark03: 5,354

DuncMac · Jan 13, 2005

Thanks for the replies.

Must resist the urge to splurge on new card.... (>>> sits in dark room at computer looking at new cards......)

TheGreatGrapeApe · Jan 14, 2005

Gigabyte also offer AGP/PCIe mobos (2 variants of the same);

<A HREF="http://www.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/Products/Products_GA-8I915P Duo-A.htm" target="_new">http://www.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/Products/Products_GA-8I915P Duo-A.htm</A>

<A HREF="http://www.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/Products/Products_GA-8I915P Duo Pro-A.htm" target="_new">http://www.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/Products/Products_GA-8I915P Duo Pro-A.htm</A>

Still just Intel though.

- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp (or internet account) ! - RED GREEN GA to SK :evil:

RX8 · Jan 14, 2005

Cleeve my man just get a 939 cpu with a agp slot on a motherboard and you should be happy all the new gfx cards still come in agp as well, and there is not any advantage to PCI-e over the agp 8x slot yet (greatape might know more about this), apart from future upgradability.

TheGreatGrapeApe · Jan 14, 2005

If anything some cards there is a disadvantage to getting PCIe as they are sometimes clocked lower than their AGP counterparts, and you currently pay a premium for what could be equal or slower.

Also some time's you see performance drops within the same tests where;

PCIe is significantly Faster;
<A HREF="http://www.onlynewz.com/content/view/26/2/1/3/" target="_new">http://www.onlynewz.com/content/view/26/2/1/3/</A>

And then again AGP is significantly faster;
<A HREF="http://www.onlynewz.com/content/view/26/2/1/4/" target="_new">http://www.onlynewz.com/content/view/26/2/1/4/</A>

SAME BLOODY Test!

I say for the time being, no advantages other than SLI and HyperMemory/TurboCache(which are for sucky cards anyways). Likely you will see a change with AIW or HD Video processing cards, but for now, very little notceable differences.

- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp (or internet account) ! - RED GREEN GA to SK :evil:

RX8 · Jan 14, 2005

Dont you just love (not ment in any gay way whats so ever) thegreatape he replys so fast. (",)

TheGreatGrapeApe · Jan 14, 2005

Bored at work. Waiting for the day to end after a whole day in Bored, errr... BoardRoom. Just waiting for a few things to go through testing and Badda-Bing outta here!

But it's nice to be able to give people some quick answers, then I get the replies that give me something to read. :lol:

- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp (or internet account) ! - RED GREEN GA to SK :evil:

RX8 · Jan 14, 2005

LOL its 2am in england so u must be in america me thinks?

cleeve · Jan 14, 2005

I know that performance isn't a big diff betwixt AGP and PCIe guys (Hey! It's ME!), but like I said... I upgrade for the future.

At a certain point, it's going to be AGP cards that cost more (or are harder to find). And who knows, maybe the bus will make a difference in future tech (like the 520...)

But I'm an idiot. Why? Because I'm worrying about this shite whilst my rig is plenty fast for me. Like I said, the 'ol 9700 PRO never ceases to amaze me. I'm just getting caught up in all the hype.

But I can tell you one thing, my copy of 3dsMAX would sure like those Athlon64s...

________________
Radeon 9700 PRO (o/c 332/345)
AthlonXP 3200+ (Barton 2500+ o/c 400 FSB)
3dMark03: 5,354

Crashman · Jan 14, 2005

I hope it burns your house down. And I mean that in the nicest way!

The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire!

Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!
Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!

TheGreatGrapeApe · Jan 14, 2005

I know you know, if I gave any other impression, oops, sorry dude!

But even I don't know what way to prove it, heck just happened to see that review TODAY and thought, hey lookee same processor, etc. and the goofey flip-flop.

And I;m only upgrading because hey, mine's an XP2000 and R9600P, it's my turn now anyways, you can do it in the fall.

I wanna consolidate my editing and my gaming rig this time around. And yeah the Athlon 64 should help in alot of ways, and the XP2000 can become a media hub.

It's really hard to be 'realistic' about upgrades now. Like in the other thread I think we disagreed because we see it differently. Sure it'd be nice to upgrade alot of things, be what's a good increment. I really have trouble picking a point. Because telling someone an XP2500 or P42.8ghz might be a limiting factor just stats you feeling like we're always pushing more more more.

Aywhoo I want PCIe for me, because I have certain hopes and aspirations for it, but also I think I may want to keep this setup for a while. So it works for me.

- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp (or internet account) ! - RED GREEN GA to SK :evil:

cleeve · Jan 14, 2005

Yep, it's especially hard to know what to do when entire platforms are making way for new ones.

On one hand, the top-of-the-line AthlonXP is still a capable processor... but on the other hand, the platform is doomed for retirement, and the AthlonXP's are just so darned much *better*.

It's largely ideological. Yes, the XP platform will do a nice job with a 6600GT... but I have an annoying habit of thinking two steps ahead, wether at my advantage or at my peril.

In any case, I trust you'll let us know how that A64 machine you're upgrading to treats you, Grape.

________________
Radeon 9700 PRO (o/c 332/345)
AthlonXP 3200+ (Barton 2500+ o/c 400 FSB)
3dMark03: 5,354

New Card or cpu mobo then later new card

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