Is there any performance left to get from the old girl?

Scott Salisbury

Scott Salisbury

Scott Salisbury

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Basically I can't afford a new system at the moment, but I know there is a few bits and pieces I would like to upgrade to scrape a bit of performance from it. Question is, is it worth it.

I'm not a massive hardcore gamer due to lack of time, but I do appreciate having graphics maxed out, or at least looking respectable.

My current system:
- MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum SLi
- A64 3500 Winchester
- 2x512Mb PC3200 OCZ Dual Channel
- 1x nVidia 6800Ultra 256Mb PCI-e (Running 2x 20"W monitors at 1680x1050)

Now, the board supports A64 X2's. So, I was thinking about buying a 2.2GHz X2 for £60 and upgrade the graphics.

I would really like to get my hands on another 6800 Ultra 256, but I can't find any. Another option would be to buy 2 new graphics cards and run them in Sli. Problem is I'm not sure what I should be looking at as availability for older cards is very low.

Will I get any more performance noticeable out of this machine with non-DDR2 memory? Would buying 2x1GB dual channel be something to think about?

Any recommendations on what I should do? I would like to get a bit more life out of the ol' girl before she's scrapped.

Thanks in advance,
Scott
 
Dont bother with SLI, just get a card from the next generation. A Geforce 8800GTS (320mb for upto 1680x1050, or the 640mb for higher resolutions) It will totally blow away a 6800Ultra in sli, or even 7900's in SLI.

2Gb of memory does help on newer titles, so thats worthwhile, and a for good measures the fastest X2 you can afford, and you'll have a computer thats good enough for virtually anything you can throw at it.

As your system is already PCIe then you can get any card you want, all the new cards will work. And while I may be considered an Intel 'fan', there is nothing wrong with AMD X2's, and an X2 4200+ isnt going to badly bottleneck a current graphics card.
 
I think im finally going to get rid of my fx55 clawhammer cpu that cost me over £500 over 2yrs ago(3yrs at xmas), and gonna replace it with a opty 185 cpu
 
speedy2004 said:
I think im finally going to get rid of my fx55 clawhammer cpu that cost me over £500 over 2yrs ago(3yrs at xmas), and gonna replace it with a opty 185 cpu
Click to expand...

these 185 optys are meant to fly and are great due to the high default multiplier.
 
speedy2004 said:
But you only have 512k cache on both cores, the opty 185 has 1mb cache on both cores
Click to expand...
The X2 3800+ has 1MB cache shared between the two cores, the Opteron has 2MB shared between both cores.

I don't think its worth paying nearly double the price of the X2 3800+ for another 1MB cache, its hardly effects anything in the grand scheme of things. . . :)
 
I dont want to downgrade my self at all, cos my fx55 has 1mb cache, so if i got a x2 3800 or even a x2 4200 and clocked it to the same speed as my fx55 cpu, im downgrading my system with single core usage because of the 512k cache
 
Stop stealing his thread lol :p

At OP, I'd suggest you just get a cheap X2, any will do.

Then clock it to it's maximum stable clock.

I'm still using a 6800GT, serves what I do fine. I'd say your current processor is bottlenecking the 6800U, so I'd keep it for a little while (unless you want to run crysis on it or something, might be able to anyway lol).
 
I've just stuffed another 1gb of RAM into my machine, bringing total RAM to 2gb.

It seems much happier in games such as FEAR, and not half the amount of paging as I used to get. :cool:

Hopefully my machine will tide me over until sometime next year, when I can afford an upgrade - with which I praying for a 20" monitor. :)
 
i'd also recomend the x2 3800+, mine sits at 2.7v on 1.33v and has done for the past year or so 24/7 with no crashes - just the very occasional reboot...has been upto 3217MHz for suicide shots and can run 24/7 at 3006MHz but with 1.55v (Temps get too hot for my broken AC Freezer to cope with and the 133MHz RAM divider on my motherboard doesn't work so I have to drop the RAM down to the 100MHz divider making it run at something like 150MHz LOL.

as stated the 3800+ obviously has half the cache compared to the opty 185 but how much noticeable difference does this actually make? the only big advantage of the opty 185 is its higher default multiplier making it easier to overclock if the motherboard doesn't like high fsb or you want to run RAM nearly at sync with the FSB.
 
ghgh said:
these 185 optys are meant to fly and are great due to the high default multiplier.
Click to expand...

Yeah They do fly, got my opteron 185, about 2weeks ago, and its at the same speed as my fx55 cpu was @ 2.78, and the diff its made to dirt is amazing.

With my fx55 cpu dirt was running real chugy on 6-8 car/buggy races and a tad unplayable on med detail at 1024x768

With my opty 185 cpu dirt runs smooth on 6-8car/buggy races, on high detail in 1024x768.
 
Hi, I would go with the X2 upgrade and 2 Gb to start and that will pretty much perform well. The only thing that might be a problem, is that you will have to find a 939 X2 for the mobo as all the new X2 and AMD in general is AM2 940, so you will have to look around for the 939 chip, not the AM2.

Anthony
 
Big.Wayne said:
The X2 3800+ has 1MB cache shared between the two cores, the Opteron has 2MB shared between both cores.
Click to expand...
Nope, all 939 dual-cores have separate caches.

It all depends on how much you can get a decent Opty for, I guess these days they generally go for well above their performance, even when overclocked. Want to make me an offer? ;) As for graphics, you'll be wanting to avoid SLI as you can't use multiple monitors with it. A single 8800GTS would fit the bill nicely.
 
...which they don't have in stock, and I doubt they ever will. Not to mention a Q6600 costs only a few pennies more.
 
If you are on a budget for a graphics card a x1950Pro is a great card for the money now, i went to this from a 6600 256mb and the difference was amazing.
 
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