Bottleneck?

[Daaaveee]

hey guys/gals, noob over here! anyway, looking for your opinions on where the bottleneck is in my system, specs are as follows:

AMD Athlon 3000+ skt 754 (i suspect this)
Asus K8N4-E Deluxe
Corsair Value 3x512MB DDR PC3200
Sparkle GF 7800GT
WD Raptor 36GB 10krpm + Maxtor 80GB 7.2krpm

i'm struggling to run BF2 on anything remotely pretty looking... to make it playable (30-40fps still!), i have it on 1024x768, most things medium, AA and dynamic lighting off, dynamic shadows low. i've just been living with it, but now its getting on my dangly bits!

any suggestions?

Dave

 

[deadeyedic30]

BF2 really needs 2Gb of ram its a power hungry beast, but the weak link looks like the 3000+, what does it run at 1.8Ghz ? I never bother with AA and AF unless everything else is maxed out. Shadows are also left at low. What speed is your net connection ?

 

[Daaaveee]

just out of the box speed, i've never had a go at overclocking anything. shadows are low with AA, dynamic light etc off. net connection is only 512k (fastest i can get out in the sticks!), but virtually never have any problems with lag, pinging around 60-80 usually.

once i cover the funds for the nurburgring trip i'll be looking to upgrade... about £250 to spend i'd say... possible to go dual core for that money?

Dave

 

[GAMEfreak]

3800x2 costs about £210 after VAT,so probably not if you include RAM cost.
is not a good idea running 3 stick of ram btw. your best to keep 2 sicks only in use as timings suffer. get yourself a nice set of 2gb g.skill pc 4000 ram for £150 and overclock your chip. you should be able to get an extra 500mhz out of it, and your frame rates should increase due to the added ram. sell your old Ram to cover some of the cost and you should be fine.

 

[Daaaveee]

3800x2 costs about £210 after VAT,so probably not if you include RAM cost.
is not a good idea running 3 stick of ram btw. your best to keep 2 sicks only in use as timings suffer. get yourself a nice set of 2gb g.skill pc 4000 ram for £150 and overclock your chip. you should be able to get an extra 500mhz out of it, and your frame rates should increase due to the added ram. sell your old Ram to cover some of the cost and you should be fine.

great that sounds like a good plan. will i need extra cooling at all? how do i go about overclocking?

thank you both for your input, its much appreciated!

Dave

 

[Dutch Guy]

What is it with people saying you need 2Gb of RAM for BF2, that isn't true, the only thing you need to do if you have 1Gb of RAM is set Texture to medium (and Lighting.Shadows to medium if you get hitching)

What Daaaveee has is constant low(ish) framerates, propably caused by the 2Ghz CPU and single channel value memory that is prolly running slow timings and 2T

 

[ACESHIGH]

The 3700+ is the fastest s754 CPU - probably a good upgrade for you.

To go to dual core you would have to sell s754 mobo, CPU & ram would be good too.

Then get something like ....
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ - £214.97 Including VAT
Asus A8V-E SE VIA K8T890 (Socket 939) PCI-Express - £56.34 Including VAT
OcUK Value 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory - £105.69

 

[Daaaveee]

hmm, food for thought i guess. how much would i be looking to get for my existing CPU mobo and ram, realistically? i have another skt754 mobo with AGP as i bought the K8N4-E Deluxe for the PCI-E slot for the 7800, would have made sense to upgrade CPU then really!

obviously i'd like to be able to push up the GFX ASAP, but dont want to spend much for a month or so, so could probably spend about £100 now if that would be much use?

Dave

 

[trojan698]

What is it with people saying you need 2Gb of RAM for BF2, that isn't true, the only thing you need to do if you have 1Gb of RAM is set Texture to medium (and Lighting.Shadows to medium if you get hitching)

What Daaaveee has is constant low(ish) framerates, propably caused by the 2Ghz CPU and single channel value memory that is prolly running slow timings and 2T

Agreed.

Go socket 939, don't need dual core but you may aswell tbh.

 

[Vegeta]

Post your 3d mark scores, bf2 is fine on my pc running at 1680X1050 on a 6800gt/barton 3200, 1 gig of ram - and I use high settings.

 

[Daaaveee]

Post your 3d mark scores, bf2 is fine on my pc running at 1680X1050 on a 6800gt/barton 3200, 1 gig of ram - and I use high settings.

what do i need to get it? noobie over here has not clue

Dave

edit: no worries, d/ling now, i will postup the scores in due time!

 

[Daaaveee]

3D Mark = 3144
SM2.0 = 1441
HDR/SM3.0 = 1428
CPU = 740

i'm guessing thats pretty rubbish!

suggestions then to improve on with a budget of ~£250?

Dave

 

[Vegeta]

is that a 3dmark 06 score? must be, try 3dmark 05 also - I only score 2642 on 3dmark 06 lol - but im guessing a 7800gt should score more than 400 more than a 6800gt in 3dmark 06?

 

[Dutch Guy]

3144 is alright for your system and a 7800GT at stock, I got 3558 with my system at stock and a XFX 7800GT that runs at 450/1050Mhz

But 3DMark'06 is almost purely videocard limited, a test like 3DMark2001 or '03 is more system limited so might give a better picture of what is limiting you.

 

[Geffen]

As suggested before using 3 dimms could be result in slower memory timmings being used 166 v 200. I would suggest you run some benchmarks with to compare scores with 2 and 3 dimms in. You could find a minor overclock to your cpu and upgrading to 2 1gb dimms could make a big differences.

 

[Daaaveee]

cheers everyone.

yep it was a 3DMark'06 score. i'll try 3DMark'01 and post up the results later on tonight when i've tried it with 3 and 2 sticks of ram...

looks like an overclock on the 3000+ and 2 matched 1GB sticks could be the way forward then? if someone recommends a pair i'll get them ordered and hopefully stick them in tomorrow night

Dave

 

[GAMEfreak]

if your looking for low cost, balue get GEIL value 2GB. if not a g.skill kit may be useful but costs ~£150. its the sky blue one with tight timings, forget its name. a slight overclock of your cpu wouldn't go amiss though. a 200mhz overclock should probably be enough.

 

[Dureth]

First of all try a simple test. Remove 1 of the 3 sticks of RAM you currently have. This will still leave you with 1GB which is plenty enough for BF2 on medium texture setting.

Just see as I have a feeling this may help.

 

[Daaaveee]

i'm at work at the moment so don't have a chance to try it until tonight, and then it'll be too late to order unless i go for extortionatly priced saturday delivery, and yes i am impatient, hence wanting to order soon

G Skill at around £150 sounds good, i'll have a browse and see what else there is for about that price. also, whats the difference between PC3200 etc? i dont know what i can go for and what differences there are

how do i go about overclocking the 3000+ ?

Dave

 

[Itsjody]

dude you should be able to clock that cpu to around 2.4

Just go for PC3200, that will do fine