CPU limited?

manveruppd · 12 Mar 2006 at 17:04

What class of GPU should I be looking at to upgrade an oldish 3GHz P4? I'm concerned that the latest, fastest crop of video cards will be CPU-limited on such a system and getting one would be a waste of money (especially as that system is still AGP so the graphics card will be useless in the event of a total upgrade).

fullfat · 12 Mar 2006 at 17:58

so is it AGP based then? if so a x8*0/6800 series would sit in nicely. preferrably higher end ones (xt/gt etc)

manveruppd · 12 Mar 2006 at 18:17

Yep, it's AGP, and it's the older P4 core (Northwood? - it's a friend's PC, I'm an Athlon man myself so not up to speed on the Intel side of things, but it's from before P4s switched to DDR2). Currently on a 9800XT, not sure how much difference one generation up would make in all honesty...

ajgoodfellow · 12 Mar 2006 at 19:07

The generation from the 9800/FX5950 to the X800/6800 offered the largest boost in speed ever seen. The new cards were about twice the speed of the old cards, far more so in new games

If you move from a 9800XT to an X800XT/6800GT you'll notice a large boost in performance

Depending on your budget I'd consider the 7800GS as it's a current gen card. Get the XFX Extreme Edition clocked at 440MHz though - when the 7800GS is clocked at 375MHz it isn't all that impressive. It's still faster than the 9800XT though (it's about the same as the 6800Ultra)

man_from_uncle · 12 Mar 2006 at 19:23

That CPU will only very slightly bottleneck any AGP card and certainly not enough to worry about. The 7800gs is probably the best AGP card for it's combination of speed and features, but anything from a 6800gs/X800GTO upward will be a sizable boost over a 9800XT. Don't just get a 6600gt or plain X800 though as you'll see little performance increase.

fullfat · 12 Mar 2006 at 19:29

the 7800GS is the best overall AGP card but its by no means cost effective.

Logsi · 12 Mar 2006 at 19:47

Im on an old P4 and its fine, no bottleneck at all!

However if i do overclock it, so far ive noticed 100 points increase every 100mhz increment on 3dmark05.

manveruppd · 13 Mar 2006 at 22:28

Sounds like you do have a slight bottleneck then, since '05 should be mostly GPU-based. Still, thanks for the advice everyone, I've passed it on already!

SithUK · 14 Mar 2006 at 12:59

I'm planning to get the Asus PCIe board that supports the Skt478 Northwoods.

Will a 7900GT be bottlenecked so much that it isn't worth my while getting it?

I have a 3.0 Northwood o/c'd to 3.5Ghz

Thanks.

easyrider · 14 Mar 2006 at 13:26

SithUK said:
I'm planning to get the Asus PCIe board that supports the Skt478 Northwoods.

Will a 7900GT be bottlenecked so much that it isn't worth my while getting it?

I have a 3.0 Northwood o/c'd to 3.5Ghz

Thanks.

if i were you i would sell the p4 3.0ghz and put that money towards an A64 chip and mobo.

Its seems the wrong thing to do IMO investing in a new mobo with that chip and a waste of money.

you will get better gaming results with an A64.

AWPC · 14 Mar 2006 at 13:27

SithUK said:
I'm planning to get the Asus PCIe board that supports the Skt478 Northwoods.

Will a 7900GT be bottlenecked so much that it isn't worth my while getting it?

I have a 3.0 Northwood o/c'd to 3.5Ghz

Thanks.

Save your money and just get the fastest AGP card as that is enough for now. If you game @ 1600x1200 or higher then yes get the pci-e otherwise not much point without getting new CPU+mobo+Ram+gfx card. Wait for conroe as that should give killer performance in approx 4-6 months.

SithUK · 14 Mar 2006 at 14:15

AWPC said:
Save your money and just get the fastest AGP card as that is enough for now. If you game @ 1600x1200 or higher then yes get the pci-e otherwise not much point without getting new CPU+mobo+Ram+gfx card. Wait for conroe as that should give killer performance in approx 4-6 months.

Exactly my thinking awpc

I game at 1280x1024 and want to be able to run max quality until I upgrade to conroe and dx10 gfx in 12mnths.

Problem is, Im not sure a 7800GS will let me do that and with a 7900GT at the same price I didnt see the harm in trading my board for the Asus PCIe one.

The 2nd hand value of my m/b allows me 2 sell it and buy the Asus PCIe for no extra cost to my wallet :-)

I will say that it IS more than a little appalling that the 7800GS, which is the same speed as the 6800Ultra, is the same price as a 7900GT.

I'll price up the cost of selling both my current board and chip and moving to an A64 platform though. If I can re-use my DDR ram I may consider it.

easyrider · 14 Mar 2006 at 14:21

SithUK said:
Exactly my thinking awpc

I game at 1280x1024 and want to be able to run max quality until I upgrade to conroe and dx10 gfx in 12mnths.

Problem is, Im not sure a 7800GS will let me do that and with a 7900GT at the same price I didnt see the harm in trading my board for the Asus PCIe one.

The 2nd hand value of my m/b allows me 2 sell it and buy the Asus PCIe for no extra cost to my wallet

I will say that it IS more than a little appalling that the 7800GS, which is the same speed as the 6800Ultra, is the same price as a 7900GT.

I'll price up the cost of selling both my current board and chip and moving to an A64 platform though. If I can re-use my DDR ram I may consider it.

re-use your ram and get an asrock dual sata 2 mobo for 45 quid and AMD Opteron UP 144 San Diego 1.8GHz 1MB Cache for 122 quid total cost for upgrade around 165 quid.

overclock that opty to 2.4ghz and you have a nice upgrade there.And would't cost that much after selling your p4 and mobo.

SithUK · 14 Mar 2006 at 18:18

I've been doing a little research on the opterons...

is it true that a 2.4Ghz Opteron is equivalent to:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4600+ (listed clock is 2.4Ghz)

So I could buy the:

AMD Opteron UP 144 San Diego 1.8GHz 1MB Cache (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-141-AM)

overclock that to 2.4Ghz which would net me a 4.6Ghz equivalent CPU? Or put another way: a 31% increase in CPU speed over my 3.5Ghz overclocked P4.

And all for a zero net spend after I sell my existing board and cpu.

Granted I'd have to buy a new CPU heat sink but I've been intending to watercool for a while now so perhaps I should take the plunge?

Damn these options

sablabra · 14 Mar 2006 at 18:30

SithUK said:
I've been doing a little research on the opterons...

is it true that a 2.4Ghz Opteron is equivalent to:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4600+ (listed clock is 2.4Ghz)

So I could buy the:

AMD Opteron UP 144 San Diego 1.8GHz 1MB Cache (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-141-AM)

overclock that to 2.4Ghz which would net me a 4.6Ghz equivalent CPU? Or put another way: a 31% increase in CPU speed over my 3.5Ghz overclocked P4.

And all for a zero net spend after I sell my existing board and cpu.

Granted I'd have to buy a new CPU heat sink but I've been intending to watercool for a while now so perhaps I should take the plunge?

Damn these options

You can't think like that at all when comparing intel and amd...

manveruppd · 14 Mar 2006 at 18:46

SithUK said:
I've been intending to watercool for a while now so perhaps I should take the plunge?

Unfortunate pun there?

SithUK · 14 Mar 2006 at 19:57

Glad someone caught it :-)

Seriously though, what would be the improvement of a 4.6Ghz AMD X2 over a 3.5Ghz P4?

I'm a little nervous about building the guts of a new system AND installing watercooling all at once. If I wanted to do it in two stages I'd have to buy a heatsink for the CPU at about £40?

Unless my Thermalright SP94 would fit an Opteron?

man_from_uncle · 14 Mar 2006 at 21:09

Sith, the 144 is not duel core. If you overclock it to 2.4 it'll run like a San Diego 4000+. The lowest duel core opteron is the 165, but that's probably nearly twice the cost of the 144.

ajgoodfellow · 14 Mar 2006 at 22:23

The X2 4600+ is a dual core CPU with only 512KB cache per core

If you clock a single core Opteron to 2.4GHz it'll be faster in single threaded applications due to the extra cache

As mentioned above, the cheapest dual core Opteron is the 165 at 1.8Ghz. This is roughly equivalent to the X2 3800+ or 2 A64 3200+ CPUs at stock

AWPC · 14 Mar 2006 at 23:30

SithUK said:
Exactly my thinking awpc

I game at 1280x1024 and want to be able to run max quality until I upgrade to conroe and dx10 gfx in 12mnths.

Problem is, Im not sure a 7800GS will let me do that and with a 7900GT at the same price I didnt see the harm in trading my board for the Asus PCIe one.

The 2nd hand value of my m/b allows me 2 sell it and buy the Asus PCIe for no extra cost to my wallet

I will say that it IS more than a little appalling that the 7800GS, which is the same speed as the 6800Ultra, is the same price as a 7900GT.

I'll price up the cost of selling both my current board and chip and moving to an A64 platform though. If I can re-use my DDR ram I may consider it.

7800GS should just about let you do that although you will probably lose AA on some games or just tweak the settings a little. Even recent high end gfx cards can just about keep up with recent games when enabling AA due to the poor optimisation by the developer.

Remember that most PCI-E mobos now need DDR2 Ram so you may need to facture the costs of that in as well. The 7800GS is your best option really as you would be gutted if in 12 months or less you had to ditch an all new system to get a Conroe based one.

By my estimates your cpu+ram+mobo will not get you much more than £170 tops as no-one in their right mind will give you more than Ram=£60 CPU=£65 Mobo=£35-40. Remember you also have to add in the p&p costs so that could be another £20 unless you sell all 3 items together.

Its very much a buyers market nowadays and the new prices for your cpu/ram/mobo would be less than £200 inc if you shop around so no way are you gonna get much 2nd hand. On average you can expect to get approx 40-50% for 2nd hand parts unless they are very recent (+ highly sought after) and even then only 65-75% tops as there are just so many people selling stuff all the time or etailers doing sales for end of line components. For a good guide look through the members market and see recent prices similar to yours where they have actually sold them for the stated price.