• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

NVIDIA 8800 GTS troubles.

Alex53

Alex53

Alex53

Associate
Joined
3 Jun 2003
Posts
1,776
Location
Gibraltar
I used to keep on top of things back in the day of the 3Dfx Voodoo3 cards.

Obviously things have changed radically, many generations of cards have come and gone and I just dont have much time to keep up with what the best buys are.

My current 8800 GTS looked good when I bought it. I could finally play Oblivion which is what I bought it for.

Now I am playing LOTRO almost exclusively and experience some jerky moments when I turn around and a lot of stuff has to be drawn. Not all the time though.

My system is a 2.13Ghz dual core, 4gb RAM, Windows XP, directx 9, and the 8800 GTS (348 RAM I believe, something between 256 and 512).

I play on a 17" CRT that can only really do 1024x768 and run the game on high detail. What could be the weakest link causing the occasional jerkiness? I really dont think 1024x768 should be too much at all.

The reason I am posting this is I am thinking of getting a new, larger LCD, maybe 20" and obviously that will do a larger resolution. I wonder what card I might have to get to cope with that.
 
I'd suggest overclocking the CPU a bit, and eventually getting Vista on there. Use all your ram :) The older GTS cards are still capable.
 
What motherboard and memory speed do you have? The first thing id do is try to clock your CPU.

If its 2.13Ghz in guessing its an E6400 which should do 3.2Ghz ( 400x8 ) with ease in the right board and assuming you have PC6400 ram.

With a 20" screen youre looking at 1650x1050 and depending on the game the 320Mb GTS may struggle but tbh mine was fine with stuff like doom3, quake 4 etc, its only stuff like crysis that would really struggle

A decent upgrade would be an 8800GT 512Mb / 8800GTS 512Mb / 8800GTX / or 4850 from ATI depends what your budget is really.
 
benjo said:
I'd suggest overclocking the CPU a bit, and eventually getting Vista on there. Use all your ram :) The older GTS cards are still capable.
Click to expand...


I hear you. I am hesitant about overclocking because I have a feeling my system might be on the hot side already. Hot room, gets very hot in summer (Gibraltar) and the case might not be the best.

How far should a 2.13 dual core go on an Asus P5E motherboard?

(If I didnt have the heat problem I might also be considering a cheaper/used second GTS and actually use SLI.)

Vista is definitely an option. I just hate the way it works with other XP machines on the same network. Becomes a challenge just to share files, which I need to do all the time. I would upgrade all three to Vista, but on the (older) laptop its not an option.
 
MeatLoaf said:
What motherboard and memory speed do you have? The first thing id do is try to clock your CPU.

If its 2.13Ghz in guessing its an E6400 which should do 3.2Ghz ( 400x8 ) with ease in the right board and assuming you have PC6400 ram.

With a 20" screen youre looking at 1650x1050 and depending on the game the 320Mb GTS may struggle but tbh mine was fine with stuff like doom3, quake 4 etc, its only stuff like crysis that would really struggle

A decent upgrade would be an 8800GT 512Mb / 8800GTS 512Mb / 8800GTX / or 4850 from ATI depends what your budget is really.
Click to expand...

I have an ASUS P5E motherboard. I havent overclocked in ages. Since my Pentium II 233mhz :)

I think my RAM is PC6400, will have to check when I'm at home.

I dont play crysis and probably never will, dont know how the demands of Lord of the Rings Online compare to it.

Would those cards be a better upgrade than a second 8800 GTS? Dont really know much about SLI. To me the main worry is it sounds like a recipe for a lot of heat.
 
With regards to the GTS best advice really is to try it and see :)

The P5E is a 965 chipset i think so should happily take your chip to 3.2Ghz :)
 
MeatLoaf said:
With regards to the GTS best advice really is to try it and see :)

The P5E is a 965 chipset i think so should happily take your chip to 3.2Ghz :)
Click to expand...

Sounds like good news on the CPU front.

Will that raise the CPU temp a lot?
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the answers guys :)

Just one doubt, would I have to start changing voltages to get to 3.2Ghz? the whole thing scares me.
 
Right. Thing is I dont really know how changing the voltages works, or what each voltage does to what. Are you basically raising them a little to get more power into the CPU? No idea how much 'a little' is either.

I feel old.
 
Well on my Q6600, the stock is 1.325, and to get it to 3.6, i needed to put the voltage to 1.45-1.5v. It all depends on the CPU :)
 
Id be suprised if you couldnt get 3.2 on stock volts ( 1.35v )

Id set it at 1.4v in the bios to allow for vdroop, then just change the Bus speed to 400.

BUT before you do that make sure you have PC6400 RAM and set the memory to run 1:1 with the CPU.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom