Wow! when an upgrade really becomes worth it

MooSey-UK · 7 Oct 2006 at 14:25

a little while ago i posted about watercooling my trusty XP3000 Barton in order to get better overclocking for frame rates.
well,
i junked that idea and got an X2 4400 which i promptly whacked up to 4800 rating.
to say the difference was noticeable would be an understatement. previously in BF2 at 1280x1024 with everything maxed and 2xAA i was getting 25-40 fps. this i found dissapointing as i'd only fitted a gainward bliss 7800GS+ 512 (7900GT/AGP).
so yesterday when i fired up BF2 after the rebuild i was just a tad happy......
from 25-40fps old cpu to 80-100fps now.w000000000000000000000t!!
who sez cpu's don't make much difference for games?
its reasons like this that make upgrades worthwhile.
thanks to the low prices of 939 X2's here at the shop i got my cpu and mobo for just over £200. considering i'll get nearly £100 for my old cpu/mobo thats what i call value for money

Big.Wayne · 7 Oct 2006 at 14:28

Nice!

Duke · 7 Oct 2006 at 14:34

The old AthlonXPs are great for Windows/Office tasks but you really need something more beefy now for games

Good to hear

VeNT · 7 Oct 2006 at 14:48

Duke said:
The old AthlonXPs are great for Windows/Office tasks but you really need something more beefy now for games Good to hear

bet you a doller?
I've yet to find a game that wouldn't play on my Athlon 2500 (3200 speeds) witha gig of ram and 6600GT

YoungBlood · 7 Oct 2006 at 15:12

VeNT said:
bet you a doller?
I've yet to find a game that wouldn't play on my Athlon 2500 (3200 speeds) witha gig of ram and 6600GT

Same setup as me, well I have a clean 3200, and it does play everything I throw at it resonably well. Was suprised at how smooth CoH plays, hope it can still hold its own on the bigger maps with more stuff going on.
Just waiting for the BF2142 demo to finish, but I reckon it might struggle with that.

Duke · 7 Oct 2006 at 16:48

I didn't mean you can't play anything on AthlonXP, just that a modern CPU can give huge gains, as the OP found out.

Tetras · 7 Oct 2006 at 16:54

Yeah, when your using a 6600 GT it isn't like you need a monster CPU (no offense)

Big.Wayne · 7 Oct 2006 at 17:31

The games I think really *need* a phat processor are the RTS games where you control 1000+ units etc in real time. . . :eek:

Solus · 7 Oct 2006 at 19:53

Oblivion would make your Barton struggle, without a doubt. When more NPC's and mobs are on screen you'll be moving at snails pace.

CrazyMonkey · 7 Oct 2006 at 20:32

was around a friend's last night hes got a E6600 at 3.6ghz an X1900XTX 2gb of Geil 6400 a raptor and some 360gig spinpoint. So we decided to hit osme of the old games. We played some redalert ect for a while all went well.
Then we hit some Command And Conquer Tiberian Sun started getting some units going and dam everything started going sloow.
like 1000units made this setup struggle. Was wierd since the game is like 6 years old. Then we played some PREY and we were zooming along, old games kill!

Duke · 7 Oct 2006 at 21:44

Tiberian Sun was very poorly coded though..

mrthingyx · 7 Oct 2006 at 22:54

Solus said:
Oblivion would make your Barton struggle, without a doubt. When more NPC's and mobs are on screen you'll be moving at snails pace.

Oblivion makes pretty much every computer setup struggle because it is a port and not a very good one at that. Just like Halo PC - average graphics but still ran like a mule on just about every PC system because it was ported badly.

To be fair, there is no real competition between the Barton and the A64 x2 setups, but the point is that they shouldn't be rejected out of hand. At all.

To the OP: it goes to show, doesn't it? IMHO, overclocking is about getting the best from an existing setup: I learned a long time ago that ££££££s can be spent for very little gain as you would have (probably) found out by watercooling your Barton setup. If the watercooling loop was there to be used, then fair enough, but sometimes it's just not worth the outlay over a complete upgrade.

I'm faced with a similar decision, although my w/c loop is (almost) all ready to go in... an SFF.

Would it be worth it to sink the extra money on an A64 system? 'Tis a fun game we play.

MooSey-UK · 8 Oct 2006 at 19:54

i was determined not to upgrade the cpu. i had a mindset that it was'nt worth it until the vista platform and consequent games matured.
however when you compare the cost of w/c kit to a cpu/mobo upgrade it does'nt take a genius to work out the bang per buck deal.
i loved my xp3000, it clocked to 2.5 and would have loved water. i'd still like to get a loop fitted but i can't afford now or justify what would essentially be the bling factor.
every dog has its day and my xp had its.
i just hope intel and amd keep battering each other so we, the consumer can enjoy the price wars

Richdog · 8 Oct 2006 at 19:57

VeNT said:
bet you a doller?
I've yet to find a game that wouldn't play on my Athlon 2500 (3200 speeds) witha gig of ram and 6600GT

Hey if you like to play games at 1024*768 at low detail then that's your choice.

mrthingyx · 9 Oct 2006 at 12:09

Richdog said:
Hey if you like to play games at 1024*768 at low detail then that's your choice.

It is, indeed.

But seeing as I have a monitor that will only display 1280x768, it's academic.

The OP sounds like he has a brutally fast system, however!

teabagger · 9 Oct 2006 at 14:19

I've got a heavily overclocked Athlon XP running at just over 2.6GHz, just upgraded GFX card from an FX5800 to a 7600GT and am very happy that I can run fear at maximum everything (except textures due to having only 1Gig of RAM). I was suprised at how well the old XP stood up to be honest.

Big.Wayne · 9 Oct 2006 at 14:47

teabagger said:
very happy that I can run fear at maximum everything (except textures due to having only 1Gig of RAM)

What res you running? 1024x768 or 1280x1024?

teabagger · 9 Oct 2006 at 14:49

Big.Wayne said:
What res you running? 1024x768 or 1280x1024?

I'm assuming 1280x1024 given that's the native resolution of my monitor and I picked the highest available setting.

silversurfer · 9 Oct 2006 at 17:36

An Athlon running at 2.6ghz is roughly equalivant to 4400+

Theres a utility called UAMD that translates clock speeds and compares them across the various amd sockets.

BF2 uses the cpu a lot when you have many opponents on the screen, 12 or more say

MooSey-UK · 10 Oct 2006 at 00:06

teabagger said:
I've got a heavily overclocked Athlon XP running at just over 2.6GHz, just upgraded GFX card from an FX5800 to a 7600GT and am very happy that I can run fear at maximum everything (except textures due to having only 1Gig of RAM). I was suprised at how well the old XP stood up to be honest.

FEAR, cod2, Q4 etc being fairly linear did'nt bother my XP much. BF2 did tho hence my bargaintastic upgrade

2142 is even more resource hungry but i aint worked out yet if its cpu or gfx.

mrthingx wrote;

"The OP sounds like he has a brutally fast system, however!"

my 7800gs+ goes to 600/1500 from 450/1250 stock. i think i missed the duffers and got a good 'un. plus the prerequisite 2gig of ram always helps bf2 along.