Upgrade 6800GT to 7800GS (AGP) Worth it?

O

OBSESSION

Weaksauce
Joined
Jun 10, 2004
Messages
78
Purchased Oblivion, cranked everything to the max. Game looks awesome, but frame rate gets choppy outdoors and in cities. I built my rig in July of 2004. Here's the specs:

MSI K8N Neo Platinum (socket 754)
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (Newcastle)
Corsair XMS 1GB (2x 512) DDR 400 (TwinX1024-3200C2)
BFG NVidia GeForce 6800 GT AGP
Various other bits...

Oh, and running on a Dell 2005FPW at 1680x1050

Would I benefit from upgrading my 6800 GT to a 7800 GS? Having an AGP mobo, that's really my only choice. or should I just bite the bullet, turn down some settings, and eek another year out of my rig before building a new one? I was also contemplating throwing another 512 MB DIMM, or maybe even a 1GB... but I doubt memory is my primary issue.
 
OBSESSION said:
Purchased Oblivion, cranked everything to the max. Game looks awesome, but frame rate gets choppy outdoors and in cities. I built my rig in July of 2004. Here's the specs:

MSI K8N Neo Platinum (socket 754)
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (Newcastle)
Corsair XMS 1GB (2x 512) DDR 400 (TwinX1024-3200C2)
BFG NVidia GeForce 6800 GT AGP
Various other bits...

Oh, and running on a Dell 2005FPW at 1680x1050

Would I benefit from upgrading my 6800 GT to a 7800 GS? Having an AGP mobo, that's really my only choice. or should I just bite the bullet, turn down some settings, and eek another year out of my rig before building a new one? I was also contemplating throwing another 512 MB DIMM, or maybe even a 1GB... but I doubt memory is my primary issue.
Click to expand...
How much do you wanna spend? You can grab a PCI-e 754 mobo and a 7800GT for what it would cost you to get that 7800gs ;)
 
If you plan on keeping your PC for a while, I'd lower details now on Oblivion and wait for the price to drop on 7800GS AGP and then buy it.

If you plan on upgrading in a year, then lower your detail settings and save up for a new PC.

I have a 2100+ Socket A paired with a 9800Pro, so don't do any complaining! I have to turn details down and run at lower resolution, but I can handle until I build new PC sometime down the road.......



Edit: You could also try lowering your monitor resolution, that will bosot your framerates to more acceptable levels.
 
yea id say your in a pretty good position to jump to a pcie system. The 7900 GT which has 8 more piplines is about the same price as the GS, so the price of getting a new motherboard is somewhat justified. It will run you a little more overall to go with a 7900gt+MB (if you buy new), but it would be a more substantial upgrade since the 7800GS is almost a sidegrade comming from a 6800GT.
 
I was in almost the same boat... get the PCIE board and the 7900.
 
your cpu is holding you back a little as well. the 3000+ is a fine processor, but you'd notice a significant increase in fps if you had like a 4000+ or an x2 3800.
 
tim-x said:
your cpu is holding you back a little as well. the 3000+ is a fine processor, but you'd notice a significant increase in fps if you had like a 4000+ or an x2 3800.
Click to expand...
Go look at the CPU scaling article.

There was one from X-Bit labs posted as well. The CPU, basically, anything over a Sempron 3400+ will deliver a similar gaming experience ;)
 
bLaCktIGErs91 said:
Go look at the CPU scaling article.

There was one from X-Bit labs posted as well. The CPU, basically, anything over a Sempron 3400+ will deliver a similar gaming experience ;)
Click to expand...

Bingo. CPU is really not much of a bottleneck anymore, if you're 64bit.
 
lopoetve said:
Bingo. CPU is really not much of a bottleneck anymore, if you're 64bit.
Click to expand...
Hence why I'm going with an OC'ed 3000+ and a 7800GT, rather than a 3500+ and a 6800GT. I don't care about 5 FPS loss from the CPU, compared to a 30FPS loss on the GPU ;)
 
i agree that the GPU is obviously more important. my friend however plays CS Source and had a 3200+ with a 7800GT. his framerate increased significantly when he replaced the 3200+ with an opteron 165
 
Hey, OBSSESION, I just purchased a 7800GS to replace my old 9800pro 128M. The improvement is obvious!
My spec here:
P4 2.8C with kingstone 512m x 2 and a ABIT IS7-E mobo....But I'm playing at 1024 x 768 rez, not that high like you. But what I suggested, I think you may have a wait for the price drop on 7800GS. What I grab is the XFX Extreme Edition one. The gpu core is @ 440 overclocked stock speed. I played QUAKE 4 with high quality (ultra probably need 512MB?) and smooth like a butter...And I also fired FARCRY at water, lighting, environment with very high settings...also no lag...quite smooth...
So you may have a check at that one...but first of all, you could check the xfx forum, since some of the guys there met some problem with their 7800GS, but now it looks like solved.
Another thing which surprised me is...I'm using a ATX 315WB PSU......and don't met a problem with the 7800GS......But I guess I will still upgrade my PSU for safty...
 
tim-x said:
i agree that the GPU is obviously more important. my friend however plays CS Source and had a 3200+ with a 7800GT. his framerate increased significantly when he replaced the 3200+ with an opteron 165
Click to expand...

That's because CS: Source is CPU bound now instead of GPU bound. On my system I'm bound by memory bandwidth. I increased RAM from 266mhz DDR to 333mhz DDR and noticed a 5 -10 FPS increase. Unfortunately mem isn't stable at 333mhz DDR. =(

CPU's these days are more than enough to handle games with ease, unless you are playing an RTS (LotR Battle for Middle Earth II) with lots of bots.

the 64 bit capabitlity in the A64's makes no gameplay difference unless you have a 64 bit operating system, otherwise you are using 32 bit only.
 
Man I am in almost the exact same situation as the OP except I'm worse off proc-wise

I have a 2800+ XP Barton/6800GT agp/1gb ram on an Asus A7N8X and I'm running the Dell 2005FPW as well.

My problem is I'm pretty much looking at ripping out the main guts of my system for any decent upgrade.

I'd need a new proc, mobo, and videocard.

Is there anything else I can do to help boost my performance game-wise that would make sense without replacing all 3 components?
 
Would I have a problem running oblivion?
specs
A64 2800+ clawhammer socket 754
2gigs cricial ddr400
soltek nf3 mobo
leadtek 7800GS AGP
onboard sound and ethernet
480 Antec true power
100gig wd hd
250 raid 1 (mirror) storage (2 250 WD)
lg 16x dvddl burner
 
zalazin said:
Would I have a problem running oblivion?
specs
A64 2800+ clawhammer socket 754
2gigs cricial ddr400
soltek nf3 mobo
leadtek 7800GS AGP
onboard sound and ethernet
480 Antec true power
100gig wd hd
250 raid 1 (mirror) storage (2 250 WD)
lg 16x dvddl burner
Click to expand...

Depends on how much eye candy you want, but you should be able to run it decently at medium settings.
 
Wow... lots of replies! Stupid email notification didn't seem to be working on this thread...

Anyway, I went and turned off all the shadow effects in Oblivion, but left everything else at max. Including the resolution. The game is acceptably playable now. Not bad for a game that gives hardcore systems a workout! Looks like I'm good to go for another year or so, where I'll give the computer a complete overhaul... mobo up.

In the end, I couldn't justify a GPU upgrade with my existing mobo. And I didn't want to upgrade the mobo without upgrading the CPU, memory and everything else.
 
Darknyt said:
Man I am in almost the exact same situation as the OP except I'm worse off proc-wise

I have a 2800+ XP Barton/6800GT agp/1gb ram on an Asus A7N8X and I'm running the Dell 2005FPW as well.

My problem is I'm pretty much looking at ripping out the main guts of my system for any decent upgrade.

I'd need a new proc, mobo, and videocard.

Is there anything else I can do to help boost my performance game-wise that would make sense without replacing all 3 components?
Click to expand...

You can do what I do, lower your monitor resolution a notch and bear it until you upgrade. I'm down to 800x600 in most newer games so I can have some eye candy with my 9800 Pro. I had to play F.E.A.R. at 640x480 just to get reasonably smooth framerates! I haven't played at that resolution since the mid-late 90's.
 
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