6950 with an Athlon 64 3500+

D

diggƒreak

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 8, 2006
Messages
173
Did I catch your attention?
To make a long story short, in September I will have in my possession a 6950 that I'd like to drop into my (now ancient) build.

Main specs:
Athlon 64 3500+ Venice @ stock 2.2Ghz
2GB DDR 400 (4 x 512MB)
Corsair 850TX
Asus nForce 4 Ultra
eVGa 9800GT (I'll see if I can use this as a dedicated PhysX card)

I'm posting because I'm really curious how the hilariously bottle-necked 6950 will perform in such a system. My main monitor has a native res of 1440x900, and with the candy turned up in TF2 I don't get the 60 FPS min performance that I'd like.

I'm making a request here for anyone with a similar box lying around and a 6950 to do some TF2 benchmarks for the sake of curiosity. I'll definitely post some pics in September of the hilarity.
 
Source games are usually more CPU bound than GPU bound. I think you're going to do be unsatisfied.

Spend the $200 to upgrade to a AMD quad-core, mobo, and 4gb ddr3, and try and sell off your 9800GT and old mobo, memory.
 
Does that motherboard even have PCI-E slots? My 3200+ is still in service, but the KV8 motherboard has AGP and PCI slots.
 
Yep, the board has two PCI-e slots.

This is the socket 939 90nm part.

You probably have a socket 754 3200+?
 
Really a 6950 is a complete waste in that setup.
As mentioned above, sell it and upgrade your system. You will notice a bigger difference in a lower end quad, DDR3, and an entry level video card than you will ever see choking that video card in your 10 year old system.
 
I'll run some benchmarks and check the increase in power consumption and then see if it's worth keeping it just for 1440x900.

If it's a terrible power/performance situation then I should be able to afford a complete system upgrade while keeping the 6950.

This system is at most 6 years old by the way. The 9800GT only came out three years ago or something.
 
diggƒreak;1037392512 said:
This system is at most 6 years old by the way. The 9800GT only came out three years ago or something.
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Just because you bought it 6 years ago doesn't mean it was new tech back then. The clawhammer +3200 came out September 23, 2003.
 
diggƒreak;1037392571 said:
You might want to read the thread title and my other posts?
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I've been here the full thread and understand everything you have said.
 
lloose said:
I've been here the full thread and understand everything you have said.
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digg&#402 said:
Thread Title: 6950 with an Athlon 64 3500+
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digg&#402 said:
Athlon 64 3500+ Venice @ stock 2.2Ghz
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digg&#402 said:
This is the socket 939 90nm part
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My CPU went to market on April 4, 2005. I bought it on August 5, 2005.

So I consider my PC less than 6 years old.

I still find my computing experience is much better than most students at my University with new machines because I keep my machine clean with less than 100MB start-up memory usage.
 
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I have a s939 4400+ based system with a8n32-sli board sitting...I'm half tempted to hook up an ssd and drop the unlocked 6950 I have sitting around just to see what happens

you should drop a couple hundred bucks into a new basic rig, you will see a very clear advantage
 
It will bottleneck around 90% or more of the total GPU capability, and if you use the 9800GT as PhysX, you will be lucky to get above 10fps in any title. The CPU will just be crushed under the load that will be put upon it by those GPUs.

It was a good processor, but it is 6 years old and it's a single core, and even running OCed it wouldn't help almost at all.

Be kind to that GPU and get a modern CPU and system if you can afford it. ;)
 
-Sn1PeR- said:
Does that motherboard even have PCI-E slots? My 3200+ is still in service, but the KV8 motherboard has AGP and PCI slots.
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Yeah, many 939 mobos had 1 or 2 16x (8x mechanical) slots, especially with the nForce4 SLI chipsets. Good times.
 
Please don't pair the 6950 with that setup lol. Even the 9800gt is bottlenecked by that cpu (you'll probably gain more performance oc'ing that highly overclockable venice).
 
I'm thinking that's a PCI-E (not 2.0!) board. Curious if a 6950 would even post in such a thing.
 
The FS area has numerous used core2 setups that could be had for little, making your card quite worthwhile. The FS area also has a ridiculous amount of WTB threads, people looking to purchase 6950/6870 and the near impossible to find anywhere retail 6990. Keep your card, and spend a few more coins on a mild system update.
 
As an aside, I presently have my 6950 connected to a q6600 setup. It will be moving over to a 1055T this weekend.
 
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you would be lucky to get 10-15% of what a 6950 can do. even your modest 9800gt is limited by 50% in many newer games.

a single core 3500 A64 is about the equivalent of my E8500 running at around 1.6 with one core disabled.
 
palaciav said:
I'm thinking that's a PCI-E (not 2.0!) board. Curious if a 6950 would even post in such a thing.
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Yes it would, PCI-E 2.0 cards are backwards compatible with 1.0 slots.

The port wouldn't be the bottleneck though, the CPU would be the issue.
 
How much would popping a better dual core 939 help? No cure, I know. OP would still be better off with a better board.
 
Noetic said:
How much would popping a better dual core 939 help? No cure, I know. OP would still be better off with a better board.
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that would be a waste of time and money as those cpus are usually very overpriced. even the fastest 939 dual core cpu would be a massive limitation and in many cases barely even meet the minimum requirements for modern games.
 
Noetic said:
How much would popping a better dual core 939 help? No cure, I know. OP would still be better off with a better board.
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You might get 15-20% max out of that GPU (not using the 9800GT for physx) if you upgrade to an OCed X2 4800+ or FX-60. Sorry, those CPUs are just really old. They don't even compare to modern processors.

Hell, the low-end E-350 CPU in my server is almost as powerful as an FX-57 single-core.

Time to upgrade. ;)
 
Red Falcon said:
You might get 15-20% max out of that GPU (not using the 9800GT for physx) if you upgrade to an OCed X2 4800+ or FX-60. Sorry, those CPUs are just really old. They don't even compare to modern processors.

Hell, the low-end E-350 CPU in my server is almost as powerful as an FX-57 single-core.

Time to upgrade. ;)
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I was just thinking aloud. I know what should be done. :).
 
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