939 nforce4 with ati 4800 and up

D

digiram

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Nov 27, 2003
Messages
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Hi guys. Gotta noobish question. (haven't been in hw scene in a while)

Looking to upgrade my vid card, but don't feel like upgrading my entire system.

Currently have a 939 opteron 146 /w an msi nforce 4 chipset mb. Would I be able to upgrade to an ati 4850 or 5770 cards? They still use the same pcie x16 slots right?

Thanks
 
yes, but that lowly single core opteron is going to kill you. you will be able to plug it in, but i'd suggest dropping $200 on a newer (not even new, could do used, too) and get a new board/cpu/ram before dropping the $ on the video card.
 
Yep, I have an Athlon X2 5000+ BE @ 3.1 (AM2) with a 4870 and it isn't fully flexing its muscles. Sure I saw an improvement coming from an 8800GT, but not a huge one.
 
even if that was a dual core Opty/A64 at 2.0 it would absolutely kill your performance with a modern mid range card or better. the fact that its a single core means it is 100% time to get a new platform. there is no reason to buy a new video card for that system.
 
Do you see the video card he has now??? An X800se.... That thing probably barely pulls off playable framerates at 1280x1024, with the eyecandy turned down. Go ahead and upgrade the video card to a 5750 or 5770 if you're on a budget and need to get one thing now, it will drastically improve your gaming experience. (edit: oh my.. a 300 watt bestech psu, please upgrade that before you do anything else. You might get away with it, then again the added load of a 57xx series could blow it and take out your system.) Then whenever possible upgrade to a decent dual core at the least.
 
Yoda4561 said:
Do you see the video card he has now??? An X800se.... That thing probably barely pulls off playable framerates at 1280x1024, with the eyecandy turned down. Go ahead and upgrade the video card to a 5750 or 5770 if you're on a budget and need to get one thing now, it will drastically improve your gaming experience. (edit: oh my.. a 300 watt bestech psu, please upgrade that before you do anything else. You might get away with it, then again the added load of a 57xx series could blow it and take out your system.) Then whenever possible upgrade to a decent dual core at the least.
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so what. he will be so cpu limited its not even funny. that cpu does not even meet the min requirements to play many games made in the last 2 years. all a better card is going to do is give him a prettier slide show with that 2.0 single core cpu.
 
I probably just need a whole new rig depending on what you want to play, I'm sure that's not what you wanted to hear though. :(
 
cannondale06 said:
so what. he will be so cpu limited its not even funny. that cpu does not even meet the min requirements to play many games made in the last 2 years. all a better card is going to do is give him a prettier slide show with that 2.0 single core cpu.
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It makes a little more sense than upgrading everything but the video card, 200 bucks on a PSU+ 4850/5750 or 300 bucks on a PSU/CPU/Motherboard/Ram and no video card. If you gotta pick one I'd go with the video card. Not going to argue that he needs a whole system upgrade, but sometimes the budget just can't stretch any more. I think you're also over-exagerating a bit. It'll be slow yes, the framerates won't look good and there will be occasional stutters, but compared to what amounts to what I believe is a slower card than the 9700 pro, it should be a noticable step up. My 9700 pro was too slow for 1024x768 with AA on in HalfLife2, forget anything newer than that. If he upgrades everything but the card, it'll still be a slideshow and there won't be any eyecandy to show for it.
 
Yoda4561 said:
It makes a little more sense than upgrading everything but the video card, 200 bucks on a PSU+ 4850/5750 or 300 bucks on a PSU/CPU/Motherboard/Ram and no video card. If you gotta pick one I'd go with the video card. Not going to argue that he needs a whole system upgrade, but sometimes the budget just can't stretch any more. I think you're also over-exagerating a bit. It'll be slow yes, the framerates won't look good and there will be occasional stutters, but compared to what amounts to what I believe is a slower card than the 9700 pro, it should be a noticable step up. My 9700 pro was too slow for 1024x768 with AA on in HalfLife2, forget anything newer than that. If he upgrades everything but the card, it'll still be a slideshow and there won't be any eyecandy to show for it.
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yeah I am just saying that he is clearly at a point where he needs an entire new platform AND gpu. his cpu is nearly 6 years old and his gpu is over 5 years old. upgrading one without the other at this point is useless.

and no I am not exaggerating how slow his system will be. if anything you are not being realistic about just how slow that old cpu is for modern games. it would be silly to use a fast video card in there. plenty of games will be stuck in the low 20s and teens for average framerates no matter what gpu he uses with that old single core cpu.
 
I would say try to find a used 4850. You'll see a significant increase in gaming, however it will still be sub par in comparison to even the slowest core2.
 
CruisD64 said:
I would say try to find a used 4850. You'll see a significant increase in gaming, however it will still be sub par in comparison to even the slowest core2.
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he would get the same performance with a 4650 as he would with a 4850. some of you people are really clueless how slow an old single core cpu is and how foolish sticking a fast card with it is.
 
I can't remember if I showed this to you before CD, http://www.rage3d.com/board/showpost.php?p=1335667014&postcount=2 There's my quick comparison of my x1800xl (WAY faster than an x800se) and a 4850. This is on my 3800x2 2.0ghz. As long as he takes the old precautions of disabling any apps or processes that don't need to be on while gaming, the difference in gameplay should be similar. The only caveat is if he doesn't plan on upgrading the system for over a year, in which case the OP should probably get a 4650 or something.
 
Yoda4561 said:
I can't remember if I showed this to you before CD, http://www.rage3d.com/board/showpost.php?p=1335667014&postcount=2 There's my quick comparison of my x1800xl (WAY faster than an x800se) and a 4850. This is on my 3800x2 2.0ghz. As long as he takes the old precautions of disabling any apps or processes that don't need to be on while gaming, the difference in gameplay should be similar. The only caveat is if he doesn't plan on upgrading the system for over a year, in which case the OP should probably get a 4650 or something.
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the OP has less than HALF the cpu as your 3800 X2 overclocked to 2.4. you were already throwing 30-40% of what a 4850 could do down the drain so imagine having less then half the cpu you did. btw I had a 5000 X2 and tested many games with just one of its cores and it was pretty horrible. I also have 4200 X2 and 8600gt at my parents and turning off one core will even kill the performance of that low end card.

really look closely at his entire setup because it doenst deserve a modern fast card. he has a very old and slow single core cpu, 1gb of ram and 300 watt psu. its really time for a new pc.
 
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cannondale06 said:
...really look closely at his entire setup because it doenst deserve a modern fast card. he has a very old and slow single core cpu, 1gb of ram and 300 watt psu. its really time for a new pc.
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Yea, that 1GB ram and turd PS is a killer.

Just for conversation, I kinda recently upgraded my casual gaming rig (Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego @ 2.75, ATI X850XT, 1GB DDR500 Corsair Ballistic Mem, 400W Corsair PS) with an 8800GT I had laying around when the X850XT crapped out. Saw quite a performance boost, also recently had to buy new ram for it, the Ballistics crapped out, wouldn't run stock without errors, so I got the only DDR500 on Newegg, 2GB Mushkins ($80 ouch!!!) and that was a great improvement. Have TF2 and BF2 on it, run them maxed @ 1600x1200 good fps., but mostly just casual and indie stuff.

So long story short, if he had a better PS at least, then a cheaper new GFX card would be a nice improvement over his old one depending on what he wants to play. But GFX card, PS and really more ram as well, the money would be better spent on a new build.
 
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Let him get the fastest card and see how it goes. Not like its agp and he can't use it again on his next upgrade.
 
Conker said:
Let him get the fastest card and see how it goes. Not like its agp and he can't use it again on his next upgrade.
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because thats stupid. he has 1gb of ram, crap psu and a very outdated and slow single core cpu. maybe another gig of ram and something like a 4650 but anything beyond that is foolish.
 
Hi all...Thanks for all of the input.

As mentioned. I haven't been too up to date with the latest tech n stuff in a while and haven't updated my sig in a while as well. Currently, I'm running an MSI nf4 939 /w opty 146 @ stock 2.0 ghz, 3 gb ddr, x1950gt, 550 watt rosewill psu.

With the rig mentioned, I can play Batman AA @ 800X600...on low. Wanna be able to play that at 1280x1024...maybe. Also plan on playing Borderlands.
 
At least try to find a S939 dual-core. Most of the 3800X2s can OC to 2.6 and above. Then you can get a 4770/5750 and you'll be able to play games on high settings at 1280x1024.
 
Yes, it will work. And yes it will upgrade your performance. But your performance gains will be bottlenecked by your chip.
 
Upgrade your whole system, if you're trying to play titles like batman on a 2 ghz single core you're gonna be hurting no matter what video card you use. A CPU upgrade may even bump your performance to adequate levels with the x1950, and if it doesn't then just save up for a bit and grab a 5750 or something. S939 dual cores are stupid expensive for their performance these days unfortunately. I'd suggest buying a whole new rig, either phenom II ddr3 based, or a core i5/i7 system.
 
Again...thanks for all the input. Just wanted to know if it would work really as I was woried about pcie 1.0/2.0 backwards compatibility type thing. From all the info, it should work fine, so I'll be picking up a 5770 or 48XX card, and I'll let you all know of what kind of improvement I get with my last gen system. If I'm not satisfied, then I'll do the full system upgrade to the c2d or phenom cpu's.
 
+1 on new system. That cpu is painful to play games on. I had a old pc with a 3500+ and slapped a 7800gt in it. It was terrible compared to what I was expecting in source as far as performance. 4670 would be the highest I would go as I think a 1950gt is getting dragged down by that cpu.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Combo...EMC-IGNEFL102009-_-Combo-_-LM1A-_-Combo273662

That with some cheap ddr2 > getting a 5770 for that system.
 
digiram said:
Again...thanks for all the input. Just wanted to know if it would work really as I was woried about pcie 1.0/2.0 backwards compatibility type thing. From all the info, it should work fine, so I'll be picking up a 5770 or 48XX card, and I'll let you all know of what kind of improvement I get with my last gen system. If I'm not satisfied, then I'll do the full system upgrade to the c2d or phenom cpu's.
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NO IT WONT. you are only reading what you want to read. your performance will be laughable and most newer games will barely be playable. you are taking a video card which is equal to a high end card just a few weeks ago and sticking it with a 6 year old slow single core cpu, 1gb of memory and crap power supply. whatever usable performance gain you achieve could easily be realized on a 4650 since even that card will be nearly 100% limited by that old single core cpu. :rolleyes:
 
cannondale06 said:
NO IT WONT. you are only reading what you want to read. your performance will be laughable and most newer games will barely be playable. you are taking a video card which is equal to a high end card just a few weeks ago and sticking it with a 6 year old slow single core cpu, 1gb of memory and crap power supply. :rolleyes:
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His system changed on specs, but the end result will be the same. I don't think he will see any improvement.
 
It's gonna be an upgrade, but until you upgrade to a Core2 or better you will never see anywhere near the potential of that card. My 939 X2 couldn't even handle an 8800gt.
 
Tbird87 said:
His system changed on specs, but the end result will be the same. I don't think he will see any improvement.
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well he will see an improvement by going with any newer card but a card like the 4800 series or 5700 series is a complete waste of money. really even a 4650 will be severely constrained by a slow single core cpu and 1gb of memory. the most I would do with that system is buy another gb of memory and get the cheapest modern low end card I can find. really though he is just putting of the inevitable because that cpu will limit him to unplayable framerates in many modern games and no video card can fix that.

OP, even a $350 pc from Best Buy and a $50 4670 would be like a super computer compared to to what you have.
 
i posted some tests of a 4870 512 running with a 3800+ a little while back, trying to convince a user that pairing a new gpu with an old single core cpu would be tantamount to throwing away money. and here it is...
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the only playable game was cod4 any anything that required any processing muscle was absolutely unplayable. keep in mind that the tests were run at 19x12 so at anything less, the cpu plays more of a role in performance.
 
socket 939 is an old socket. getting a new video card doesnt take up the "slack" of an old single core processor. look into a amd 620 quad core.....and new motherboard decent psu. your processor and video card work together as a team. one cant take up slack for the other if you got one thats way older then the other.
 
yeah I can also tell you that I tested many modern games on my two X2 cpus with one core disabled and many games were just not playable at all. on my 4200 X2 and 8600gt machine Batman was perfectly playable on high settings at 1024x768 but shutting of one core made the game never exceed 30fps even for a max framerate and nearly halved the average fps I was getting. a 6 year old single core A64/Opty will bottleneck the crap out of even low end modern cards so a fast card is really a complete waste.
 
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