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help noob increase gaming performance

O

option141

Gawd
Joined
Dec 7, 2003
Messages
880
ok - here's the plan

i think i could get better gaming performance with a new processor, this is what i have currently;

AMD Athlon 2800+ Barton
ASUS A7N8X
Corsair 2700 DDR RAM (1 gig of it)

Now, what i'd like to do, is get an Intel setup. Only problem is, my knowlege on Intel based setups is very limited.

I'd like this processor. Anybody dissagree with my "wants"?

As for motherboard, i have no idea what to get. Any opinions on what i should get? My budget for Processor and MOBO = ~400$

Thanks,
Seth
 
Prescott-3.0 is a fine proc. Performs about the same as a Northwood C-3.0, has better hyperthreading, runs somewhat hotter.

The Gigabyte GA-8KNXP Rev 2.0 supports Prescott and has a bunch of goodies. I'll be getting a Prescott-3.0 and this board myself next week.

P4s eat two or four sticks of DDR400 (PC3200).
 
2800+ or/and 2.8ghz to a intel 3.0ghz isnt a that much of a jump. Most likely you will me limited by your video card. My opinion would just overclock it to a 3000+ and beyond, it probably a sure thing with a 2800+ processor.

What video card do currently own?
 
If you're going with intel i would say get your self a northwood... Prescott isn't gonna take off for sometime..
 
If you already have a good aircooling or watercooling setup then i would say go ahead and try out a 2.8E or 3.0E prescott. Otherwise i would get a 3.0c Northwood and overclock the snot out of it.

I would get the Gigabyte 8KNXP has it has the best voltage regulator on any board because of being a 6 phase board and its probably the most feature rich P4 board out there. The P4C800-E and IC7-MAX3 are probably slightly faster boards but the Gigabyte has quite a few really nice features only it sports. One of them being a Dual BIOS.

BTW i have this board.
 
id REALLY love to snatch up a 3.0C if i knew they wernt gonna release a 3.6C or even drop the price on the 3.2 soon :( damnit intel i NEED to know , is this the best 478 will ever do ?
 
option141,

With your budget for a mobo/cpu, I'd seriously look at a P4 Northwood/i865PE combination.

Since you seem to like Newegg, look at the Abit IS7 ($99.00)
IS7 Retail - here
(Item # N82E16813127155).

The IS7 is a well respected and recommended i865PE mobo that outperforms some i875 rigs and overclocks very well.

Then, look at the P4 3.2C Northwood CPU (Retail) at ($283.00)
P4 3.2c Northwood Retail
(Item # N82E16819116164).

Keep in mind, you'll also need to upgrade your memory to a PC3200 (or higher speed if you want to overclock) Dual Channel configuration to realize the full performance of the i865PE/i875 P4 Northwood 800MHz platform.

There are a number of quality memory manufacturers from which to choose: OCZ, Kingston, Corsair and Crucial are popular choices with excellent reputations.

The reason I'm suggesting a Northwood core CPU is on a i865PE/i875 is on this platform, they perform better (in all the comparisions and benchmarks I've seen anyways) despite the higher L2 cache of the Prescott core.

It's assumed (by more experienced/informed professionals than I) that the Prescott core P4/P5's will not really reach their potential until installed on a i915/i925 LGA775 platform with DDR2.

Good luck in whatever you decide to do, but these are solid recommendations on proven high performing components made by respected manufacturers.

P.S. A new video card would definitely be on my short list in this project. Maybe an ATI Radeon 9800XT based card or wait until the new NVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra and ATI X800 (R420 GPU) cards become available.
 
Originally posted by RM_Bulldog
id REALLY love to snatch up a 3.0C if i knew they wernt gonna release a 3.6C or even drop the price on the 3.2 soon :( damnit intel i NEED to know , is this the best 478 will ever do ?
Click to expand...

3.0c is about the best your going to get on the Northwood side. 3.2c is of course out there but its more expensive and not really worth it for 200Mhz when your just overclocking the 3.0c anyways.

The 3.4Ghz Northwood was the last to be released on socket 478. Intel is transitioning to LGA 775 now.
 
i don't recommend the 3.0E which is a prescott for gaming cuz of the long pipeline, b/c games are unpredictable and a misprediction will cuz the data to go back to the beginning of the pipeline cuzing decrease in performance

3.0C is better suited for games, and the newer steppings can OC pretty nicely which will give you even more performance

you don't need to upgrade your vidcard just yet...it's still fine for games right now. if you want to upgrade wait till Geforce 6800ultra or the ATI X800
 
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