No Bottleneck Card

[Xu0n]

ill put it simple heres my system specs:

mobo: asus nforce2
cpu:athlon xp 2400+@2.0ghz
memory: ddr400 2x256
video: gforceti4200 128mb

i need to replace my video card, but which one would do the best job withtout creating a bottleneck in the system? i was thinking maybe a 6600gt?? 9800?? btw, im not upgrading anything else, except the video card. I will upgrade to a whole new computer in around a year

 

[Mr. Stryker]

Get the MSI GeForce 6600GT. Its stock speed beats a overclocked 9800XT, also gives you lot more score points on 3Dmark03/05 benchmarks. If you got a 6600GT you will have a small bottleneck unless you overclock your CPU a little bit to 2.2 GHZ or somewhere like that. But first what brand RAM do you have?

 

[Xu0n]

its corsair

 

[Mr. Stryker]

Which model? XMS or Value select? The XMS has silver heatspreaders on them and the Twin XMS have black ones and Value Select have none

 

[Xu0n]

xms if i recall correctly, they have the silver the passive heatspreaders

 

[Mr. Stryker]

do you remember their CAS latency? you can set it to 2-3-3-6 and overclock up to 20+ FSB making your CPU go to 2200 MHZ but it depends because i am aware that the silver dual channel XMS ones are a bit sensitive to overclocking

 

[Xu0n]

im going to try oc when i get the video card, i think this is going to be a huge jump from the good ti4200

 

[Mr. Stryker]

Oh yeah I once owned a Ti4600 and i sure miss it. After that I got a 9700pro and then now I have a X800 XL. You really should get a Sapphire Radeon X800 XL if you want to pay an extra 110 dollars to have 16 pipelines and 400mhz/990mhz ATI card. But with your CPU it will be bottlenecked badly and get probably only 60-75% of its full performance.

 

[Mr. Stryker]

Mainly the sad part about your CPU is it runs at 266MHZ FSB only.

 

[Xu0n]

im not complaining, i decided to do a major upgrade until next year, what really is crapping out my games is the videocard

 

[Mr. Stryker]

Oh yeah, you're really fine with your current specs but for games the most important part is the video card upgrade for now haha you will LOVE the 6600GT, fastest 128-bit cards out there.

 

[WSlyce]

just get a x850xt that would be the least likely to bottleneck your system problem solved

 

[geekcomputing]

a 6600GT would be your best bet.... that or a 6800 non ultra.

i suggest the BFG 6800 OC as its overclocked out of the box.

all this riff raff about omg.. your be bottlenecked is bs.

sure you wont get max performance but who cares!
you will get a huge jump up on what your presently get.

 

[DusterAZ]

I agree with geekcomputing, the BFG 6800 OC is a steal as it is at $199 on outpost.com. I am very happy with the performance of this card on my Athlon XP-Mobile.

 

[geekcomputing]

its pretty nice..

mine has a copper heatsink w/ dual fans and heat pipes on it.

w/ 12 pipes and 5 vertex shaders and a chance to unlock it to 16 and 6..... its hard to beat at 199$.

 

[Xu0n]

its better than the 6600gt? i dont care about getting too much frames, i just need the best videocard for this configuration without getting over it and wasting resources

 

[legcramp]

get a 6800gt or x800xl..pump up the resolution and highest details and shut these suckers up about being "bottlenecked".

 

[Snotrocket]

get a 6800gt or x800xl..pump up the resolution and highest details and shut these suckers up about being "bottlenecked".

Couldn't agree more. I hear all this talk about his XP2400 being the bottleneck but I just don't see it. I'm running a 6800GT with the rig in my sig and overclocking my CPU barely edged my 3dMark score up at all.


Now overclocking the Video card itself gave me a much bigger jump making me think the CPU isn't the bottleneck.