w00tage x1950xtx

[tisb0b]

I'm getting a new comp and since the x1900xt had been discontinued I had the choice of a 7950gt or the x1950xtx for $140 aud extra. So naturally I went for the x1950xtx because the 7950 would be a downgrade from the x1900xt. So I'm just wondering is there anything that I should know in order to get the most out of this card w/o overclocking like utilities etc..?

 

[TMaxx6]

Since when was the X1900XT discontinued? ATi just came out with a X1900XT 256MB model a week ago.

 

[legcramp]

I'm getting a new comp and since the x1900xt had been discontinued I had the choice of a 7950gt or the x1950xtx for $140 aud extra. So naturally I went for the x1950xtx because the 7950 would be a downgrade from the x1900xt. So I'm just wondering is there anything that I should know in order to get the most out of this card w/o overclocking like utilities etc..?

Make sure you are not running a pentium 3, have a good powersupply, install the drivers, and enjoy.

 

[tisb0b]

Since when was the X1900XT discontinued? ATi just came out with a X1900XT 256MB model a week ago.

since they ran out of stock

 

[firewolf]

Get omega drivers

 

[uniwarp]

Make sure you are not running a pentium 3, have a good powersupply, install the drivers, and enjoy.

Totally agreed, there is no point of getting a great video card to be bottlenecked with a 2.8 GHz prescott.

 

[BinarySynapse]

Totally agreed, there is no point of getting a great video card to be bottlenecked with a 2.8 GHz prescott.

What? Today's games are bottlenecked by the video card itself not the CPU. And if you talking about games from "not today" then 2.8Ghz Prescott is more than enough.

 

[uniwarp]

The thing is I just bumped my processor from 3.0 to 3.5 GHz and my 3D Mark 2005 score jumped some 1200 points... That sort of scaling makes me think there is an issue with my processor speed and graphics power. I think I'd be better off with a better gaming processor such as an opty/x2 operating 2.7/2.8 GHz and I'm quite sure there are games that I could just play with an X1800XT at the resolution I play (1280x1024) and see no noticable performance decrease.

sorry I just checked with the orb and it was a jump from 8425 to 9615

 

[Stereophile]

According to anandtech's oblivion cpu test, an X1800XT is slightly cpu bound with even an A64@2.2ghz

So it's not surprising if you got a big 3dmark increase going from 3 to 3.5ghz on a P4.
I think the sweet spot with A64s is 2.5-2.7ghz.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2747&p=4

 

[tisb0b]

Make sure you are not running a pentium 3, have a good powersupply, install the drivers, and enjoy.

well its going to have an e6400 + 500w psu + 2gigs DDR2 667mhz ram behind it so that should be no problem. Even though atm I am running a Pentium 3 system lmao

 

[BurntToast]

What? Today's games are bottlenecked by the video card itself not the CPU. And if you talking about games from "not today" then 2.8Ghz Prescott is more than enough.

Tel that to my 32Bit AMD Barton 2500+

 

[psychot|K]

Bah! I got you beat!
Non-overclocked XP 3000+ here
My vid card could be a rice cracker and I'd still be CPU limited.

 

[Dan_D]

From everything I have read, the gaming sweet spot for the Pentium 4 is around the 3.2-3.4GHz range. The 3.0 is fine, but the 2.8 on down starts to lose a little bit of performance. Now you don't get super craptastic performance until you drop to the 2.4GHz range and lower.

On the AMD side, the Athlon 64 3500+ was the sweet spot. Anything past that CPU worked fine. When you moved past the Athlon 64 3800+, the differences between CPU’s were pretty much negligible.

I've always noticed my CPU performance upgrades for the most part as well as my overclocks. Though I can tell you that if you have an A64 at 2.2GHz or more, you are fine. With the Pentium 4, a 2.8 is doable, but I wouldn't want to use one. A 3.0 or 3.2 is the minimum I would consider.

It seems that all Core 2 Duo's are perfect for gaming. Even the stock E6300 running at 1.86GHz.