What Do I Upgrade?

D

donjn

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 19, 2006
Messages
97
Here is my system:

Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Windsor 3.0GHz
3 GB of RAM Dual Channel 2 x 1gb and 2 x 512
Geforce 8800 GT

I was thinking of either going with the ATi 4870, Nvidia x260/280 or moving to Intel and getting a Wolfdale 7200...

I am a gamer, and I do play a lot of online games which seem to be more CPU bound.

EDIT: Okay I did a test. I found an area high on a cliff with no NPCs or other players around. This is running at 1680 x 1050 with 4xAA and 16xAF.

Test 1 Defalt Core Clock 625MHz
FPS: 59

Test 2 Overclocked Core Clock 660MHz
FPS: 72

This makes me think a new graphics card is in order?
 
I am starting to lean towards an ATi 4870. These cards are beasts I heard..
 
I think you'd see a bigger improvement with a 4870 personally. I don't know what mobo you got, but you could throw a 3GHz Deneb in it maybe later this year.
 
xBanzai89 said:
I think you'd see a bigger improvement with a 4870 personally. I don't know what mobo you got, but you could throw a 3GHz Deneb in it maybe later this year.
Click to expand...

Based on my research looking at the gaming benchmarks on Toms Hardware, it seems that the percentage I would gain FPS from 8800gt to 4870 would be higher than going from x2 6000 Windsor to a 7200 Wolfdale.

Anyone agree that the 4870 is just too good of a card to pass up in this case?
 
ihira said:
a 4870 would do the job and a bit more :)
Click to expand...

It will be well handicapped by an Athlon XP though.
Even an A64 x2 cant make full use of an 8800GT so anything faster than the GT will suffer more.
 
Athlon XP? I think he means Athlon 64 X2. As far as I know no XP reached no where near 3GHz, and Windsor is a Athlon 64 X2 part. I was stuck with a Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 2.2GHz S939. I had a 8800 GTS 512 at the time, I had to upgrade to something since I knew I was getting a bottleneck. If I was on AM2 I would have grabbed a 3GHz CPU, but I couldn't. In this case he has a good clocked CPU, mid-high resolution, so a 4870 will help his FPS improve more. With that he can hold off and wait to upgrade to a newer platform.
 
Whats the point of upgrading right now if your res is 16x10. 8800GT will run almost every title maxed at that res.
 
I'm interested to know how you can have an Athlon XP board that has a PCI-E slot.
As far as I'm aware, PCI-E made it to Athlon 64 socket 754 and 939 but not Socket A.

This means you probably arent running an Athlon XP or you dont have an 8800GT.
 
WTF, Athlon XP never had dual core or PCI-E slot mobos. Someones is not well informed of his system specs.
 
Nenu said:
I'm interested to know how you can have an Athlon XP board that has a PCI-E slot.
As far as I'm aware, PCI-E made it to Athlon 64 socket 754 and 939 but not Socket A.

This means you probably arent running an Athlon XP or you dont have an 8800GT.
Click to expand...

Ummmm, I have an ASRock 939 board and use the AM2CPU Board to give me an AM2 slot:

http://www.compumusic.com/p44868.htm
 
^Good point.

Almost no reviews these days are done with AMD CPUs. Here is a review done by a admin @ the slizone forums with the 9800 GTX, GTX260, and GTX280, in both single/sli mode. http://forums.slizone.com/index.php?showtopic=23084.It shows a good margain of improvement even though its a 9550 @ 2.5GHz. I think CPU bottlenecks are overblown a lot by people far to often.

EDIT: I think that is the most fancy way to upgrade something I have ever seen :O.
 
I updated my specs to Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Windsor 3.0GHz.

Sorry about the XP part. Old memories...
 
Now that we now I have an Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Windsor 3.0GHz and not a regular XP, are we back on the 4870 bandwagon? lol
 
OK, you are close to making your 8800GT run at full speed but the thing is, if you overclock the card, do you get a performance increase?
If not, theres little point in using a faster card.
Give it a try if you want to find out.

My old A64 @2.7GHz could only get about 80% of the full performance from my 8800GT.
Clocking the card made no difference.
I switched to an E8400 and overclocked the GT by 20% and got around 50% performance jump!
 
Okay I did a test. I found an area high on a cliff with no NPCs or other players around. This is running at 1680 x 1050 with 4xAA and 16xAF.

Test 1 Defalt Core Clock 625MHz
FPS: 59

Test 2 Overclocked Core Clock 660MHz
FPS: 72
 
switched from 9800gtx+ to HD4870, HUGE improvements, 3Dmark vantage scored 1200 higher in extreme setting. They should be selling for about 200 now on eBay...
 
Not sure if I want to hassle with a new motherboard, reinstall of the OS, etc. Here is what I have narrowed it down to:

AMD Phenom 9750 or ATi 4870
 
donjn said:
Okay I did a test. I found an area high on a cliff with no NPCs or other players around. This is running at 1680 x 1050 with 4xAA and 16xAF.

Test 1 Defalt Core Clock 625MHz
FPS: 59

Test 2 Overclocked Core Clock 660MHz
FPS: 72
Click to expand...

Something is desperately wrong with the result you got.
A 5.6% increase in GPU clockspeed cannot liberate a 22% performance increase!
 
You will see a performance boost with a 4870. Probably anywhere 40% or more. A 3GHz AMD CPU is just about a 2.4GHz C2D. From what I heard you only need a 2.4GHz C2D or equivalent to get the most out of your video card. And you're just about at that point. Why do people think that AMD CPUs can't game at all? You're at 1680x1050, you're not nearly as CPU dependent compared to someone @ 1280x1024 or smaller.
 
xBanzai89 said:
From what I heard you only need a 2.4GHz C2D or equivalent to get the most out of your video card.
Click to expand...

You need a 2.4GHz Core 2 to "start" getting (not get the best) decent framerates on the 8800 series cards.
Newer faster cards need a faster CPU.
 
Mr. K6 said:
OP, what's your budget?
Click to expand...

I just purchased an ATi 4870.

My reason. I researched this a ton, and I figured out that my CPU is more than good enough for a 4870. It may be a slight bottleneck, but from what I read, bottlenecking is overrated.

There were some good articles recently that went through the whole process. Also with my monitor at 1680 x 1050, bottlenecking is less of an issue.
 
Nenu said:
You need a 2.4GHz Core 2 to "start" getting (not get the best) decent framerates on the 8800 series cards.
Newer faster cards need a faster CPU.
Click to expand...

You get most, not 50%, but more along 75% or more depending on resolution.

You made the right purchase, enjoy the new card.
 
The framerates you posted are quite good. Why are you upgrading something again? You could also just play older games. The graphics might not be as good, but the gameplay is the same and you'll have money to spend on other things that don't involve staying home by yourself.
 
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