Will I have a bottleneck on my system?

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Whipsmack

Gawd
Joined
Oct 17, 2005
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System is in my sig. I can get up to 3.2GHz if I need to.

I plan on getting either X800 XL AGP, or X850 XT PE. I'm wondering if I get the X850 if my system will even be able to take full advantage of it.

Thanks!
 
Remember, something is ALWAYS bottlenecking your system unless at a specific settings, your CPU, graphics card and everything else you have perform equally (ie, your CPU and GPU can both chug out exactly 80 frames at 1024x768 on BF2).

I would say your CPU is a bigger problem than the video card, however, if you can get your CPU to 3.2 GHz, then it should be fine.
 
You'll be more than OK, provided that your RAM and mobo can handle the speed boost...

... and please, make sure you've got an AGP 8x slot, not an AGP4x.
 
Nope, seriously doubt your 3.2 would bottleneck a X800XL or a X850XT, it perform pretty awesome but ofcourse no as good as on a AMD system.
 
Ya I have PC 3200 but cas latency is 3


Hmmmm X850XT for $239.40 or X50XT PE for $269.40 or 800XL for $179.40

For the ati retail employee discount thingy.
 
woo baby!

i just made the leap from a 9700 pro to my new 7800GT and i'll tell you what!

it's HOT! ow! i just burned my finger! in a good way!

my P4 and ram and basically every god damned thing inside my case were begging to be liberated from that damned video card, but i didn't realize how badly until it was gone.

i know that 3d mark doesn't get any love, but it's one of the few concrete numbers i can give examples for off the top of my head (i'm on my laptop at work, and have a bunch of other benches written down on paper at home... how low tech is that?!).

anyway... i went from 1431 3d'05 marks to 5667 (that's a 396% increase). i has averaging 1.6 FPS on my old card... i don't know the average of my new card off hand, but lets just say it was leaps and bounds above the old one. i had to turn EVERYthing off in B&W2 to even play it, and now i can crank the settings up (okay, not MAX... but HIGH). once i placed the order, i went out and bought FEAR, but didn't boot it up until the new hardware was in place (the actual campaign, i mean.. i ran the benches, and it was ugly).

i had to buy a new motherboard in order to use my old socket 478 p4 with a new PCIe video card, but i'm totally fine with the albatron... it was the only one i could find with s478 and PCIe, but it only cost about 90 bucks, and is worth every penny. we look like we're in the same boat CPU and GPU wise... trust me... i was looking for an AGP card, and what i found was that you can buy "less card for more money" if you insist on AGP... drop an extra 90 bucks, get this mobo , and be done with it. i found that getting an AGP card was going to cost an extra 100 or so, so i just put that 100 towards this, and got a PCIe card.

long story short.... throw that radeon off a bridge, and don't look back. get a PCIe card and that mobo.... you won't be sorry. ;)


**edit: reading back over my post, one might get the impression i'm spouting off pro-nvidia-isms or whatever... the point i'm trying to make is "get a NEW card, whatever flavor it is..." ... your RAM ans CPU are still fine, that 9700 is just holding you back way further than you might think... i kept thinking mine was still doing "okay"... trust me. it sucks.
 
Thanks for the post. I see no reason to go PCI-E when nothing really even utilizes the 16x yet... or am I wrong?
 
Your cpu is definately holding you back, my friend has an intel 2.8ghz running a 6600GT and my other friend has an AMD64 3000+ with 9700pro and the one with the 9700pro recieves 2 times the fps in the same game, and the 6600gt is of course a better card, he has a better mobo than you too and better ram (i'm talking about the P4 dude).
 
bjork said:
we look like we're in the same boat CPU and GPU wise... trust me... i was looking for an AGP card, and what i found was that you can buy "less card for more money" if you insist on AGP... drop an extra 90 bucks, get this mobo , and be done with it. i found that getting an AGP card was going to cost an extra 100 or so, so i just put that 100 towards this, and got a PCIe card.

long story short.... throw that radeon off a bridge, and don't look back. get a PCIe card and that mobo.... you won't be sorry. ;)
Click to expand...

looks like about $340+ for the 7800gt and $90 for the motherboard. How much faster is it than the $180 X800XL he can buy?
 
Only problem that could bother You is a PEBCAK. :)


Maybe it's a time to go PCI-e?



MD
 
Whipsmack said:
Thanks for the post. I see no reason to go PCI-E when nothing really even utilizes the 16x yet... or am I wrong?
Click to expand...

Doesn't matter if it's used or not. Fact is the latest generation video cards aren't available in AGP. So no 7800's or X1800's for AGP motherboards.
 
I pretty much have the exact same system as the OP, and the same problem.

p4 2.4C @ 3.0 Ghz (Mine didn't OC as well as most)
1gb PC3200 ram
Asus p4p800-e deluxe mb
Radeon 9800pro 128


It's amazing how I was complaining about this agp/pci-e issue months ago, then happened to start checking the forums and see that I'm not the only one complaining. I really don't want a new mb/cpu just to get a good video card. The 6800gt AGP looks like a very good upgrade, but it feels bad buying a card for a platform that is artificially being made obsolete. Regardless, the 6800gt looks like the route I'm gonna go to play Oblivion next month.
 
Most benchmarks I've seen would suggest that neither component bottlenecks the other in the truest sense when you get to decent levels. In other words, if you have like a 3gz proc and a 6800 or better, upgrading either part will increase your performance. I tend to think a 2.4c would perform better on a 7800 than a 6800 - a lot better. If the proc was a true "bottleneck", the better card wouldn't make a difference, or not much of one.

That said, everyone these days would pretty much agree that the difference in performance from a cpu upgrade versus a gpu upgrade is hugely in favor of the gpu upgrade. Any benchmark chart you look at shows cpu test to be largely flat, whereas gpu charts have a lot of variance. I guess you could say then that a poor gpu is a bottleneck, although I don't think it fits in the truest sense of the word, unless the card is really bad.
 
The processor will bottleneck his performance to a degree. However, a 2.4C@3.2GHz will be able to give him a great gameplay experience when combined with the latest and greatest graphics cards.

However, unless he can find a PCI-Express motherboard that supports socket 478 processors, he's out of luck as the 7800's and X1800's are only made in PCI-Express at this moment in time.
 
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