4x agp....can i still get some bang? how much?

C

Cartoon Corpse

Veteran
i currently have a

P4 1.4G (weakest link i think)...no real upgrade without new mboard too.
4x AGP
1G rdram (pc800)
9700pro
250W PS


now im hearing vista is latter '06 release (dx10, etc)

we are in mid '05

i was thinking new rig by end '05

not so sure i don't wanna wait now.


the question is....if i spend money on 2G rdram, upgrade...
and a 256M AGP GPU.

would i notice any real bang for my buck?

im hesitant to get a whole new "middle of the road" rig to tide me over till late '06.

but i don't wanna miss out on hardware that is needed to run the stuff like dx10, coming out in late '06

is that even a valid concern?
 
IMO it is a valid concern and you CPU is a BIG bottleneck there, RAM and Gfx card look OK for what it is.

look at something like this
http://www.bytewizecomputers.com/products/7/9/104/251

some kind of converter from S423 to S478 check the motherboard, see whether some bios either official or unofficial would support northwood CPU's and get one of those so for 150~ 200$ you could be really speeding everything up to last until Windows Vista.

I didn't have any experience with such socket converters though, but if they perform as they should, I don't think that RAM speed/quantity will be too much of a problem for faster northwoods, as this dual channel rambus ram has enough of bandwith for even faster CPU's + R9700 will last long enough too, enable you to play everything and save $$$ for big upgrade when the time comes in a year or so...
 
just took a look at this specific product
http://www.upgradeware.co.nz/p478/p478.htm

and you can see that there are some limitations like:

Socket 478 CPU converted to Socket 423 motherboards

Support Intel P4 / Celeron (Willamette / Northwood-core) micron processors

Support FSB 400 / 533 MHz

Support 128KB / 256KB / 512KB L2 Cache

Support MMX Media Enhancement

Support Advanced Dynamic Execution

Support Hyper Pipelined Technology

Support Streaming SIMD Extensions 2

Easy Installation. Driver is not needed
Click to expand...

CPU without hyperthreading and max 533 FSB, ? would the newer ones downclock or something?

anyhow... it should work and IMO would be a good speed boost in your situation for just a little bit of money, and if those old Northwood CPU's are not available in regular stores anymore, I am sure there must be plenty of cheap ones on ebay.
 
so with this product (i have intel mboard btw) i could run?:

customers who purchased this item also purchased:
Intel Pentium 4 3.06GHz FSB533 CPU


would i experience any bang going to 256M AGP card as well? im thinking 4x/8x AGP isn't a real issue. though im a little worried my 250W PS may not be up to the task. (my 9700pro recommended 300W...but then im not running 8xAGP (uiguess) so i've had no issues)

better than doubling CPU...doubling ram....doubling GPU ram

where is my bottleneck then? mboard?
 
For the money of that upgrade socket, you can buy a new motherboard as well, like an Asrock K7S41. Together with a Sempron 2400, that's about $ 100. And more memory always helps, but you already have a Gig.

If you want to reduce sudden slowdowns and loading, memory is your best bet, with a faster harddisk coming second.

Try your favorite games with and without AA, if you have about the same fps in both cases your CPU is the bottleneck, otherwise it's the GPU. 4x AGP isn't much slower than 8x.
 
yeah i have no real fps issues with aa in most titles (eg gta)

but i'd get stutter in crowd scenes (firefights)...wherever there's alot going on. i also get (game or rig) slower responsiveness to control...like steering...that didn't seem to be lag (slow down of game), just not responding to inputs).

heh heh maybe that's why i love halflife1-ish vintage games as much or more than many of my newer titles.
 
If you buy that CPU upgrade socket, you'll be stuck with a 400MHz bus, because that's all your chipset likely supports - i850 is max 400 bus speed. And if you buy a 533MHz bus CPU, it'll run slower than its rated maximum on the 400MHz bus, unless it allows to switch to a higher multiple automatically, which I kind of doubt.

You'll also be stuck with ULTRA expensive RDRAM - good luck trying to get a gig for less than a grand through any other channel than ebay. :p

So that's a lame idea. Get a new mobo and a new CPU rather than an upgrade socket and a new CPU, won't cost you much more money anyway. Oh, and get a PCIe mobo too to be future proof (and new gfx card too naturally :LOL:).
 
yrah guden that's what i was afraid of. i think my 1G rdram cost around $450 a few years back....and if i went to 2G, my 1G would have to be sold (i still have my twin 125M chips! so rdram hasn't gotten cheap? wonder why? is it even manufactured anymore?

if i kept the same 1G, upgraded to 256M AGP ($200?...$300?), did the chip thing discussed here ($300). even with the FSB at 400mz, any idea if i'd get a $700ish bang out of that? at least put me in a playable arena till end of '06?

a new 64bit, PCI-E, solution's gonna be what, $1500? (that's not state of the art, but comfortable, till end of '06)
 
If you can make real money selling your RDRAM, do that and buy a new CPU/MB/RAM/PSU. Your current CPU is just too slow for modern games, and your current platform is too much of a limiting factor.

Extra RAM on the video card won't help your game speed at all, at least not in your system. If you want higher framerates, look to faster GPUs first. More RAM only helps when you're playing games with lots of textures being thrown about, or with lots of AA at high res (in which case only a 6800GT+ or X800XL+ is fast enough to be playable).

Honestly, you could build a new system with a PCIe MB and 64-bit CPU for a lot less than $1500. Off the top of my head:

$150 A64 3000+
$100 PCIe MB (this I'm not too sure about)
$100 2GB PC3200 RAM
$135/$250 6600GT 128MB/X800XL 256MB PCIe
$50-100 good 350-400W ATX 2.03 PSU (with case optional)
$50 160GB 7200rpm 8MB ATA HD (optional)
===
$535-750

The only thing I'd hesitate about is the XL. Yeah, it's a good price for its speed, but I really think SM3 is becoming more important, especially at $250+. If you wait to build a new system at the end of this year, you may have more ~$300 SM3 video card choices, as ATI may offer a complete next-gen, SM3 line-up by then, and nV may have updated its lineup to GF7-series cards.
 
there's a quantum leap (that seems to keep skipping into the future) coming in terms of hardware...like 9700pro was (to me anyway). just trying to not get left in the dirt

p4 1.4G was a bad choice on my part 3-4years ago. i think it was about a week later a 2G solution came out.

i may try the socket adapter thing and just see. (since my rig will retire soon anyway)...about $300 total.

then take it from there.

i mean it'll still be usable anyway, and if it can't handle say the holiday titles. perhaps i'll just go ahead with my killer rig plans, and cry about dx10 later. maybe some of it will be compatible.

thanks for all your help/advice dudes!
 
Yes, a tiny leap is coming. ;)

Honestly, RDRAM seems to be going for a decent amount on eBay. I'd consider selling at least your 1GB to make some money for a new system. In the meantime, you can limp along with the 256MB you have left over. I'd also consider selling your 9700P while you can still get some decent money for it.

CPUs probably won't make any big leaps in the near future. Yeah, dual-core A64s are mighty tempting, but I'm guessing they won't get any cheaper until well into 2006. So I'd just put together a S939 system now with the cheapest A64 you can get (still a huge leap over your current system), with an eye toward a dual-core A64 in a couple years.

3D cards and Windows itself will make a leap with Longhorn, but that's so far away.... But that's only two things to update, and the rest of your A64 system should be good to go, and you'll be enjoying it from the moment you build it. If you're playing quite a bit of games on your PC and have the spare money now, you'll likely really appreciate the upgrade.
 
oh, uhm. well money isn't an issue (i am still parsimoneous though, that's what keeps that nestegg growing!). i could easily by a killer rig today and another next year. i spend less than 1/2 my paycheck.

yeah i want 64bit, dual core, PCI-E, PPU, crossfire, 1G GPU ram, 4G CPU ram (maybe) (like throwing a hotdog down a hallway kind of sexy).

but now vista and d10 seems to indicate that in about 1.5 years, a huge leap in GFX will take place due to their new contributions. and the current hardware won't be capable of that stuff.

i want a quantum leap (if it's coming) not a big leap, then in 1 year the quantum leap leaves me in the dust again.
 
IMO

For what is worth all todays games play well with 1 gig of ram

-- 2 gig of ram will make no difference at normal resolutions in any game as far as I can tell, even in latest games as BF2 or Boiling point you need to push the gfx/ environment detail quality to max to actually feel the difference -

400 mhz RDRAM is still decent bandwidth, more would be nice but again not essential

R9700 is still a decent GPU

256 MB of gfx ram will make no difference for lower resolutions anyhow, and gfx wise the most important difference from your R9700 will be is in gfx quality not really playability at lower res. In lower res like 1024x or 800x there will be no difference playability wise.

For "playable arena" you clearly need a faster CPU and it will make the CPU intensive parts of the games smooth again. 1.4 ghz willamette that is like 800-900 mhz PIII or athlon ;) in other words an ancient CPU. Year 2000 level, a 3 ghz northwood is likely 3x faster than this CPU.
 
Good luck on your new computer purchase Cartoon!

I would recommend you don't spend ANY of that nestegg on a silly upgrade socket, that's just wasting money on a system that is an evolutionary dead end anyway. Rather, buy a decent - not killer - system now that'll last you until longhorn is out and DX10 cards come onto the market. I'd look at a Dell Dimension 5000 myself, heee hee. :D I got one, it's really nice, quiet, powerful enough and not too expensive. Buy a killer screen and you can keep that with your killer rig for longhorn too. :)

A decent system today can confortably run any game out now and in the near future at max settings and good resolution (1280) with 4xAA at playable framerates (with exception of doom3 :LOL:). My Dimension has 3GHz P4 and a GF6800 vanilla on PCIe bus. A bit of overclocking and it runs pretty much any game slick as snot. :)
 
Cartoon Corpse said:
oh, uhm. well money isn't an issue (i am still parsimoneous though, that's what keeps that nestegg growing!). i could easily by a killer rig today and another next year. i spend less than 1/2 my paycheck.

yeah i want 64bit, dual core, PCI-E, PPU, crossfire, 1G GPU ram, 4G CPU ram (maybe) (like throwing a hotdog down a hallway kind of sexy).
Click to expand...
Well, a socket 939 system will allow you to use a relatively cheap but fast single-core, 64-bit A64 3000+/3200+ now, and upgrade to a dual-core A64 X2 in a year or so (when prices drop). But, if money isn't a problem, you can skip to an X2-4200+ right off the bat. A new MB will give you two PCIe slots for SLI, if you're so inclined (to squander money and energy :p). I doubt a PPU will make much headway, but you can always drop in one of Ageia's cards down the line. 4GB RAM isn't that far-fetched, but 1GB GPU RAM is a bit much, as games don't seem to be pushing 512MB yet (wait till screen resolutions increase, though). So, halve each (2GB sys and 512MB GPU) and you have a sensible, forward-looking system.

but now vista and d10 seems to indicate that in about 1.5 years, a huge leap in GFX will take place due to their new contributions. and the current hardware won't be capable of that stuff.
Click to expand...
Again, you can easily install Vista and a DX10 video card into an A64 system you can build now. So, don't hold off on account of them.

The only reason to hold off, IMO, may be AMD's upcoming socket M2 and its associated higher RAM speeds. But socket 939 seems to have a pretty bright future with dual-core A64-X2s and low-latency PC3200.

I'm kind of goading you into buying now just because your current system sounds horribly CPU limited, and if you have the money, why not start enjoying a modern PC (that's easily upgradable to Vista and DX10) now, rather than suffering for another year?

i want a quantum leap (if it's coming) not a big leap, then in 1 year the quantum leap leaves me in the dust again.
Click to expand...
Quantum means tiny. If it's quantum you want, get a socket and cobble a P4 into your current board. :D

I'd suggest a big leap to a socket 939 A64 system now, but if you're extremely patient, I guess wait for AMD's socket M2 or Intel's upcoming Pentium-M-based desktop CPUs. Vista and a DX10 GPU you can plug into whatever PCIe system you buy now.

I have to question how much PC you really need, though, if you're so patient with your current setup. You may well be very happy for quite some time with a s939 A64 3000+ and a 7800GTX. For gaming, the two places I'd splurge would be the GPU and the monitor, thus I suggest the ~$460 7800GTX (BFG via a Dell deal) and the ~$1100 HP L2335. Yeah, that HP is a little extreme. You'd probably be happy with a Dell <$400 FP2005FPW, too.

If you're happy with your current monitor, then save yourself the money and stick with it.
 
Seriously get a cheap mobo/cpu combo somewhere, it will last long enough. You could even try to get a 939 socket boad which you know will have processors up to whatever speed they are now available for reasonable prices when they rollover to the M2 socket next year.
 
i soooooooo agree with Pete on this one. Don't shy away from selling that RDRAM on ebay, unless you'd rather keep it as a colector's item or something. ;) that err, worthless RAM could pay for your mobo and cpu and ram by itself!!! don't be a fool XD i recommend you go with an AGP socket 939 board for now, unless those ULi AGP + PCIe solutions have hit retail yet.that GPU is fine for modern gaming, and i wouldn't be surprised at all if even 1 year from now, it was possible to get a fine upgrade in the AGP slot (mark my words lol!). And if I'm wrong on this, a new motherboard will cost you $70 in a year's time. In the meantime, you don't need to scrap everything.

$250 profit from RDRAM
-$70 for mobo
-$70 for 1 GB pc 3200
-$150 AMD64 3000+

total cost $40... don't be silly!!!

oh, and i guess if your old PSU sucks, then $50 for PSU.
 
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