P4 2.5/400 w1GB RDRAM - GF4 Ti4600 vs. 6800GT
 

I realize that a P4 2.5/400 with 1GB RDRAM (Rambus) is not terribly fast
anymore, but I'm wondering just how "bad" it is for modern games like Doom3,
and how much difference I'll get going to a better videocard. Will I get
much more going from a GF4 Ti4600 to a 6800GT on this system, or am I so CPU
limited that I won't notice much difference other than having access to
higher resolutions? I've tried to find comparisons that might give
information on this, but I've yet to see comparisons showing these cards on
a CPU of this speed, so I'm unclear what to expect.

To upgrade to a faster CPU, I'd have to get a new motherboard, and new
memory as well, which is a fairly large expense. A 6800GT, on the other
hand, is an easy upgrade that's not as expensive. Will a 6800GT breath a
little more life into this system, allowing me to hold off on a full system
upgrade? On one hand I realize that a new system will be faster, but if
just the graphics card will help to some extent for the time being, it would
be nice to wait a bit longer to upgrade the rest of the system. I figure
that a 6800GT will still be decent card for a while, so when I DO upgrade
the rest of the system, I won't need a new graphics card.

Thanks for any opinions on this,

Larry

"Larry L." wrote in message
...
I realize that a P4 2.5/400 with 1GB RDRAM (Rambus) is not terribly fast
anymore, but I'm wondering just how "bad" it is for modern games like
Doom3,
and how much difference I'll get going to a better videocard. Will I get
much more going from a GF4 Ti4600 to a 6800GT on this system, or am I so
CPU
limited that I won't notice much difference other than having access to
higher resolutions?

A Northwood P4 2.5 with 512K L2 /400FSB isn't that much of a dog. It would
probably run Doom3 acceptably at medium settings with the Ti4600. You'd
notice a large jump in performance going to a 6800GT.

"Augustus" wrote in message
news:3AWVc.34820$jZ5.9406@clgrps13...

"Larry L." wrote in message
...
I realize that a P4 2.5/400 with 1GB RDRAM (Rambus) is not terribly fast
anymore, but I'm wondering just how "bad" it is for modern games like
Doom3,
and how much difference I'll get going to a better videocard. Will I
get
much more going from a GF4 Ti4600 to a 6800GT on this system, or am I so
CPU
limited that I won't notice much difference other than having access to
higher resolutions?

A Northwood P4 2.5 with 512K L2 /400FSB isn't that much of a dog. It would
probably run Doom3 acceptably at medium settings with the Ti4600. You'd
notice a large jump in performance going to a 6800GT.


It's good to know that it has some life in it still. Do you think the
performance jump would be enough to play it at "high" settings (without ever
getting choppy) at 1024x768?

Thanks again,

Larry

"Larry L." wrote in message
...

I realize that a P4 2.5/400 with 1GB RDRAM (Rambus) is not terribly fast

You could try overclock the P4. I'm getting a rock solid 3.2GHz out of a P4
2.4C, and it makes a notable difference. Doom 3's timedemo with an OC'd
P4 and Ti 4200 (running at stock, because it doesn't OC very well) gives me
66.5 FPS at 640x480. FarCry averages at around 55 @ 800x600 with most
settings up full.

anymore, but I'm wondering just how "bad" it is for modern games like
Doom3,
and how much difference I'll get going to a better videocard. Will I get
much more going from a GF4 Ti4600 to a 6800GT on this system, or am I so
CPU
limited that I won't notice much difference other than having access to
higher resolutions? I've tried to find comparisons that might give

The newer generation of cards really come into their own at the higher
resolutions,
so if you stick to something reasonable with the Ti and are willing to drop
a little
IQ then the Ti is still acceptable.

To upgrade to a faster CPU, I'd have to get a new motherboard, and new
memory as well, which is a fairly large expense. A 6800GT, on the other
hand, is an easy upgrade that's not as expensive. Will a 6800GT breath a
little more life into this system, allowing me to hold off on a full
system
upgrade? On one hand I realize that a new system will be faster, but if

You'll get some degree of a performance boost, and the IQ will be much
better than the Ti. But at the end of the day, if your CPU can't handle the
game engines then no 3D card is going to able to render a scene at a
particularly decent framerate.

"Larry L." wrote in message
...

" It's good to know that it has some life in it still. Do you think the
performance jump would be enough to play it at high settings (without ever
getting choppy) at 1024x768? "


Have a look at the following article:
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/gra...809/index.html

The test system has a P4 3.2Ghz and 1024MB Corsair DDR400 CL2. With this,
the Ti4200 gets 22.3fps on medium quality at 1024x768. You'd get roughly
the same figure with your current system, given that you have a slightly
better graphics card, but slower CPU and bus-speed.

The 6800GT gets 72fps on high quality at 1024x768, but your current system
might hold back the potential of this card a little. Maybe you could expect
around 50+ fps with a 6800GT, which is certainly a marked improvement.

On Sun, 22 Aug 2004 05:01:32 GMT, "Larry L."
wrote:

I realize that a P4 2.5/400 with 1GB RDRAM (Rambus) is not terribly fast
anymore, but I'm wondering just how "bad" it is for modern games like Doom3,
and how much difference I'll get going to a better videocard. Will I get
much more going from a GF4 Ti4600 to a 6800GT on this system, or am I so CPU
limited that I won't notice much difference other than having access to
higher resolutions? I've tried to find comparisons that might give
information on this, but I've yet to see comparisons showing these cards on
a CPU of this speed, so I'm unclear what to expect.

To upgrade to a faster CPU, I'd have to get a new motherboard, and new
memory as well, which is a fairly large expense. A 6800GT, on the other
hand, is an easy upgrade that's not as expensive. Will a 6800GT breath a
little more life into this system, allowing me to hold off on a full system
upgrade? On one hand I realize that a new system will be faster, but if
just the graphics card will help to some extent for the time being, it would
be nice to wait a bit longer to upgrade the rest of the system. I figure
that a 6800GT will still be decent card for a while, so when I DO upgrade
the rest of the system, I won't need a new graphics card.

Thanks for any opinions on this,

Larry

I just made that upgrade. Well almost. I'm running a P4 2.53 and
Ti4400. I couldn't play Doom 3 at 800 x 600 at Medium settings. To
get playable framerates I had to turn off too much stuff... especially
shadows... and that more or less kills the enjoyment of the game. So,
I upgraded to a 6800 GT.

Befo 800 x 600 at Medium settings, demo1 was averaging 28 FPS
After: 1024 x 768 at High settings, now averaging 57 FPS.

So the game went from unplayable at Medium settings and low resolution
to very playable at High settings and decent resolution.

As an aside, this upgrade did absolutely nothing for UT2004... my
framerates stayed the same at 1024 x 768, the only difference is that
now I can play at 1600 x 1200 while maintaining the same framerates.
The Unreal engine is truly CPU bound.

I just made that upgrade. Well almost. I'm running a P4 2.53 and
Ti4400. I couldn't play Doom 3 at 800 x 600 at Medium settings. To
get playable framerates I had to turn off too much stuff... especially
shadows... and that more or less kills the enjoyment of the game. So,
I upgraded to a 6800 GT.

Befo 800 x 600 at Medium settings, demo1 was averaging 28 FPS
After: 1024 x 768 at High settings, now averaging 57 FPS.

So the game went from unplayable at Medium settings and low resolution
to very playable at High settings and decent resolution.

As an aside, this upgrade did absolutely nothing for UT2004... my
framerates stayed the same at 1024 x 768, the only difference is that
now I can play at 1600 x 1200 while maintaining the same framerates.
The Unreal engine is truly CPU bound.


Thanks for the feedback.

Do you happen to know how much performance difference there is between your
P4 2.53 (which I assume is 533fsb) and my P4 2.5 (which is only 400fsb with
1 Gig PC800 Rambus memory)? Would this make an appreciable difference with
Doom3?

Thanks again,

Larry

"Larry L." schreef in bericht
...

I just made that upgrade. Well almost. I'm running a P4 2.53 and
Ti4400. I couldn't play Doom 3 at 800 x 600 at Medium settings. To
get playable framerates I had to turn off too much stuff... especially
shadows... and that more or less kills the enjoyment of the game. So,
I upgraded to a 6800 GT.

Befo 800 x 600 at Medium settings, demo1 was averaging 28 FPS
After: 1024 x 768 at High settings, now averaging 57 FPS.

So the game went from unplayable at Medium settings and low resolution
to very playable at High settings and decent resolution.

As an aside, this upgrade did absolutely nothing for UT2004... my
framerates stayed the same at 1024 x 768, the only difference is that
now I can play at 1600 x 1200 while maintaining the same framerates.
The Unreal engine is truly CPU bound.


Thanks for the feedback.

Do you happen to know how much performance difference there is between
your
P4 2.53 (which I assume is 533fsb) and my P4 2.5 (which is only 400fsb
with
1 Gig PC800 Rambus memory)? Would this make an appreciable difference
with
Doom3?

Thanks again,

Larry

If you allow me to say so, I think the difference between 400fsb and 533 is
noticable, but not to a very disturbing amount. Given that your 2.5/400 is
indeed a bit a setback why not go for a regular 6800, would match good these
2, and save you quite some $$.

If you allow me to say so, I think the difference between 400fsb and 533
is
noticable, but not to a very disturbing amount. Given that your 2.5/400 is
indeed a bit a setback why not go for a regular 6800, would match good
these
2, and save you quite some $$.


The GT seems to be the sweet spot -- $100 difference, but with a few fairly
substantial improvements like DDR3, twice the memory, etc. I figure that
this will give me a little more longevity overall -- i.e. the card could be
put in a MUCH faster system without becoming a bottleneck. The only
"gotcha" in this is if PCI-E gets popular REALLY fast, in which case the new
motherboard couldn't take an AGP card. I don't think this will happen as
fast as others think, however, given that the AGP slot is nowhere near being
a bottleneck yet -- i.e. how much "push" will there be for PCI-E graphics
cards given that the performance won't be effected by the current
generations of cards? Assuming my next system is still an AGP system, the
GT will be plenty powerful for a while still.

Thanks for your thoughts,

Larry

"Larry L." schreef in bericht
...
If you allow me to say so, I think the difference between 400fsb and 533
is
noticable, but not to a very disturbing amount. Given that your 2.5/400
is
indeed a bit a setback why not go for a regular 6800, would match good
these
2, and save you quite some $$.


The GT seems to be the sweet spot -- $100 difference, but with a few
fairly
substantial improvements like DDR3, twice the memory, etc. I figure that
this will give me a little more longevity overall -- i.e. the card could
be
put in a MUCH faster system without becoming a bottleneck. The only
"gotcha" in this is if PCI-E gets popular REALLY fast, in which case the
new
motherboard couldn't take an AGP card. I don't think this will happen as
fast as others think, however, given that the AGP slot is nowhere near
being
a bottleneck yet -- i.e. how much "push" will there be for PCI-E graphics
cards given that the performance won't be effected by the current
generations of cards? Assuming my next system is still an AGP system, the
GT will be plenty powerful for a while still.

Thanks for your thoughts,

Larry

I think this "catch" is bigger than you think, but i don't know what you cal
REALLY fast and how soon you plan to migrate to another cpu. All the socket
775 I know of already are PCIe.....