Upgrade questions with an Athlon 2400 and the X800

With the arrival of the new X800 cards, the upgrade question begs to
be asked. I'm running an Athlon 2400XP on 1 GB of PC2700 DDR-RAM. I'm
currently running a Geforce Ti4200 128MB card. Obviously, it's time
for this card to go..

Games such as Far Cry and Battlefield Vietnam are seriously
unplayable. As you can imagine. I have considered purchasing a $1200
motherboard/cpu/ upgrade to go along with the X800 card, but taking
that deep of a financial plunge right now seems a bit unrealistic.
With that question out of the way for a moment, could I just put in
this X800 Pro/Platinum card and expect a considerable performance
increase in FPS for these power hungry games? Or is the Athlon 2400
just too much of a bottleneck to even consider adding the high end
cards or not without doing a complete upgrade? I thank you for any
help you guys can offer me on this situation. I'm really hoping that I
don't have to upgrade the CPU just yet, even though I probably should.

"bladeofroses" wrote in message
om...

" ...could I just put in this X800 Pro/Platinum card and expect a
considerable performance increase in FPS for these power hungry games? Or is
the Athlon 2400 just too much of a bottleneck to even consider adding the
high end cards or not without doing a complete upgrade? "


Much of this comes down to what motherboard you have. Your PC2700 RAM will
happily compliment a 333FSB XP 3000+ if your motherboard supports the CPU.

When the R420 and NV40 are on retail shelves, the prices of the Radeon 9800
XT and the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra should come down. It will probably be
cheaper for most with mid-range systems to upgrade to 1GB RAM, upgrade their
CPU to the motherboard maximum, and to upgrade their video card to one of
these two, than it will be just to splash out $399 on an X800 Pro.

I doubt that all future first-person-shooters will bring mid-range systems
to their knees in the way that Far Cry seems to be doing, so it might be a
much more viable option for you to go for the CPU upgrade with a 9800 XT or
5950 Ultra.

You will find out in the first week of release how much an XP 2400+ is a
bottleneck with the new cards. It will also be the time when you can work
out how much you would be able to *save* by making improvements across the
board instead of just getting an X800 Pro.

I believe if you get a faster card, either 9700pro /9800 pro/xt or x800, you
should see BIG difference in gameplay.

Games such as Far Cry and Battlefield Vietnam are seriously
unplayable.

CPU limit is not easily noted in games, if gfx card is good enough. CPU is
limit is reached beyond very high frame rates, something like 150+fps.
Obviously not was all gamers should be worried about, as getting even
40-50fps is good enough in most games.


"bladeofroses" wrote in message
om...
With the arrival of the new X800 cards, the upgrade question begs to
be asked. I'm running an Athlon 2400XP on 1 GB of PC2700 DDR-RAM. I'm
currently running a Geforce Ti4200 128MB card. Obviously, it's time
for this card to go..

Games such as Far Cry and Battlefield Vietnam are seriously
unplayable. As you can imagine. I have considered purchasing a $1200
motherboard/cpu/ upgrade to go along with the X800 card, but taking
that deep of a financial plunge right now seems a bit unrealistic.
With that question out of the way for a moment, could I just put in
this X800 Pro/Platinum card and expect a considerable performance
increase in FPS for these power hungry games? Or is the Athlon 2400
just too much of a bottleneck to even consider adding the high end
cards or not without doing a complete upgrade? I thank you for any
help you guys can offer me on this situation. I'm really hoping that I
don't have to upgrade the CPU just yet, even though I probably should.

Asestar wrote:
I believe if you get a faster card, either 9700pro /9800 pro/xt or
x800, you should see BIG difference in gameplay.

Games such as Far Cry and Battlefield Vietnam are seriously
unplayable.


With a XP2000+, and a Radeon 9800 pro, Im seeing super smooth play on BV single player (1024x768,
2xAA, which suits me and my 19" CRT) unless I max out the number of bots. Up to 75% max bots,
everything stays smooth, so Im guessing that your processor would probably handle everything with a
9800pro, which will certainly be a lot cheaper than a x800.

with Far cry, I see smooth gameplay (same resolution, everything maxed out except environment detail
which is back one setting). I hear that far cry is actually more memory dependent than anythign
else (it works well on my 1Gb system, but other users with faster systems but 512Mb report slower
performance).

The Ruby demo is a little glitchy on my system (using the r300rubyrap wrapper), but I dont count
that as a true test for games playing, more a tech demo optimized for the x800 features.

the only game that seems to test the processor is lock-on (I get 12-15 fps on takeoff at busy
airports).... that was almost enough to convince me to upgrade, until I heard that XP3000's were
making 18-25 fps... not much of a change for the money

My advice? Same system, 9800 pro, and save your money for a year down the road, when the additional
gfx processing power is actually used for something! If you are a high resolution demon, they you
need a x800, otherwise a current card at 1024x768 should be fine for some time to come, perhaps
upgrading processor 3-6 months down the line.

S

I want to thank you guys for responding. At this point, the $500 is
probably better going to a new motherboard/CPU/9800 Pro. I've been
thinking of going for the A7N8X-E Deluxe mb with an Athlon 3200. The
9800 Pro, according to the posts here and with what I've read around
the net..seems to be the best bang for the buck right now. If I get
really lucky I coult invest over a $1000 for an Athlon 64 setup.
Unlikely, so I'll just go with the next thing down.. Thanks again
guys.




James Riske wrote in message ian.org...
On Wed, 12 May 2004 04:07:30 -0700, bladeofroses wrote:

With the arrival of the new X800 cards, the upgrade question begs to
be asked. I'm running an Athlon 2400XP on 1 GB of PC2700 DDR-RAM. I'm
currently running a Geforce Ti4200 128MB card. Obviously, it's time
for this card to go..

Games such as Far Cry and Battlefield Vietnam are seriously
unplayable. As you can imagine. I have considered purchasing a $1200
motherboard/cpu/ upgrade to go along with the X800 card, but taking
that deep of a financial plunge right now seems a bit unrealistic.
With that question out of the way for a moment, could I just put in
this X800 Pro/Platinum card and expect a considerable performance
increase in FPS for these power hungry games? Or is the Athlon 2400
just too much of a bottleneck to even consider adding the high end
cards or not without doing a complete upgrade? I thank you for any
help you guys can offer me on this situation. I'm really hoping that I
don't have to upgrade the CPU just yet, even though I probably should.


You will see a definite improvement but it wont be as good as it could be,
but then again it may be a year or more before a cpu comes out that will
actually top-out the performance of the video card.

If anything just get the fastest cpu your mobo can
handle, you can get an xp3000 for $114 right now:
http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/...le.php/3350221

On 12 May 2004 23:13:51 -0700, (bladeofroses)
wrote:

I want to thank you guys for responding. At this point, the $500 is
probably better going to a new motherboard/CPU/9800 Pro. I've been
thinking of going for the A7N8X-E Deluxe mb with an Athlon 3200. The
9800 Pro, according to the posts here and with what I've read around
the net..seems to be the best bang for the buck right now. If I get
really lucky I coult invest over a $1000 for an Athlon 64 setup.
Unlikely, so I'll just go with the next thing down.. Thanks again
guys.

If you must : http://www.ben.pope.name/a7n8x_faq.html
but below is a better / cheaper / faster / more stable choice.

AMD ATHLON XP-M 2500+ SKT-A OEM BARTON (Mobile) Unlocked
http://www.cpucitystore.co.uk/catalo...roducts_id=392
@1.45v IQYHA AXH2500FQQ4C 0402 SPMW
Abit NF7-S v2.0 nForce2 (Socket A) Motherboard (MB-028-AB)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Abit.html
@ With the nForce2 MCP2-T " Soundstrorm Audio "
2 x 256 Mb DDR 400 Mhz + 1 x 512 Mb DDR 400 Mhz/PC3200
http://falconcomputers.co.uk/memory.htm
@ almost any DDR 400 will do

BoroLad

James Riske wrote in message ian.org...
On Wed, 12 May 2004 04:07:30 -0700, bladeofroses wrote:

With the arrival of the new X800 cards, the upgrade question begs to
be asked. I'm running an Athlon 2400XP on 1 GB of PC2700 DDR-RAM. I'm
currently running a Geforce Ti4200 128MB card. Obviously, it's time
for this card to go..

Games such as Far Cry and Battlefield Vietnam are seriously
unplayable. As you can imagine. I have considered purchasing a $1200
motherboard/cpu/ upgrade to go along with the X800 card, but taking
that deep of a financial plunge right now seems a bit unrealistic.
With that question out of the way for a moment, could I just put in
this X800 Pro/Platinum card and expect a considerable performance
increase in FPS for these power hungry games? Or is the Athlon 2400
just too much of a bottleneck to even consider adding the high end
cards or not without doing a complete upgrade? I thank you for any
help you guys can offer me on this situation. I'm really hoping that I
don't have to upgrade the CPU just yet, even though I probably should.

You will see a definite improvement but it wont be as good as it could be,
but then again it may be a year or more before a cpu comes out that will
actually top-out the performance of the video card.

If anything just get the fastest cpu your mobo can
handle, you can get an xp3000 for $114 right now:
http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/...le.php/3350221

On 12 May 2004 23:13:51 -0700, (bladeofroses)
wrote:

I want to thank you guys for responding. At this point, the $500 is
probably better going to a new motherboard/CPU/9800 Pro. I've been
thinking of going for the A7N8X-E Deluxe mb with an Athlon 3200. The
9800 Pro, according to the posts here and with what I've read around
the net..seems to be the best bang for the buck right now. If I get
really lucky I coult invest over a $1000 for an Athlon 64 setup.
Unlikely, so I'll just go with the next thing down.. Thanks again
guys.

You can built an AMD64 system for about $30 more than that AMD-3200
setup. Still get the AMD64 ASUS board, drop in an AMD64-3000 ($200)
or AMD64-2800 (under $200). and have the upgrade path for the
AMD4000.

Getting a NEW 3200-32bit system today would not be a good idea.

An AMD64 with an X800Pro would be bettwe than the AMD-32-3200 with an
X800-XT