what should i get?

[gokuss4]

Should I get a new chip, gfx card, or a mix of both? Price range is up to $300. I got straight A's, so now I can get some new stuff for my comp :D. Now I need some help deciding.

[smcd]

An AMD 2500+ (it costs $80 retail $75 OEM from newegg.com) or even a 2000+ (what I used to have, still do in my closet) but you'd need to check what your motherboard supports before upgrading, some only support certain bus speeds, etc.

that'd leave $200+ for a gfx card.
While not top-end, they get pretty good reviews (all are 8x AGP):
(all prices quoted from newegg.com)

AOpen nVIDIA GeForce FX5700LE 128MB DDR - Retail : $109.99
AOpen nVIDIA GeForce FX5700 128MB DDR - Retail : $123.50
POWERCOLOR ATi Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB DDR - Retail : $123.99
SAPPHIRE ATi Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB DDR - Bulk : $209.00
PNY nVIDIA Quadro FX500 128MB DDR - Retail : $212.00


There are loads more, but what I have is an ATi All-in-Wonder 9600 Pro which is $172 and includes a TV tuner & remote. I like it for 'cuz it saves me space and money by having a TV on the PC instead of having to buy one nad the performance is pretty good too.

[gokuss4]

i found a GFFX 5900 for $195 (yes a normal version not an xt or se), and a FIC KT748/AMD Athlon XP 2600+ combo for $116. maybe i should get those. yeah i know it's over $300 but im sure i have enough to spare to spend up to that much. $311.. plus ground shipping for both is about $330.

[sheik124]

AOpen nVIDIA GeForce FX5700LE 128MB DDR - Retail : $109.99
AOpen nVIDIA GeForce FX5700 128MB DDR - Retail : $123.50
POWERCOLOR ATi Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB DDR - Retail : $123.99
SAPPHIRE ATi Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB DDR - Bulk : $209.00
PNY nVIDIA Quadro FX500 128MB DDR - Retail : $212.00
you must be stupid to recommend a 5700LE, or a freaking Quadro! thats a workstation board! and if you are gonna buy a 9800 Pro, get the powercolor, it is better than the sapphire in the fact that it has a full 256-bit bus, or get a 5900XT

[smcd]

He didn't specify for what the machine was to be used, so I covered a broad spectrum including "workstation" equipment. No need to call names or anything. I DID mention that they weren't all top-end, but that particular version/manufacturer of a 5700LE got good reviews so it was included for completeness and providing more options.

[Doomulation]

I STILL wouldn't go for such a high card. I reckon the raedon 9600 pro should work pretty fine.
There's of course these geforce fx cards, which some can be overclocked some to gain a little extra performance, but I've no idea what they cost.
My suggestion would be to get a new processor, a fine decent gfx card and another stick of 512 mb ram. More ram rocks ;)

[flow``]

i just bought an abit nf7-s rev2, gf fx 5700 ultra, 512 corsair ram, and a 400W psu for a tad bit over $500 UDS from newegg (509 to be exact)

lovely stuff might i add =)

maybe you can pinch some money out of your parents or get a little loan from them perhaps :P

[sheik124]

He didn't specify for what the machine was to be used, so I covered a broad spectrum including "workstation" equipment. No need to call names or anything. I DID mention that they weren't all top-end, but that particular version/manufacturer of a 5700LE got good reviews so it was included for completeness and providing more options.
ah sorry mate, its still poopy for an upgrade though, especially when there is such a small price difference

[gokuss4]

I made my choices. I'm getting an ASUS A7N8X-X w/ AMD Athlon XP 2800+ motherboard combo, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, and a Creative Inspire T5400 5.1 speaker system. All adds up to $450 (including shipping.. not sure about tax). Hopefully I can get all this :D. That's all I need for now.

[flow``]

you might need new ram for the mobo?

[gokuss4]

yeah.. good idea. maybe i should replace the speaker system with new ram instead.

edit: It seems i can only spend up to $200... I'm thinking of just getting a new gfx card instead. I'll go for the ATi Radeon 9800 Pro for $200. Just to make sure.. can the 9800 pro go in an agp 4x slot?

[Flash]

My suggestion would be to get a new processor, a fine decent gfx card and another stick of 512 mb ram. More ram rocks ;)
Yeah :)
*Flash looks @ FAR status panel which says "Free Memory 1,552,478,203" :cool:

[Flash]

. Just to make sure.. can the 9800 pro go in an agp 4x slot?
'fcourse it can if you have true AGP4x/1.5v compatible slot.

[Jigga0o7]

'fcourse it can if you have true AGP4x/1.5v compatible slot.

Yeah get the 9800 pro, but make sure its the one with the 256bit memory controller.

Also, you will be slightly... okay very bottlenecked by the rest of your system.

I'd recommend you get new ram and cpu and mobo asap.

And don't get a 2800+, its a waste of money. The 2500+'s are just fine :bouncy:

http://yoaliens3000.com/upload/2600.jpg

[gokuss4]

Yep the radeon 9800 has a 256-bit memory interface (i made sure of that before you suggested it). Anyways I think a nice gfx card will do my system the best right now since I'm mostly a gamer. CPU requirements for games now a days are only 733mhz-900mhz. my AthlonXP 1700+ (o/c to 1800+), will do just fine. Maybe in the future my next upgrade will be a new cpu and mobo and ram. For now I'll just be happy with better frame rates and better looks on video games like Farcry, UT2k4, and Halo :D. Also for the up coming games Doom 3 and Half-Life 2.

[sheik124]

you will be just fine with the 9800 on the 1700+, let me tell you what i have seen from experience. when the A7N8X-E Deluxe board in this PC went boom, I put the GeForce FX 5700 i normally use into my old HP Pavilion 520c (Athlon XP 1600+, 512MB SDR PC133, 80 GB Ultra ATA 100 Drive (nothing compared to my seagate 120 gb sata drives), VIA KM133A Chipset, yep, only AGP 2x (thankfully 3.0) support, and crappy ProSavage gfx) and let me tell you, FarCry, Halo, they all ran just the same, or no more than 10 FPS under what i was used to. When it comes to games, unless you have a MASSIVE CPU Bottleneck, like a Celeron :) or a sub 1 GHz CPU, or like 128 MB RAM, Graphics Cards pretty much have all control over game, things like software sound (thankfully the SoundStorm APU does fine with hardware sound, although EAX fucks everything up like it does to any game) or software modems (i think they're called WinModems) will amplify the effects of a CPU bottleneck, but that 9800 pro should keep you going till you get money for a nice Socket 939 AMD64 system :D
Long post, but worth it I think

[Jigga0o7]

you will be just fine with the 9800 on the 1700+, let me tell you what i have seen from experience. when the A7N8X-E Deluxe board in this PC went boom, I put the GeForce FX 5700 i normally use into my old HP Pavilion 520c (Athlon XP 1600+, 512MB SDR PC133, 80 GB Ultra ATA 100 Drive (nothing compared to my seagate 120 gb sata drives), VIA KM133A Chipset, yep, only AGP 2x (thankfully 3.0) support, and crappy ProSavage gfx) and let me tell you, FarCry, Halo, they all ran just the same, or no more than 10 FPS under what i was used to. When it comes to games, unless you have a MASSIVE CPU Bottleneck, like a Celeron :) or a sub 1 GHz CPU, or like 128 MB RAM, Graphics Cards pretty much have all control over game, things like software sound (thankfully the SoundStorm APU does fine with hardware sound, although EAX fucks everything up like it does to any game) or software modems (i think they're called WinModems) will amplify the effects of a CPU bottleneck, but that 9800 pro should keep you going till you get money for a nice Socket 939 AMD64 system :D
Long post, but worth it I think

A slow cpu will hurt you on gaming, well on games with intense AI and physics like UT2004.

And for next gen video cards, it takes even more to get rid of the bottleneck.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7917942

For an AXP I have a good score, but there are people with overclocked a64's with stock x800pro's that score 26.5k easily.

[smcd]

Jigga0o7 you overclocked your 2500 ~600mhz wow! (i have one too, running at stock speed of ~1.8ghz and like it just fine) what sort of cooling do you use?

[sheik124]

uh, that isn't much over the highly popular (and highly possible) clock of 2200 MHz, the Athlon XP 3200+ clock that you get when you set the FSB to 200, of course, my chip begins choking around 190 FSB, but we can't all be winners, he might be using air cooling, but he's most likely on water. 218 FSB, nice overclock Jigga0o7.

[Jigga0o7]

Jigga0o7 you overclocked your 2500 ~600mhz wow! (i have one too, running at stock speed of ~1.8ghz and like it just fine) what sort of cooling do you use?

I use a Thermalright SLK947U + Vantec 92mm Tornado as my cooling on the cpu. If you'd like to OC just hit me up in pm and i'll gladly help. Its kinda my thing.

And 2573mhz is kinda hard for an old school desktop barton. 3200+ can be done on just 1.7v, but it takes 2.06v to run 2573mhz - 2596mhz. The cpu isn't watercooled, i've never even taken a shot at WC yet. But next month when I get a 3500+ a64 i'm gonna watercooled that and my x800pro. Then i'm gonna mod my x800pro to XT and go for 30k in 3dmark 2k1.

And what about 218fsb? In my bench the cpu is running 233fsb. And about your oc, it sounds like either lack of voltage or your ram. You running pc2700? If so, you might want to consider either running async or raising your ram latency so you could hit atleast 200fsb, then just raise the multiplier from there. Depending on your cooling, you could get 2.4ghz easy.

[sheik124]

1. the cpu is a baaaad overclocker
2. its HyperX PC3700 i payed extra for expecting to use to the fullest :)
3. whoa 2V on a cpu? isn't that.......dangerous, actually, i'll go ahead and do that, then why my CPU goes *boom* i'll tell my dad i need a new CPU, muahaha Mobile Athlon XP 2200+ 35 Watt! YAY!
4. i'm using a Zalman CNPS-7000A-AlCu, its a great cooler, but the cpu can't handle much
5. if Asynch means not the same, i had my RAM running at 233 FSB and my CPU running at about 175 FSB, and i was told nForce2 boards run better when the RAM is at 1:1 to the CPU

[Jigga0o7]

1. the cpu is a baaaad overclocker
2. its HyperX PC3700 i payed extra for expecting to use to the fullest :)
3. whoa 2V on a cpu? isn't that.......dangerous, actually, i'll go ahead and do that, then why my CPU goes *boom* i'll tell my dad i need a new CPU, muahaha Mobile Athlon XP 2200+ 35 Watt! YAY!
4. i'm using a Zalman CNPS-7000A-AlCu, its a great cooler, but the cpu can't handle much
5. if Asynch means not the same, i had my RAM running at 233 FSB and my CPU running at about 175 FSB, and i was told nForce2 boards run better when the RAM is at 1:1 to the CPU

I've never heard of a 2500+ being that bad of a clocker. What kind of temps are you getting?

At 2573mhz 2.06v I get 49C full load.

With that ram of yours you have a lot of potential, and also if you get a mobile you should get the 45w one since the 35w's don't seem to oc much over 2.4ghz. I was considering getting a mobile and going for 2.8ghz on air, but I decided not to since it'd kind of be a waste. Next month my mom gets the computer i'm on and I get a 3500+... so i'd be spending $90 on something that will only have use for like 20 days. Cuz what would my mom need a 2.8ghz barton for?

And yes I meant async as in different speeds for fsb and ram. But I said that thinking you had pc2700. You're right, 1:1 is the best for nforce 2 mobo's.

[sheik124]

i dunno, my first A7N8X-E that died of ABS (ASUS BIOS Syndrome, hahaha) really sucked at OC'ing, this one seems better, but i haven't OC'ed it yet, much. when i set it all back up, i bumped FSB to 183 so now i'm running 2014 MHz at 1.776 VCore, my RAM is set to 3-3-3-8, tomorrow i am going to try pushing the VCore some more, i just want to know, will say 1.95 V blow up my CPU on this Zalman cooler (in my sig) or will it be fine? when i bought this ram (it was cheaper than the 433) i expected to use at least half its extra potential, but the CPU is really holding me back, and i face the same situation as you, but my upgrade to 3800+ is coming later, when an nVidia A64 PCI-E chipset and GeForce 6800 GT PCI-E are readily availible for my tinkering, or i may go FX-53 for the unlocked multi, i'll kick the multi to the floor and go nuts on the FSB

EDIT: although when my sisters get this PC and i toss like a 5200 in their old one, i'll have two nice LAN pcs so my friends can come over for mass bloodshed, and some could bring laptops! go linksys wireless router go!

EDIT2: i forgot to mention that the cooler is running full blast, i.e. without the zalman fanmate

[Jigga0o7]

i dunno, my first A7N8X-E that died of ABS (ASUS BIOS Syndrome, hahaha) really sucked at OC'ing, this one seems better, but i haven't OC'ed it yet, much. when i set it all back up, i bumped FSB to 183 so now i'm running 2014 MHz at 1.776 VCore, my RAM is set to 3-3-3-8, tomorrow i am going to try pushing the VCore some more, i just want to know, will say 1.95 V blow up my CPU on this Zalman cooler (in my sig) or will it be fine? when i bought this ram (it was cheaper than the 433) i expected to use at least half its extra potential, but the CPU is really holding me back, and i face the same situation as you, but my upgrade to 3800+ is coming later, when an nVidia A64 PCI-E chipset and GeForce 6800 GT PCI-E are readily availible for my tinkering, or i may go FX-53 for the unlocked multi, i'll kick the multi to the floor and go nuts on the FSB

EDIT: although when my sisters get this PC and i toss like a 5200 in their old one, i'll have two nice LAN pcs so my friends can come over for mass bloodshed, and some could bring laptops! go linksys wireless router go!

EDIT2: i forgot to mention that the cooler is running full blast, i.e. without the zalman fanmate

Is 3-3-3-8 the lowest your ram will go? I knew latencies on any thing past PC3500 were pretty bad... but wow. And no, 1.95v will not kill your cpu but you have to take your temps into consideration. Also, when you OC you need to run super pi to ensure that everything is stable.

ftp://pi.super-computing.org/windows/super_pi.zip

Run the 1mb one and see if it runs all the way. There are people that overclock like mad to try and get the record for this and I believe the record at the moment is like 23 seconds on a 5.7ghz pentium 4. I have 38 seconds myself.

And also, unless your processor is locked, why don't you just drop the multiplie right now and go for fsb?

And if you're thinking about getting a 3800+, you might as well get an fx53. They're only a few dollars apart after all. As for me, i'm going to get the 3500+ and either water cool it or get a vapochill from a friend. I'm keeping this x800pro as long as possible... which is a very long time.

I won't be getting rid of this card for a while since I can pull off stuff like...

http://yoaliens3000.com/upload/desktop.jpg

at 25fps. 1280x1024x32 HQ 6x/16x. I know that fps isn't all that good, but I just wanted to see what it looked like at really high quality... then I found it to be playable. 25/30 fps aint too bad at all.

And that lan party idea is good. My moms computer could be a lan party computer since it'll have my current cpu and a 9000 pro. My brother and I play ut2004 against each other sometimes on our lan since his room is right next to mine. It's pretty fun hearing him yell as I kick his ass :term:.

Also you might want to consider just getting a 3500+ since these things are ocing to 2.6ghz with ease on air. And if you do that, then you'll have extra money left over to get a water cooling kit just like me! Yay, then you could get around 2.8ghz.

Either way, you'll have one hell of a pc. I love my computer, even tho its not nearly as quick as the people on the top. Lets see a rundown of my scores...

3dmark 2k1 = about 24k
3dmark 2k3 = 11411
aquamark3 = 55.6k

With this system I can run anything out there, but theres always room to improve so it'll be a64 time next month. My ram is starving for some higher fsb since it does 265mhz 2-2-2-11 on 3.3v. And the 11 is better for nforce 2 mobos... some kind of fluke.

And yeah that pic is "3 mood".

[sheik124]

yeah watercooling is a must for my next rig, especially with my farking graphics card, i turned on my PC without a graphics card once only to realize that it was making most of the noise in here, my fans are almost dead silent, my PSU makes no noise whatsoever, and the CPU cooler is equally quiet, i'll probably get the FX-53 just for the ability to kill the multi and push the FSB to its max, although i'm waiting for PCI-E on an A64 board so i have a viable upgrade path, i really hate buying things that become obsolete the next day

EDIT: just tried 1.85V for 200MHz FSB, it was running 52C in the BIOS, even at stock voltage 200FSB it was doing 50C, i'm pretty sure its not the cooler, i reseated it a couple times on my first board, and i double checked the Arctic Silver i put on and it was a nice thin film, that spread out on the heatsink indicating good contact, for now, ima leave this at stock speeds

EDIT2: this thing runs hot even at stock speeds damnit, 47C

[Jigga0o7]

yeah watercooling is a must for my next rig, especially with my farking graphics card, i turned on my PC without a graphics card once only to realize that it was making most of the noise in here, my fans are almost dead silent, my PSU makes no noise whatsoever, and the CPU cooler is equally quiet, i'll probably get the FX-53 just for the ability to kill the multi and push the FSB to its max, although i'm waiting for PCI-E on an A64 board so i have a viable upgrade path, i really hate buying things that become obsolete the next day

EDIT: just tried 1.85V for 200MHz FSB, it was running 52C in the BIOS, even at stock voltage 200FSB it was doing 50C, i'm pretty sure its not the cooler, i reseated it a couple times on my first board, and i double checked the Arctic Silver i put on and it was a nice thin film, that spread out on the heatsink indicating good contact, for now, ima leave this at stock speeds

EDIT2: this thing runs hot even at stock speeds damnit, 47C

See the problem is all that silence. With that silence there probably isn't too much air flow going on. Here goes my results!!!!

http://arc.aquamark3.com/arc/arc_search.php?activeRunID=1286142652
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7920818
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?pcm04=2429837

2625mhz 237fsb :D.

I'm gonna see if I can break 11.5k in 3dmark 03.

[sheik124]

tis but a bad chip, the cooler is great (read some review on it) i have 4 fans, 2 exhaust, 2 intake, none of them do lower than 30 CFM, and my power supply is an enermax noisemaker, thats why its queit