9800 Pro: Going from AMD 2100+ to AMD 64 +3000

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IMA

I will be receiving some new gear next week (AMD 64 +3000, 1GB Dual Channel
Ram and AV8 MB), wondering if it will make alot of dif on benchmarking with
the 9800 Pro. Particularly in Half Life 2 and Doom 3. Once I get it up and
running I will be o/cing also.

Just guessing but hoping I should be able to run 1280x1024 and anti-aliasing
much smoother. I always had the impression my vid card was held back by mu
CPU.

Thanks

RT
 
I will be interested to see what kind of improvement you get. I'm running a
9800 pro with an AMD 2800+ and I always thought the cpu and vid card were a
pretty good match. Does the 9800 pro have more room? I'm looking forward
to what happens with you.

JK
 
IMA said:
I will be receiving some new gear next week (AMD 64 +3000, 1GB Dual Channel
Ram and AV8 MB), wondering if it will make alot of dif on benchmarking with
the 9800 Pro. Particularly in Half Life 2 and Doom 3. Once I get it up
and running I will be o/cing also.

Just guessing but hoping I should be able to run 1280x1024 and
anti-aliasing much smoother. I always had the impression my vid card was
held back by mu CPU.
Click to expand...

I think it's beyond the ability of a 9800 Pro to run Doom3 at playable rates
with 1280x1024 high quality and AA, no matter what the processor. This is
where the X800 series really pull ahead dramatically. Friend has a 6600GT,
and in playing games at 1024x768 with all options, it's not a whole lot
faster. But jump it up to 1152x864 or 1280x1024 with options on, and it's a
LOT faster. Another friend went from a 1 gig Barton 3200 with 9800 Pro to an
A64 3200+ 1 gig with the same 9800 Pro. 3DMark03 went from 6000 to 6800.
 
<<3DMark03 went from 6000 to 6800>>

I've recently built an all-new machine with an Athlon 64 4000+ and an
X800 XT Platinum Edition. I was frustrated to see how much lower my
3DMark scores were in comparison to people with slower machines and
NVidia cards. As it turns out (I didn't know this, although you may
have), 3DMark is OpenGL based and has a bias for NVidia cards which are
OpenGL optimized. The ATI cards are Direct3D optimized and don't fare
as well with 3dMark. *However* the ATI cards blow the Nvidia sets out
of the water on most every test, as can be seen in the benchmarking
tests here: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2044
 
IMA said:
I will be receiving some new gear next week (AMD 64 +3000, 1GB Dual
Channel Ram and AV8 MB), wondering if it will make alot of dif on
benchmarking with the 9800 Pro. Particularly in Half Life 2 and Doom
3. Once I get it up and running I will be o/cing also.

Just guessing but hoping I should be able to run 1280x1024 and
anti-aliasing much smoother. I always had the impression my vid card
was held back by mu CPU.

Thanks

RT
Click to expand...



I think you'll notice a big difference. I took my 9800XT from a P4 2ghz to
an AMD FX-55 and it made a huge difference in all games (including HL2 and
Doom 3). It was HL2 that made it clear to me that the video card was no
longer the limiting factor in my gaming (and just buying a new video card
wasn't going to save me anymore). I now run all games I can at 1280x1024
with AA and all the doodads maxed and it's smooth as silk. I would gain
little if anything from going to the current generation of video cards. I'm
going to wait for 512 meg of video RAM and Shader model 3.0 cards from ATI
before I upgrade again...
 
<<3DMark03 went from 6000 to 6800>>

I've recently built an all-new machine with an Athlon 64 4000+ and an
X800 XT Platinum Edition. I was frustrated to see how much lower my
3DMark scores were in comparison to people with slower machines and
NVidia cards. As it turns out (I didn't know this, although you may
have), 3DMark is OpenGL based and has a bias for NVidia cards which are
OpenGL optimized. The ATI cards are Direct3D optimized and don't fare
as well with 3dMark.
Click to expand...

3Dmark is D3D not OpenGL - the latest crop of Nvidia cards 6800/6600 are
faster
than the offerings of ATI. I dont bother comparing 3Dmark scores as ppl go
to all
sorts of trouble to boost their scores to get up those rankings - kinda like
kiddies
comparing the size of their dicks when theyre all virgins.
 
I think you'll notice a big difference. I took my 9800XT from a P4 2ghz
to
an AMD FX-55 and it made a huge difference in all games (including HL2 and
Doom 3). It was HL2 that made it clear to me that the video card was no
longer the limiting factor in my gaming (and just buying a new video card
wasn't going to save me anymore). I now run all games I can at 1280x1024
with AA and all the doodads maxed and it's smooth as silk. I would gain
little if anything from going to the current generation of video cards.
I'm
going to wait for 512 meg of video RAM and Shader model 3.0 cards from ATI
before I upgrade again...
Click to expand...

I agree there will be a big difference. But an A64 3000 isn't an FX55 by any
stretch of the imagination. 1280x1024 with everything maxed is beyond the
ability of a 9800 Pro on his box.
 
IMA said:
I will be receiving some new gear next week (AMD 64 +3000, 1GB Dual Channel
Ram and AV8 MB), wondering if it will make alot of dif on benchmarking with
the 9800 Pro. Particularly in Half Life 2 and Doom 3. Once I get it up and
running I will be o/cing also.

Just guessing but hoping I should be able to run 1280x1024 and anti-aliasing
much smoother. I always had the impression my vid card was held back by mu
CPU.
Click to expand...

A 2100+ definately holds back the 9800 Pro in quite a few games.

You may find this useful:
http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2330&p=7

Bear in mind that the CPU loading of HL2 is actually quite low, so other
games such as Doom3 should see a bigger improvement. I would guess that
if an AMD64 1.4-1.6GHz is <2800+ range, then a 2100+ TBred would be
sitting right on the left hand edge of that graph at the most.

512MB can hold games back a little too, if that 1GB is increased
capacity, that will also help.

I think you'll see a new life from your card.

Ben
 
IMA said:
Just guessing but hoping I should be able to run 1280x1024 and
anti-aliasing much smoother. I always had the impression my vid card was
held back by mu CPU.
Click to expand...


Like other people who've already responded, I agree that the CPU upgrade
will allow your video card to perform much closer to it's potential. Don't
just rely on benchmarks though - see what "real world" performance gains you
get!
 
IMA said:
I will be receiving some new gear next week (AMD 64 +3000, 1GB Dual Channel
Ram and AV8 MB), wondering if it will make alot of dif on benchmarking with
the 9800 Pro. Particularly in Half Life 2 and Doom 3. Once I get it up
and running I will be o/cing also.

Just guessing but hoping I should be able to run 1280x1024 and
anti-aliasing much smoother. I always had the impression my vid card was
held back by mu CPU.

Thanks

RT
I have a similar system P4 3.2 1gig dual channel ddr400 ATI 9800pro
overclocked to XTspecs. Half-life 2 @ 1024X768 is the highest resolution
with maxed out setting that will run smoothly on my system. Same with Doom
3. These games are murder on systems but they sure look great!!!
Click to expand...
 
Interesting. I now have a P4 3.0GHz system with 2GB of RAM and an ATI
9800XT video card. My ATI card settings are set to application specific
under 3D OpenGL settings and 6X AA, 16X AF, one notch below highest
quality on Texture Preference, one notch below highest quality for
Mipmap Detail Level, Wait for Vertical Synch to application preference
and Trueform always off. I'm using CAT 5.3.

I play Doom 3 with highest resolution and Ultra on all in-game graphic
settings. I've noticed about two cases where the system paused for
about 1/2 a second to open a door. The game is very playable and I
don't notice any performance decrease during gameplay. I do receive
fairly low FPS during Timedemo1 using the above settings. I'd have to
run it again for the exact numbers.

I HAVE been contemplating on building a new system (using Dell 8300 now
with no problems) based on AMD FX-55. If at all possible, could you
please run the timedemo using the settings I mentioned with your card
for a comparison?

Additionally, I run the timedemo1 with my NIC disabled, antivirus off,
firewall off, etc... to improve performance. I also play the game this
way b/c I do not play it online.

Thanks
 
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