Whats the slowest CPU I can buy that will outperform the Radeon 9800 Pro?

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Bradley

Can somebody please tell me the slowest CPU I can buy that will allow me to
utilize the full power of the Radeon 9800 Pro. I dont have a great deal of
extra cash so I need to make sure my CPU and videocard are as closely
matched in terms of performance as possible with a little extra headroom on
the CPU side of things. And if someone can actually explain how this is
determined or post some links to some article on this subject matter. That
would be great. I've read some of this stuff in the past but I forgot how to
determine it myself. Please help. Thanks.
 
Bradley said:
Can somebody please tell me the slowest CPU I can buy that will allow me
to utilize the full power of the Radeon 9800 Pro. I dont have a great deal
of extra cash so I need to make sure my CPU and videocard are as closely
matched in terms of performance as possible with a little extra headroom
on the CPU side of things. And if someone can actually explain how this is
determined or post some links to some article on this subject matter. That
would be great. I've read some of this stuff in the past but I forgot how
to determine it myself. Please help. Thanks.
Click to expand...

I *think* you'd have to get a 3ghz CPU before the graphics card would start
to be the bottleneck but I doubt it would be noticeable at low resolutions
like 800 or 1024.
 
Bradley said:
Can somebody please tell me the slowest CPU I can buy that will allow me
to utilize the full power of the Radeon 9800 Pro. I dont have a great deal
of extra cash so I need to make sure my CPU and videocard are as closely
matched in terms of performance as possible with a little extra headroom
on the CPU side of things. And if someone can actually explain how this is
determined or post some links to some article on this subject matter. That
would be great. I've read some of this stuff in the past but I forgot how
to determine it myself. Please help. Thanks. <
Click to expand...

I don't know an objective way of determining that but I can give you my
results: My P4-1.8A running at 2.77 gives 3dmark2001E benchmarks up to
15300 with Cat 4.12 drivers on that card. If I overclock the video card,
the performance stays about the same. That might imply the cpu cannot keep
the video card saturated but not necessarily. If I go one notch higher
(18MHz) on the system clock and hold the video card at stock speed, the
benchmark goes down. If I slow the cpu to 2400MHz, overclocking the video
card increases the benchmark but nowhere near 15300.
 
Bradley said:
Can somebody please tell me the slowest CPU I can buy that will allow me to
utilize the full power of the Radeon 9800 Pro. I dont have a great deal of
extra cash so I need to make sure my CPU and videocard are as closely
matched in terms of performance as possible with a little extra headroom on
the CPU side of things. And if someone can actually explain how this is
determined or post some links to some article on this subject matter. That
would be great. I've read some of this stuff in the past but I forgot how to
determine it myself. Please help. Thanks.
Click to expand...

What CPU do you have now?
What is the best CPU that your current system (motherboard/RAM) can support?
What is the best CPU you can buy for the money you have to spend?
What ideally is the amount of money you want to spend at a minimum?
 
Bradley said:
Can somebody please tell me the slowest CPU I can buy that will allow me to
utilize the full power of the Radeon 9800 Pro. I dont have a great deal of
extra cash so I need to make sure my CPU and videocard are as closely
matched in terms of performance as possible with a little extra headroom on
the CPU side of things. And if someone can actually explain how this is
determined or post some links to some article on this subject matter. That
would be great. I've read some of this stuff in the past but I forgot how to
determine it myself. Please help. Thanks.
Click to expand...

There's no hard and fast rule. Some software is more processor intensive
due to more complex in game physics, AI etc.

As somebody else said, the Athlon 64 3000+ Venice processor is very much
the best bang for the buck at the moment so if you can stretch to one of
these then you're set. Just make sure you have a motherboard that will
support overclocking and that thing could be a flying machine.

The DFI LanParty NF4 Ultra-D is a very good choice at the moment.
 
obvious said:
There's no hard and fast rule. Some software is more processor intensive
due to more complex in game physics, AI etc.

As somebody else said, the Athlon 64 3000+ Venice processor is very much
the best bang for the buck at the moment so if you can stretch to one of
these then you're set. Just make sure you have a motherboard that will
support overclocking and that thing could be a flying machine.

The DFI LanParty NF4 Ultra-D is a very good choice at the moment.
Click to expand...

:doh: while the above motherboard is great, it doesn't have an AGP slot.
 
your cpu is still limiting you

my Athlon Mobile at 2500 Mhz (mhz not + rateing)
gets 20000 in 3dmark 2001 on a radeon 9800 pro
 
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