2.6 Ghz: any reason to upgrade ?

[doc_bean]

So..my PC recently celebrated its third birthday and I am considering a major upgrade, I've already got the 1Gb RAM, I'm probably going to get a new videocard within the next few months. I'm pretty sure a new harddrive will finds it way into an empty slot in the next few months. But I'm wondering, does my PC need a heart transplant ? Or is the old ticker still good enough to go up against today's youth ?

I noticed all AMD's still run at a lower clock speed, and Intel doesn't seem to have gone up in clock speed to much either. Do new processors offer any real benefits over my old one ? Or should I just stick with what I've got for a while longer ?

Note: I'm not looking for the latest and greatest, I find 1024x768 a pretty good resolution to play games at and am not interest in paying for 'novelty'. I do want decent new components that are affordable and can last a few years, so don't suggest the new AMD 4800+, I really won't waste that kind of money...

[Reenk Roink]

You're essentially in the same situation as I am. My rig is 2.5 years old, with a Intel Pentium 4, 3.2 GHz HT, 1 GB RAM but with only a 80 GB Hard Drive and an ancient ATI Radeon x300 SE...

I myself am going to hold off buying a new beast for 1.5-2 years until Dual Core and Longhorn and hopefully 64 bit become more mainstream. For the upcoming Neverwinter Nights 2 and of course M:TW II, I'm gonna snag a Nvidia 7800 GT.

You should keep your processor as is, my guess is that the extra RAM and New GFX card will do much more than a itty bitty hike in processor power for your gaming needs.

[Mikeus Caesar]

You know, a lot of people seem to be in this situation. A half and half computer, with one half rocking the socks that rock the party, while the other half belongs in a scrapheap. I for one have a great computer, but am rapidly running out of Hard Drive space. I have two 80GB Hard Drives, and the primary one only has about 10GB left, while the secondary one is half full.

It sucks. And typically, by time you get around to upgrading, something else on your computer is utterly outdated/broken.

[Geezer57]

So..my PC recently celebrated its third birthday and I am considering a major upgrade, I've already got the 1Gb RAM, I'm probably going to get a new videocard within the next few months. I'm pretty sure a new harddrive will finds it way into an empty slot in the next few months. But I'm wondering, does my PC need a heart transplant ? Or is the old ticker still good enough to go up against today's youth ?

I noticed all AMD's still run at a lower clock speed, and Intel doesn't seem to have gone up in clock speed to much either. Do new processors offer any real benefits over my old one ? Or should I just stick with what I've got for a while longer ?

Note: I'm not looking for the latest and greatest, I find 1024x768 a pretty good resolution to play games at and am not interest in paying for 'novelty'. I do want decent new components that are affordable and can last a few years, so don't suggest the new AMD 4800+, I really won't waste that kind of money...

Your processor power is still fine for most current gaming, but you'll find your graphics card upgrade path will be very limited due to your current motherboard's AGP slot. None of the new, most powerful cards (Radeon x1800 & x1900, GeForce 7800GT/GTX & 7900) are built with AGP interfaces, preferring instead to go with PCIe. The best you could choose would be a Radeon x850 series or GeForce 7800GS (somewhat crippled 7800 series) chipset. Your processor is also probably riding in a socket 478, which also limits possible motherboard upgrades. I haven't found any "enthusiast" boards with both socket 478 and PCIe x 16 built into them.

Probably best to keep your machine intact, or do a minor graphics upgrade, and save your money for a larger upgrade to a new machine at a later date.

[Lemur]

Save your money. Incremental upgrades are going to give you minor improvements, at best. When you're ready, you should consider a proc/mobo/memory/videocard upgrade, since as another poster pointed out, the nicest and most cost-effective videocards aren't going to play with an AGP board.

Your board is going to give you very little room to improve your proc, and a new proc will likely require new RAM as well as a new mobo.

I'm sitting tight. Not gonna spend a dime on my PC until I can't stand it anymore, and then I'm going to replace the whole shebang. My home-brew PC is over 3 years old, so I'm gritting my teeth and sweating a lot. No more upgrades! None! Not so much as a new fan bay! Nada, nothing! I will endure the torments of low frame rates and the fires of degrading system performance, and I will not weep.

[doc_bean]

Save your money. Incremental upgrades are going to give you minor improvements, at best. When you're ready, you should consider a proc/mobo/memory/videocard upgrade,

That was the original plan, get the HD now, go for a proc/motherboard/videocard upgrade somewhere late this year, reuse the memory if possible (it had to be replaced, that's why I've got 1Gb now). However, since my proc doesn't seem to need upgrading, I was considering getting the new gfx card earlier and keep the rest for another few years.

since as another poster pointed out, the nicest and most cost-effective videocards aren't going to play with an AGP board.

Yeah, they seem really overpriced, and not that much better than my 9700pro.

Your board is going to give you very little room to improve your proc, and a new proc will likely require new RAM as well as a new mobo.

But they're relatively cheap in comparison. When I think of upgrading a proc I automatically assume upgrading the motherboard. In the old days you would usually upgrade your board to accomodate your proc, now it seems to have reversed

I'm sitting tight. Not gonna spend a dime on my PC until I can't stand it anymore, and then I'm going to replace the whole shebang. My home-brew PC is over 3 years old, so I'm gritting my teeth and sweating a lot. No more upgrades! None! Not so much as a new fan bay! Nada, nothing! I will endure the torments of low frame rates and the fires of degrading system performance, and I will not weep.

But...Oblivion...MTW2...THEY'RE COMMING !!!

Ahem, it seems like I should prepare for the long wait for Vista, I hope that manages to drop the prices enough.

[Xiahou]

It could depend on alot of things. I recently "upgraded" from a 2.4Ghz P4 to a Athlon64 3200+ that only runs at 2Ghz, but my performance gains for gaming were huge. Why? My P4 ran at a far slower bus speed and to make matters worse, it didnt support dual channel memory. By only changing the mobo and proc and keeping all the other peripherals I saw substantial framerate gains.

As to just upgrading the processor on the old mobo- I doubt it'd make that much a difference. If you could find some benchmarks for you current/perspective processor you could probably get a good idea that way.

[Phatose]

Ghz to Ghz comparisons between AMD and Intel, or even between P4s and Pentium-Ms are completely useless. The amount of work an A64 or PM can do in a cycle is larger then what a P4 can do in the same cycle.

[Mikeus Caesar]

Ghz to Ghz comparisons between AMD and Intel, or even between P4s and Pentium-Ms are completely useless. The amount of work an A64 or PM can do in a cycle is larger then what a P4 can do in the same cycle.

Indeed. A P4 may have more Ghz, but it's still slow when it comes to constant fast working, such as gaming. My friend fails to understand this and thus won't join the AMD clan of processor users, and thus is paying the price in not being able to play good games as well as he'd like to. He just looks at the Ghz and thinks that the P4 must be better with it's 2.7Ghz, yet he always marvels at the speed of my PC, with it's 'inferior' AMD Athlon 64 +3200 running at 2.0Ghz.

[LeftEyeNine]

Well, the new trend (not a brand new one ) in CPU manufacturing is increasing the cache levels such as L1 and L2. The frequency is not the all as it was before. After experiencing the significant benefits of higher cache levels in CPU's, the advertisements of CPUs extended another line about how many kbs/or Megs of cache the CPU has.

Therefore in case you want to try out a new CPU, look out for the cache levels as well

[drone]

Indeed. A P4 may have more Ghz, but it's still slow when it comes to constant fast working, such as gaming. My friend fails to understand this and thus won't join the AMD clan of processor users, and thus is paying the price in not being able to play good games as well as he'd like to. He just looks at the Ghz and thinks that the P4 must be better with it's 2.7Ghz, yet he always marvels at the speed of my PC, with it's 'inferior' AMD Athlon 64 +3200 running at 2.0Ghz.

Intel bet everything on the marketing path: "More GHz = Better" when they went with the P4. They went with deep pipelines that could process data chunks quickly. This is why P4s used to (and maybe still do) beat AMDs at benchmarks for multimedia applications, since these are just straight number crunching. For decision making (general programming, AI, etc.) the deep pipelines are a detriment, since the processor has to guess the correct branches and flush if wrong. The deep pipeline latency kills the performance in these cases. AMD took a long term approach, and made their cores so that they could be easily scalable, and are now taking advantage with the smaller gate sizes. This also helps them with power consumption. Intel has a long road now to catch up. I'm an AMD fanboy, but I want Intel to remain competitive, because competition means consumers win.

[orangat]

Well, the new trend (not a brand new one ) in CPU manufacturing is increasing the cache levels such as L1 and L2. The frequency is not the all as it was before. After experiencing the significant benefits of higher cache levels in CPU's, the advertisements of CPUs extended another line about how many kbs/or Megs of cache the CPU has.

Therefore in case you want to try out a new CPU, look out for the cache levels as well

No. It hasn't got more or less important, it was always important along with clock speed. The trend in manufacturing is towards a finer lithography process.
Intel's flagship P4 was supposed to hit 10 Ghz although it petered out before even getting halfway, cache size was not the driving impetus in its design.

The concept that clock speed and cache cannot be used to compare across manufacturers seems to be difficult to grasp it seems.

[Paul Peru]

It's hard to give a recommendation without knowing the full spec., but you may want to save your money for a new computer. Sounds like what you've got is nicely sufficient for anyone but a slightly silly person (like myself).

AMD processors are way better for gaming, but you'd need a new mobo as well, and your RAM may not be optimal for that mobo, and the new mobo will probably not have an AGP slot...

There are finally updated AGP cards hitting the market again, NVIDIA 7800 GS is one. A new videocard may be a good option.

I upgraded from a 9800 Pro to a 6800 GT (which was the best AGP card I could find at the time) and it helps me play most games at 1280*1024, which is my monitor's native resolution, so it looks way better. That card is horribly noisy, though! Beware! And it runs hot! piece of ! I'd chuck it out the window if I didn't crave the graphic goodness.

No qualms about recommending AMD processors, though. I got myself an Opteron 165 before the price hike ( that's unusual for a CPU) to replace my older s939 cpu. Nice overclocker, and very well behaved.

[LeftEyeNine]

No. It hasn't got more or less important, it was always important along with clock speed.

Technically you're right. But you have to admit that it was only a clock speed race a few years ago.

[doc_bean]

It's hard to give a recommendation without knowing the full spec., but you may want to save your money for a new computer. Sounds like what you've got is nicely sufficient for anyone but a slightly silly person (like myself).

I also suspect my gfx card (9700pro) is damaged, 3D games crash A LOT on my PC (although it has slightly improved with the latest ATI drivers) and they just don't seem to look as nice as they're supposed to (also compared to my dad's 9600).

I'm going to format my HD when I find the time to sort out the crap on my C drive, I hope that will help, but since the lock ups occur purely with games, I suspect my gfx card is to blame.

[CBR]

That card is horribly noisy, though! Beware! And it runs hot! piece of ! I'd chuck it out the window if I didn't crave the graphic goodness.

You could change the cooler to one of the Arctic Cooling NV Silencer series. I did it for both my old 5900XT and new 7800GT and they run cool and quiet.

Oh and Opterons are great. Have a 165 myself.


CBR

[orangat]

Technically you're right. But you have to admit that it was only a clock speed race a few years ago.

Nope your wrong again. Cache sizes have always increased in lockstep with clock speed along with other architectural improvements like higher fsb, EMT64, hyperthreading and core tweaks.

In fact sometimes the cache subsystem are adversely affected in newer steppings. The P4's L2 had a higher latency than the P3, the EE also had an increased cache latency, and the 2Mb Prescott's L2 latency is also higher which pretty much negates the inherent improvement with having a bigger cache. So 'technically' how could cache sizes been more important for performance?

Clock speed is just as if not more important than cache sizes in Intel's design philosophy with the P4.

[Reenk Roink]

Nope your wrong again.

Come here you

No wonder you and ShambleS get along so well...

[Geezer57]

I also suspect my gfx card (9700pro) is damaged, 3D games crash A LOT on my PC (although it has slightly improved with the latest ATI drivers) and they just don't seem to look as nice as they're supposed to (also compared to my dad's 9600).

I'm going to format my HD when I find the time to sort out the crap on my C drive, I hope that will help, but since the lock ups occur purely with games, I suspect my gfx card is to blame.

Have you tried the Omega drivers yet? http://www.omegadrivers.net/ They've been very good with my Radeon 9500/9700/9800 cards, and might fix a few things.
And, if your problems are due to heat issues, you might try one of these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835186110 I'm using several, with great results - they're surprisingly quiet for the cooling that you get.

[LeftEyeNine]

orangat, you'd like to admit or not, I can't do a thing. But a few years ago, although cache levels were tweaked/improved or not, publically it was a clock speed race, that's why the title of this thread is "2.6 Ghz: any reason to upgrade". I'm talking about what end-users talk about, not the CPU architects.

OK, I'm wrong again

[doc_bean]

Have you tried the Omega drivers yet? http://www.omegadrivers.net/ They've been very good with my Radeon 9500/9700/9800 cards, and might fix a few things.

Interesting, with these drivers my game (farcry) still crashed, but the screen went black instead of just remaining static and I was able to ctrl-alt-del out of the program. A small comfort, but still, interesting.

And, if your problems are due to heat issues, you might try one of these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835186110 I'm using several, with great results - they're surprisingly quiet for the cooling that you get.

How can you tell if it's heat related ? The crashes seem to happen whenever I play a 3D game (not all 3D games have problems) at about 15mins in.

[orangat]

orangat, you'd like to admit or not, I can't do a thing. But a few years ago, although cache levels were tweaked/improved or not, publically it was a clock speed race, that's why the title of this thread is "2.6 Ghz: any reason to upgrade". I'm talking about what end-users talk about, not the CPU architects.
OK, I'm wrong again

I'm talking about clock speed and caches just as you are.

And whether you like to admit it or not, you haven't brought up a single valid point to support your erroneous statement or refuted my points. Caches have been improved and tweaked and enlarged in step with clock speeds all the way back from Pentium1 days.

[Reenk Roink]

I'm talking about clock speed and caches just as you are.

And whether you like to admit it or not, you haven't brought up a single valid point to support your erroneous statement or refuted my points. Caches have been improved and tweaked and enlarged in step with clock speeds all the way back from Pentium1 days.

LEN isn't claiming to be ShambleS you know. Rudeness isn't liked on these forums...

Go to the Backroom...

[orangat]

LEN isn't claiming to be ShambleS you know. Rudeness isn't liked on these forums...

Go to the Backroom...

I was never rude in my posts. If something is so obviously wrong, I'll just say so.

Class dismissed...

[Geezer57]

Interesting, with these drivers my game (farcry) still crashed, but the screen went black instead of just remaining static and I was able to ctrl-alt-del out of the program. A small comfort, but still, interesting.



How can you tell if it's heat related ? The crashes seem to happen whenever I play a 3D game (not all 3D games have problems) at about 15mins in.

Try leaving the side cover off your computer (if it's a tower), and maybe directing a fan towards the inside of the case. If the extra ventilation makes any difference with your 3D gaming, then heat is most likely the issue. Otherwise, the graphics card itself might be failing. One thing to try, if possible, is to install it (your display card) in another computer, and see if the symptoms are repeated there.

[LeftEyeNine]

I'm talking about clock speed and caches just as you are.

And whether you like to admit it or not, you haven't brought up a single valid point to support your erroneous statement or refuted my points. Caches have been improved and tweaked and enlarged in step with clock speeds all the way back from Pentium1 days.

But a few years ago, although cache levels were tweaked/improved or not, publically it was a clock speed race, that's why the title of this thread is "2.6 Ghz: any reason to upgrade"

What should I do more to express my erroneous statement or refute your points ?

[Xiahou]

Nope your wrong again. Cache sizes have always increased in lockstep with clock speed along with other architectural improvements like higher fsb, EMT64, hyperthreading and core tweaks.

Im not sure how true that is anyway.... sure architectures were improved along with clock speeds, but there were no great leaps in cache size that Im aware of.

I mean, you can easily google the specs for various processors and see that cache sizes have fluctuated, but certainly havent increased in "lockstep" with processor speeds. The P2 had what, 256KB of L2 cache at say 300Mhz? If there was a "lockstep" you'd expect a 3Ghz processor to have a L2 of over 2.5MB, yet this isnt the case- most have caches only around 512KB to 1MB. In fact, I believe my old Athlon tbird still only had 256KB of L2.

It's easy enough to look up...

[orangat]

Im not sure how true that is anyway.... sure architectures were improved along with clock speeds, but there were no great leaps in cache size that Im aware of.

I mean, you can easily google the specs for various processors and see that cache sizes have fluctuated, but certainly havent increased in "lockstep" with processor speeds. The P2 had what, 256KB of L2 cache at say 300Mhz? If there was a "lockstep" you'd expect a 3Ghz processor to have a L2 of over 2.5MB, yet this isnt the case- most have caches only around 512KB to 1MB. In fact, I believe my old Athlon tbird still only had 256KB of L2.

The point I'm making is that it has never been just a clock speed race and cache has generally always kept up with the core especially recently. So the emphasis on cache didn't just happen recently. I should've phrased it as cache improvements (instead of just size) to take into account all the cache tweaks as well

The P2 did have 256/512k of cache. But improvements like off-die vs on-die, full vs half speed, associativity, bus width, trace cache were also implemented in later cpu's so cache performance wasn't ignored.

With AMD, cache sizes dropped with the A64's but so did clock speeds because of core tweaks.

[Just A Girl]

You guys want me to join in here?

cos your all right.
your just wording your selfs wrong.
(atleast thats what i see from what ive read so far)

Cache Does help with Processor speed, As we all know.
But theres SO much more to pc's than that.
You have FSB to consider.
clock speeds for ram and cpu,
HDD are a factor.
Also amd arent Intel and Intel arent amd.
They may run at the same clock speeds but they dont utilize things in the same way.

and example would be.

mmx and 3d now. processors.
same clock speeds. same data enters the cpu.
Cpu utilizes it differently.
and you get different outcomes.

So yeah.
cache size will always be better bigger,
and Ghz will be better bigger 2.
but these 2 things dont determine 100% how fast your pc will run.
they do determine how fast it is ABLE to run.
but that dosent mean that they WIll run that fast.

ive said before my amd 1333 is easily better than any of my pentium 4 2.8's
But its not faster.
It just utilizes things better.


Now dont you guys be taking all this to seriously.
Im just nudging you gently towards the end of the debate :)

Hope you find it eventually.

[orangat]

Try leaving the side cover off your computer (if it's a tower), and maybe directing a fan towards the inside of the case. If the extra ventilation makes any difference with your 3D gaming, then heat is most likely the issue. Otherwise, the graphics card itself might be failing. One thing to try, if possible, is to install it (your display card) in another computer, and see if the symptoms are repeated there.

Or just run a stress test program like rthdribl.