I have a system based on an athlon xp 2600+ (barton), asus a7n8x deluxe and a geforce 6800 ultra. I also have a 3000+ barton, asus a7v333 and a 7600gt. These systems are extremely close in performance.

With no AA the 7600gt is marginally faster (but faster cpu), with 4xAA they perform the same and with 8xAA the 6800ultra is much faster (256bit comes into play).

I also have a 7800gs and it is in the same ballpark (depends on the software and settings which card is quicker).

If you need faster the 8000 series is the only way to go with nvidia, 8800gt and higher is MUCH faster but pci-e only. If you want the best agp then go ATI, i have a Radeon 3850 agp and it blows other agp cards away.

I don't have a x1950pro agp but is should be a very good performer too.

Testdrive unlimited is a nice game with a badly optimised engine imho. It needs much faster hardware to run great... try JUICED on your system, a lot of people don't know it but it is a great tuner game and keeps you busy for a long time. Nice for lan too (that's what i use these 2 systems for with my son)

meljor wrote:

I have a system based on an athlon xp 2600+ (barton), asus a7n8x deluxe and a geforce 6800 ultra. I also have a 3000+ barton, asus a7v333 and a 7600gt. These systems are extremely close in performance.

With no AA the 7600gt is marginally faster (but faster cpu), with 4xAA they perform the same and with 8xAA the 6800ultra is much faster (256bit comes into play).

I also have a 7800gs and it is in the same ballpark (depends on the software and settings which card is quicker).

FWIW, my experiences with 6800GT, 6800 Ultra, 7600GT, and 7900GS over the years roughly mirror this.

//update: AMD Athlon XP 3000+ and MSI RX800 256MB will be used in RETRIX-PC
I found original drivers from Leadtek for 7800GS (84.40, not WHQL signed) and they performs better than 94.24 in all 3DMarks.
but dont support TransparencyAA - is it important or faster, than previous type of AA?
Newer drivers eg. 169.xx cause me problems with textures in FarCry1

Leadtek's modified drivers tended to improve performance for my 6800GT IIRC; the lack of transparency AA isn't a big deal. nVidia has a demo that shows what it does - afaik it's GeForce 7 unique. http://www.nvidia.com/object/transparency_aa.html

On FarCry - find Phil's thread in Windows Games, he has a guide on the game.

What do you say on X1950Pro? Will CPU limit that card?

eFatal2ty wrote:

What do you say on X1950Pro? Will CPU limit that card?

Yes. If you could find a Socket 478 Gallatin Pentium 4 EE 3.4 that would help with removing most of the CPU bottleneck. DDR400 2-2-2-5 memory will also help.

I would expect a stock Gallatin 3.4 + Radeon X1950 Pro to score 24k - 25k in 3dmark2001.

With a socket 478 Gallatin @4GHz I got 27145p with the X1950 Pro, I do not remember what I got @stock.
Here is a screenshot http://u.cubeupload.com/jonaz81a/gallatin34004000x195.jpg

Thats awesome score. And you cool it on the air? I cant get Gallatin anywhere. My RAM is Corsair 2x1GB PC3500 LL Pro CL2

Skyscraper wrote:

Yes. If you could find a Socket 478 Gallatin Pentium 4 EE 3.4 that would help with removing most of the CPU bottleneck. DDR400 2-2-2-5 memory will also help.

I would expect a stock Gallatin 3.4 + Radeon X1950 Pro to score 24k - 25k in 3dmark2001.

FWIW, 3.2EE @ stock on an 865p gets around 21-22k with 6800 Ultra @ stock. That's fairly similar to A64 4000+ w/7900GS (all stock). Performance-wise the Gallatin is generally on-par with the faster first-gen Athlon64 chips (including FX, like the FX-51), but they aren't 64-bit, don't support SSE3, etc so if any of that matters a Prescott is likely in your future (I don't actually remember if there are EM64T chips for Socket 478 though). The high clocked 3.4GHz+ Prescott chips will do a good enough job performance-wise; of course a Gallatin at the same clock will always be faster, but they're not the most common of parts. 😊

If you really want a Gallatin box, they're not all that uncommon for Socket 604. Would also mean dual-processor, which could expand your options for later games that make use of multi-core/multi-processor systems (like Fallout 3/New Vegas, Supreme Commander, etc). I'm not sure if 604 chips can be adapterized to 478 or vice versa; I know 775 and 771 have been adapterized, so it may be worth investigating.

eFatal2ty wrote:

Thats awesome score. And you cool it on the air? I cant get Gallatin anywhere. My RAM is Corsair 2x1GB PC3500 LL Pro CL2

That was with water but with a very temporary setup, the waterbock wasnt even mounted to the CPU, just placed on top of it.
The air cooler I use for this system is a Zalman cnps7000 which is really crappy so its possible a better air cooler would handle it.

The systems rock stable (hours of Prime95) every day overclock using air is 3757 MHz and the max somewhat stable overclock using air and stock voltage is 3825 Mhz, both speeds results in 26xxx points in 3dmark 2001. I do think it will be possible to get a better score using older drivers and some optimizing though.

I have also CNPS7000. Will CNPS7700 do better? Or I should use heatpipe cooler on this?

eFatal2ty wrote:

I have also CNPS7000. Will CNPS7700 do better? Or I should use heatpipe cooler on this?

Only if you are overclocking, at stock speed or even slightly overclocked the cnps7000 is fine.

Is 400MHz slightly for 3.2G Prescott in your meaning?

eFatal2ty wrote:

Is 400MHz slightly for 3.2G Prescott in your meaning?

If you are using stock vcore then yes it should be fine. If you increase the voltage then no the cnps7000 isnt good enough in my experience.

Minimal voltage on my Abit IC7 is 1.385V i dont know what is stock, I have one of earliest Prescotts SL7B8 http://www.cpu-world.com/sspec/SL/SL7B8.html And it will run it stable maybe (I tried OCCT 1 hour), but temperatures are also high on CNPS7000

eFatal2ty wrote:

Minimal voltage on my Abit IC7 is 1.385V i dont know what is stock, I have one of earliest Prescotts SL7B8 http://www.cpu-world.com/sspec/SL/SL7B8.html And it will run it stable maybe (I tried OCCT 1 hour), but temperatures are also high on CNPS7000

The stock voltage is different for every chip but should be in the range of 1.25V - 1.4V.
For an early stepping of a Prescott 3.2 1.385V sounds reasonable.
CPU temps up to ~75C is nothing to worry about if stable.

This isnt normal, is it? ACPI 74deg.C All stock, Zalman CNPS7000 + AC MX-2, Fan on MAX, opened Case

eFatal2ty wrote:

This isnt normal, is it? ACPI 74deg.C All stock, Zalman CNPS7000 + AC MX-2, Fan on MAX, opened Case http://s17.postimg.org/6eyws […]
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This isnt normal, is it? ACPI 74deg.C All stock, Zalman CNPS7000 + AC MX-2, Fan on MAX, opened Case

The idle temp when running at stock speed with your CPU and cooler should be between 30-40 degrees Celsius.
The load temp should normally be between 55 - 65 degrees Celsius. Both with an open or well ventilated case.

I think that Pentium 4 775 are the worst options!
They are warm, your system will be very hot!
So you must use good cooler.
In my opinion the best choice is to use athlon 64 939 agp platform for games under 2006!

Stermy57 wrote:

I think that Pentium 4 775 are the worst options!
They are warm, your system will be very hot!
So you must use good cooler.

His system is socket 478 😀

Stermy57 wrote:

In my opinion the best choice is to use athlon 64 939 agp platform for games under 2006!

Perhaps something like this!
PCI-E gives more choices when it comes to DX9 video cards.

Seriously you people consider synthetic benchmarks as good performance measure? That's no way indication of real world performance, specially if said bechmarks were compiled with Intel compilers. Man Intel really did a great job making its micro-architecture look not so bad.