Planned final setup is an Athlon XP 3000+, 1.5GB RAM, Creative Audigy 2.
Board is an Asus A7V8X-X.
Can't decide between an Nvidia 6200 or a 6800GT. Leaning toward the 6800GT.
Opinion? Heaviest game will most likely be Doom 3.
6200 will be way too slow.
6800GT is quite powerful, should handle Doom 3 quite comfortably at 1024 x 768 resolution.
A good compromise would be the 6600GT 😀
wrote:6200 will be way too slow.
6800GT is quite powerful, should handle Doom 3 quite comfortably at 1024 x 768 resolution.
A good compromise would be the 6600GT 😀
6800GT is about $5-10 more, with a good jump in performance. I was looking at the 6200 merely for the lack of a power connector.
Get the 6800GT; it's a very good match with an XP 3000+ until you run into games that require SSE2/3. The 6200 will be far too slow (it's dramatically slower than the 6800, and will be slower than a number of older higher-tier cards as well (newer does not always mean faster)). Given that you're talking about Doom 3, GeForce FX (and probably GeForce 4 Ti) would also be acceptable, but the 6800 will be overall faster and will give you better performance in later DirectX 9 games.
Yea the 6800GT was a beast when it came out. It put Nvidia back into pole position after they struggled a little with the FX series.
wrote:Yea the 6800GT was a beast when it came out. It put Nvidia back into pole position after they struggled a little with the FX series.
I still remember when the 6 series came out with Doom 3. Remember watching it on Techtv (or was it G4 at the time?).
Just a thought: if power consumption or size is a concern with the GT or Ultra, the "normal" 6800 cards are still faster than the 6600, but tend to be single-slot and should use less power as well.
wrote:Just a thought: if power consumption or size is a concern with the GT or Ultra, the "normal" 6800 cards are still faster than the 6600, but tend to be single-slot and should use less power as well.
I'm looking at a BFG model specifically with 1 power connector.
Is the BFG one of the ones with the two small fans? It may be somewhat noisy, but iirc BFG was well regarded before going defunct. The Zalman VF-700 (and probably clones/variants) is a very good option for the 6800GT though.
wrote:Is the BFG one of the ones with the two small fans? It may be somewhat noisy, but iirc BFG was well regarded before going defunct.
That it is.
wrote:6200 will be way too slow.
6800GT is quite powerful, should handle Doom 3 quite comfortably at 1024 x 768 resolution.
A good compromise would be the 6600GT 😀
Id reckon a 6800GT should be able to do even better than that, my Athlon XP 2800 + 5900 Ultra 256MB can run Doom3 pretty well at 1024X768, of course by pretty well I mean circa 50fps at high settings, Chaos Theory and Rome Total war suffer big time though , sometimes going into circa 15fps in the case or R:TW
I am planning to get an AGP based 6800GT just to see if there is a big CPU bottleneck and maybe keep it if the results are good enough, I just hope the 350W Enermax Ive got can handle that.
as for the question as others have said, a 6800 or the ATI equivalent , the X800 would make a good option, don't bother with the lower end cards, there is almost no benefit to it.
wrote:Id reckon a 6800GT should be able to do even better than that, my Athlon XP 2800 + 5900 Ultra 256MB can run Doom3 pretty well at 1024X768, of course by pretty well I mean circa 50fps at high settings, Chaos Theory and Rome Total war suffer big time though , sometimes going into circa 15fps in the case or R:TW
I am planning to get an AGP based 6800GT just to see if there is a big CPU bottleneck and maybe keep it if the results are good enough, I just hope the 350W Enermax Ive got can handle that.
6800GT + AthlonXP can be a good combination for games from around (and up to) 2004 imho, but once you start moving much further you get into games that require (or at least heavily benefit from) SSE2/3 instructions, and you will see the AthlonXP as a fairly substantial bottleneck despite the 6800GT being otherwise capable of running the game. Athlon64 or Pentium 4 HT (or their respective multi-core variants) will be much better choices for later games, and in general if you want to get the most out of a 6800.
I would not pair a 6800GT and higher-spec AthlonXP with a 350W power supply as a long-term solution, especially if the power supply is as old as the AthlonXP, and especially if it puts the bulk of its power onto the +5V rail.
as for the question as others have said, a 6800 or the ATI equivalent , the X800 would make a good option, don't bother with the lower end cards, there is almost no benefit to it.
For Doom 3 specifically I would lean towards nVidia, and in terms of driver options/support I would also lean towards nVidia. The GeForce 6 series won't have any trouble with Source-based games either. The Radeon X800/850 wouldn't be a bad contender if you can find an AGP variant that isn't silly expensive, but the blower fan on the later/higher-spec models is noisy (worse than anything I've ever heard out of a GeForce FX 😉). I would agree with avoiding the "midrange" Radeon X cards.
if I remember correctly, the first game to really strain my Athlon XP 1800+ I had at the time was C&C3, to the point where the FMV's audio and video were out of sync, , this 2800 should do a better job though I really have no interest in running that game on this kind of machine.
the PSU I currently use is an EG365P-VE I think its a 2002 model , so yeah its a bit old, if I decide to keep a 6800GT as this PC's GPU, I will probably try and get something in the region of 500-600w, but as long as it will work in the short term , it should be ok (Im not running a monster PC, just a CD Drive, an SB Audigy2 and 2 IDE HDDs). it would also let me use this 350w in my Win98SE machine due to the higher quality.
6800GT but I wouldn't bother with 9x on that machine with it.
Run 2000 or XP.
Despite it being a Via board and being 9x compatible.
The 6xxx series is limited to from my experience unstable late end forceware 9x drivers which you will be fighting more then playing games on 🤣.
Heck some games just plain won't start under the last 9x nvidia drivers or if they do play with rendering errors, sometimes major. Its just not worth the hassle, better to back off to a 59xx for 9x.
wrote:Yea the 6800GT was a beast when it came out. It put Nvidia back into pole position after they struggled a little with the FX series.
Radeon X850 is faster than any 6800 with AA/AF turned on high and at 1600x1200. The 6800 only barely edged out X800 without AA/AF and at resolutions lower than 1600 x1200. nVidia wouldn't truly retake the lead until the 8800 came out.
wrote:if I remember correctly, the first game to really strain my Athlon XP 1800+ I had at the time was C&C3, to the point where the FMV's audio and video were out of sync, , this 2800 should do a better job though I really have no interest in running that game on this kind of machine.
the PSU I currently use is an EG365P-VE I think its a 2002 model , so yeah its a bit old, if I decide to keep a 6800GT as this PC's GPU, I will probably try and get something in the region of 500-600w, but as long as it will work in the short term , it should be ok (Im not running a monster PC, just a CD Drive, an SB Audigy2 and 2 IDE HDDs). it would also let me use this 350w in my Win98SE machine due to the higher quality.
For short term the 350W should be fine (like for testing); I'm just cautious about heavily loading an aged PSU more than anything else. 😊
wrote:wrote:Yea the 6800GT was a beast when it came out. It put Nvidia back into pole position after they struggled a little with the FX series.
Radeon X850 is faster than any 6800 with AA/AF turned on high and at 1600x1200. The 6800 only barely edged out X800 without AA/AF and at resolutions lower than 1600 x1200. nVidia wouldn't truly retake the lead until the 8800 came out.
I've only had issues with ATI cards when it comes to old computers. Tried a Radeon 9800 in my P4 yesterday, the drivers BSOD. Tried a 9550. CTD when running 3dmark 😒
wrote:I've only had issues with ATI cards when it comes to old computers. Tried a Radeon 9800 in my P4 yesterday, the drivers BSOD. Tried a 9550. CTD when running 3dmark 😒
IME the R300 cards had awful longevity (all of mine died years ago 😢), despite being decent performers when brand new. Some folks around here have speculated its because their coolers were usually the bare-minimum for what the chips actually needed (and indeed they're usually pretty flimsy looking). Personally I wouldn't go after another one that was designed to need fan cooling, because of that experience. I don't know if the cards you have may have been "victims" of a similar phenomenon or not.
The R400 series are basically just beefed-up R300s, but they did re-work the cooler for the X850 (with a very loud blower (and yes, I'd put it into the "list of things that are louder than the 5800 Ultra")). I recently tried an X850 out, and same as you reported: BSODs and crashes while running 3DMark (at least it could be returned, right? 😒).
I'd suggest an 8600 GT instead. Performance-wise it's the same-or-better than a 6800 GT but draws less power and generates less heat. It's a really nice card.
I used it as a backup when my 8800 GTS and 9800 GT were on RMA. Couldn't tell much of a difference.
6800 supports older games better. It has better 16-bit color support and D3D5 fog table, for example.
