F2bnp wrote:That is debatable, since they will allow you to raise the resolution and/or increase AA.
I'm thinking OP wants to do 1600x1200 or some other high resolution (perhaps widescreen?), in which case they would benefit greatly by a fast GPU.
It's not really. Most games that run well on that platform can do with 1600x1200 / AA on a Radeon 9800. Some (very very few) require faster cards like a X800XT or 6800GT for 60+ fps, but you'll find the platform as a whole (CPU+MB+RAM) is too slow to feed sufficient data to the video card (even the X800XT) for smooth framarates and you will get lag spikes and frame skipping. Unfortunately on a socket A machine, even a 3200+ you can only play games up to 2004 comfortably at that resolution and graphical detail. Anything over 2004 (including) and you will start seeing platform limitations. Take DOOM 3 for example - a 2004 game. Regardless of how fast the video card it, the shier amount of data that needs to be sent to the graphics card is more then the bus on an Nforce 2 cpu to ram and cpu to agp buses can handle, and performance will suffer unless you tone down the graphics. On a much faster platform, say a 939 machine or LGA 775, you will see similar or better framerates with the same, in some cases with a weaker GPU, and while with a weaker GPU the max FPS will be lower, frametime will be much improved.
Here's a valid example:
Earth 2150. That's a game released in 2000, so it's right up the socket A platform's alley. Using an FX 5900XT on my socket A machine (Abit AN7 NF2 board, 2GB of ram, WinXP) I get between 28 and 61 fps at 1600x1200, no AA enabled, max details. There is a bit of stuttering occasionally, but it's not enough to be uncomfortable to play. Enabling AA trough the nvidia control panel drops the framerate to a maximum of 42, witch is still playable, but there's a significant amount of stuttering, and the game occasionally freezes for about half a second, especially after putting a structure down or transitioning between bases. This causes the minimum fps to be 1 (as read by fraps, probably closer to 0.5) I switched to the 6800 in my 939 rig, and the max framerate shot up to 88 fps, but the lag spikes got worse. That half a second delay is now very noticeable and longer, making the game completly unplayable for me. Max FPS was 99, but again minimum was 1. It's during these 0.5 second "hangs" where fraps reads 1 FPS. Installing the game on my 3800+ 939 machine (same 6800 video card) yealds a minimum framerate of 42 fps, and absolutely no stuttering or lag spikes, with the max fps topping out at over 120. For poops and giggles I put the 5900XT in the 939 rig - with similar results. Framerate was lower, with minimum fps of about 32 and a maximum of 65, but the game was smooth as butter. No lag spikes, no freezing, no stuttering. Now during all tests, avarage FPS did not change much, despite the 1 fps minimum - this is because the game would only stutter while certain actions were preformed. My guess is the system switches bus priority to the CPU to RAM bus occasionally, starving the CPU to AGP bus - of course I could be totally wrong, I'm by no means an expert. Just observing the results and making guesses at what could be wrong based on what I am observing and the limited knowledge of hardware architecture I poses.
tl;dr - CPU to AGP bus on older platforms can't keep faster video cards "fed" with enough data for smooth gameplay. Try it as an experiment and convince yourself.
jcarvalho wrote:
Hi! I said that the CPU was unlocked because I didn't messed up with VCore and just raised the multi in BIOS and when the PC is POSTing it says 2800... Temps about 44ºC and perfect working, no crashs no nothing... I went to 12,5 x 200, it boots, starts windows xp install (no VCore mod) and get reading errors from CD install files, but it boots fine... I got confused... By the description of things, can we be talking about an unlocked CPU? I didn't saw the manufacture date when I was installing it... I read somewhere that all bartons until 2002 week xx were unlocked ones. Maybe I got lucky with it, will give a quick try 11x200 Mhz to see if t says 3200+ and boots nice without any voltage adjust to RAMS... They are PC3200... So I think that they are under specs...BTW someone to sell 9800XT or 5900 ultra at good price? Got scared with some prices asked in a famous auction site.
Small Update: I have tried 11x200 but got some blue screens IRQ NOT LESS OR EQUAL one time and in the other some file serial port related, I think that the rams are not good for this, raised VCore to 1,75v but no luck, I dont have the know-how to overclock this sucker in a proper way, I will stick to 12,5 x 166 settings. For more speed I am in process of building an 939 system with Opteron 180 using 4x512 Kingston HyperX CL2 rams that I have found for about 2 euros+postage in a very well known auction site (I dont know if I can post here names of worldwide auction sites and I dont want to be banned)
Apologies, but I highly doubt you can get 2500MHz stable out of a regular 2500+ barton. In fact it's very very hard to get more then 2400MHz out of any socket A CPU, including much better binned mobile chips. The A7N8X doesn't help either. It's generally a good board, but not suited for that kind of overclock unless you run a mobile chip (the VRM on the A7N8X is not stellar. Not bad, but nothing special). I've only ever managed to get one chip to 2500MHz, and that is a late model OEM 3200+ that runs at 14x166 (2333) at stock clocks and is unlocked. Even so, to get it stable at that speed I ran 1.8V witch is in the danger zone for socket A chips, a massive bolt trough cooler (tuniq tower 120) and a Abit AN7 motherboard. Temps with a regular socket A cooler (copper base) quickly shoot to 80 celsius in load, and about 64C with the Tuniq Tower 120.
