Oohhh, goodie goodie! That should just about take care of the low end.

Hopefully you can get your Athlon XP 3200+ going again NamelessPlayer. I'm keeping my fingers crossed 😁

A maxed out year 2005 single GPU system with AMD64 FX57 and a 7900GTX is hardly any faster than a maxed out single GPU, year 2004 system with FX55 and 6800Ultra. At 1024*768 Ultra the diffrence is ~10%, I guess it will be larger at higher resolution. I will try a dual core A64 to see if that improves things.

112.8 FPS 1024*768 Ultra.
AMD64 FX57 2.8GHz, Asus A8N32-SLI Nforce4, 2*1GB DDR470 CL2.5-3-3-5, Geforce 7900GTX 92.91, onboard audio, XP-SP3.

Pretend that it says FX57 where it clearly says FX55, only the mutiplier separates them and it is unlocked.

At that resolution I think you will need to move to Core 2 Duo to get some scaling going. A fast Wolfdale for example should do the trick.

The other option is to look at higher resolutions such as 1920 x 1080 because most have a Full HD screen. 1600 x 1200 not so much.

Doom 3 at Full HD is quite the experience.

I pushed the FX55 to 3 GHz which is as far as it will go with 1.5V. It did at least get a few more FPS.

120.7 FPS 1024*768 Ultra
AMD64 FX55@3.0, A8N32-SLI Nforce4, 2X1GB DDR500 CL2.5-3-3-5, Geforce 7900GTX 92.91, onboard audio, XP-sp3

philscomputerlab wrote:

Doom 3 at Full HD is quite the experience.

I definitely agree with that Phil.

Here are some screens I took at 1600x900 (the max resolution my widescreen monitor allows) - just click on the pics for original size:

Looks like I'm late to the party, and all because I was looking for that missing scientist 😒

Oh, hi there Mr. Imp. I hope I didn't disturb your feeding frenzy too much 🤣

Now I know what I really want for Christmas! 😁

Dammit, I'm late again! And whose bright idea was to bring Napalm to a frat party? 😵

Skyscraper wrote:

I pushed the FX55 to 3 GHz which is as far as it will go with 1.5V. It did at least get a few more FPS.

120.7 FPS 1024*768 Ultra
AMD64 FX55@3.0, A8N32-SLI Nforce4, 2X1GB DDR500 CL2.5-3-3-5, Geforce 7900GTX 92.91, onboard audio, XP-sp3

You just need a faster GPU. My S939 Opteron (Denmark), also running at 3GHz, pushes 175fps at 1600x1200 with an 8800GTS.

I haven't tried hobbling the Opteron with a 6800GT yet, but if I did, it probably wouldn't fare any better than the overclocked 3700/6800GT. The 6800GT just seems to be limited to ~105fps at 1024x768 Ultra with a fast CPU behind it. If I remember correctly, GeForce 7 was not much faster than GF6. GeForce 8, on the other hand, was a massive upgrade.

Standard Def Steve wrote:

GeForce 7 was not much faster than GF6. GeForce 8, on the other hand, was a massive upgrade.

Hmm my memory tells me that a single 7800GTX was faster than 6800GT in SLI.

But yea might as well go with a cheap 9600GT or 8800GT.

I was going to benchmark some slower cards with the FX55 but my A8N32-SLI will not work with video cards that dosnt have a PCI-E power connector. No cards that exclusively take their power from the motherboard will work in either PCI-E slot. The board powers on and even boots Windows but no picture on the screen, I have tried 5 different known to be working cards.

I do not want to switch CPU right now because my new Radeon X850 should be here tomorrow (knock on wood) and I want to bench it with the FX55 for the period correct list.
I did a quick run with the 7800GTX 256mb and got almost exactly the same score as with the 7900GTX, I will try some SLI next if I can find a SLI bridge that fits.

1024*768 Ultra 112.4 FPS
AMD64 "FX57" 2.8GHz, Asus A8N32-SLI Nforce4, 2GB DDR470 CL2.5-3-3-5, Geforce 7800GTX 256mb 92.91, onboard audio, XP-SP3.

[edit]
The SLI scaling with the "FX57" + 2x 7800GTX 256mb is just great at 1024*768 -1% in Doom 3 and like 10% in 3dmark 2001.
Its the same story at 1280*1024, I should use a better monitor than this old ViewSonic 17" LCD...
[edit]

To separate your graphics card I recommend:

- Force 16x AF in the Nvidia driver
- Enable some form of AA in the game

philscomputerlab wrote:

To separate your graphics card I recommend:

- Force 16x AF in the Nvidia driver
- Enable some form of AA in the game

That will work great for 3dmark 😀
I not sure about AA in Doom 3 with the 7800GTX SLI, I have a feeling that 256mb video memory becomes an issue very fast 😁. I really need to get that second 7900GTX 512mb back from the friend I gave it to, perhaps if I offer him a better card...

Just change the texture quality one lower than Ultra.

But yea 1024 x 768 is a piece of cake for these cards it seems 😀

No Full HD screen lying around?

Even better! I have a Samsung SyncMaster 959NF 19" CRT, it will do 1920*1440.

I just need to move things around which is not as easy as it sounds.

Skyscraper wrote:

I was going to benchmark some slower cards with the FX55 but my A8N32-SLI will not work with video cards that dosnt have a PCI-E […]
Show full quote

I was going to benchmark some slower cards with the FX55 but my A8N32-SLI will not work with video cards that dosnt have a PCI-E power connector. No cards that exclusively take their power from the motherboard will work in either PCI-E slot. The board powers on and even boots Windows but no picture on the screen, I have tried 5 different known to be working cards.

I do not want to switch CPU right now because my new Radeon X850 should be here tomorrow (knock on wood) and I want to bench it with the FX55 for the period correct list.
I did a quick run with the 7800GTX 256mb and got almost exactly the same score as with the 7900GTX, I will try some SLI next if I can find a SLI bridge that fits.

1024*768 Ultra 112.4 FPS
AMD64 "FX57" 2.8GHz, Asus A8N32-SLI Nforce4, 2GB DDR470 CL2.5-3-3-5, Geforce 7800GTX 256mb 92.91, onboard audio, XP-SP3.

[edit]
The SLI scaling with the "FX57" + 2x 7800GTX 256mb is just great at 1024*768 -1% in Doom 3 and like 10% in 3dmark 2001.
Its the same story at 1280*1024, I should use a better monitor than this old ViewSonic 17" LCD...
[edit]

You shouldn't be CPU limited to 112fps at 2.8GHz. Especially with your RAM clocked to the moon! When I bring my Opteron down to 2.8GHz, the frame rate drops to 159fps (8800GTS SLI). Perhaps Doom3 is multithreaded and that's what is making the difference? I'll try disabling a core later on to see how much of an impact it makes.

That board also shouldn't have trouble with cards that lack a PCI-E power connector. I had an 8600GT running in mine a few years ago. Is the 4-pin "EZ-Plug" connected?

The CPU scaling could be different with different GPU architectures or as you said dual core could play a part, especially with an updated Doom 3 install.
I get the same numbers with my DFI board so there is nothing wrong with my A8N32-SLI, well except the issue with slot powered video cards
I have a 3 GHz capable dual core s939 CPU and two 8800 GTS to SLI so we will find out sooner or later 😀

24 pin +8 pin +4 pin EZ-Plug connected.
1000w PSU. Single rail 12V. There should be plenty of power.

Cards I have tried: Ati X300, X1050, Nvidia Quadro FX "of some kind", 7600GT and some semi modern 9300GE card.

Quake III Arena was already multi-threaded with a hidden console command. Doom 3 being multi-threaded would not surprise me.

I should point out that I benched my P4 box with Hyper-Threading disabled, considering that anything that does benefit from it would perform much better on my Q6600 or 4770K boxes.

On that note, how about I bench Doom 3 on both of those when I get back home?

Decided to give this a go. Here's the system specs:

-Pentium 4 Northwood 3.0GHz @ 3120MHz
-Intel D875PBZ
-2x1GB DDR400 Kingston
-ASUS V9999LE (6800LE) 128MB - I've unlocked all the pixel and vertex pipelines on this card and overclocked it to 370MHz(Core) and 750Mhz (Memory), all of which should make it perform almost as fast as a 6800GT(minus the VRAM of course)
-Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
-Windows XP SP3 with all the updates
-Nvidia Forceware 77.77

I'm also using patch 1.3 for Doom 3.
This Intel board supports some limited overclocking by upping the FSB by 4%.

Ok, so here are the results:

Ultra Settings:

1024x768: 67.6 fps
1280x1024: 61.9 fps
1600x1200: 43.2 fps

High Settings:

1024x768: 70.8 fps
1280x1024: 65.7 fps
1600x1200: 57.6 fps

To be frank, I was pleasantly surprised by the results, this system appears to be doing pretty darn well in this game. I was afraid the VRAM would absolutely kill Ultra Settings, but even at 1280x1024 it gets far more consistent performance than I expected!
We really need to do a thread with a list of benchmarks. FEAR is another great example of a demanding game with a built-in benchmark.

PS: This game has one of the best 3D sound implementations I've heard on dedicated hardware. It really is something else. And scary too.

Some fun with Netburst. Here's Willamette and an Overclocked Prescott.

P4 1.8GHz, 400MHz FSB, 2GB DDR266 CL2.5, i845, GeForce 6800GT (182.06), SB Live, XP Pro SP3:

640x480 Medium: 31.4 fps
1024x768 Ultra: 30.2 fps
1280x1024 Ultra: 30.2 fps

----
P4 520 @ 3.73GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 2GB DDR2-667 CL4, Asus P5ND2-SLI Deluxe (NF4 SLI IE), GeForce 6800GT (182.06), onboard audio, XP Pro SP3

640x480 Medium: 95.9 fps
1024x768 Ultra: 89.3 fps
1280x1024 Ultra: 73.3 fps

The same system with a GTX 260:

640x480 Medium: 97.1 fps
1024x768 Ultra: 96.3 fps
1280x1024 Ultra: 96.8
1600x1200 Ultra: 96.2

F2bnp wrote:

Decided to give this a go. […]
Show full quote

Decided to give this a go.

Ultra Settings:

1024x768: 67.6 fps

To be frank, I was pleasantly surprised by the results, this system appears to be doing pretty darn well in this game. I was afraid the VRAM would absolutely kill Ultra Settings, but even at 1280x1024 it gets far more consistent performance than I expected!

Great result indeed.

Standard Def Steve wrote:

Some fun with Netburst. Here's Willamette and an Overclocked Prescott.

Your Prescott is performing very well, I will have to play some more with my Prescott system and try some faster memory, Doom 3 seem to really like fast memory.

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that SOMETHING is seriously holding back my P4 build's performance compared to you guys. I just don't know what it is right now.

Maybe it would help if I had another S478 board with 800 MHz FSB support to play with, preferably one that actually gives me some overclocking options. I mean, Extreme Edition CPUs have unlocked multipliers and I can't even take advantage of that with my current industrial board.

In the meantime, I'm seriously thinking about replacing the 6800 Ultra with the FX 5950 Ultra just to see how much the performance actually drops as a result.

I got my ATI X850 XT. The X850 XT(PE) seems on pair with the 6800GT(Ultra) in Doom 3.

The result at 1024*768 Ultra is 101.5 FPS with "XT PE" frequencies.
AMD64 FX55 2.6, A8N32-SLI Nforce4, 2GB DDR475 2.5-3-3-5, ATI X850XTPE 7.10, onboard audio, XP-SP3.