I went from a Radeon LE to a Radeon 9700 Pro

[Joe Cool]

...And my CPU is only an Athlon Thunderbird 1.2.

Conventional wisdom would have it that I'm basically a moron, since my CPU is supposedly so slow that I'd have been much better off buying a new CPU and (for example) a GeForce4 Ti4200 for the same money. This would have the impact of bringing up my minimum frame rates at reasonable resolutions and graphics settings, as compared to my current situation where I'm often very CPU limited.

The conventional wisdom is wrong. Here's why.

It's true that if this were the last upgrade I ever made, the conventional wisdom would hold. But like with most people, it's not. My upgrading is an ongoing process.

Now, while I likely won't be getting a new CPU right away, I will get one eventually, and my motherboard (with a BIOS upgrade) can handle up to an XP 2100+. That would be a considerable upgrade over what I've got now, though keep in mind my Radeon 9700 Pro would *still* be CPU limited some of the time.

And I want my eye candy.

I want to run at high res with goodly amounts of FSAA and AF on.

If I'd bought a GeForce4 Ti4200, I could not have done that as well no matter what CPU I ended up getting. Compared to a Radeon 9700 Pro, it craps out early when it comes to FSAA and AF. ...So, not too long afterwards such an upgrade, I'd be itching for *another* video card upgrade, making even in the medium term the money I'd spend on the 4200 a waste.

And the fact is, even right *now* I'm getting a considerable increase in frame rate (in most games) and a considerable increase in IQ (in almost ALL games) from Radeon 9700 Pro.

That's what many reviewers are missing. The 9700 pro is so far ahead of the curve, regarding how it can handle what *most* people have or will even *upgrade to* when it comes to a CPU, that worrying about the CPU - unless it's *very* slow - isn't so big a deal.

In most games, I get a big boost *now*, and I'll get another big boost later when I get a faster CPU. And this will all last in the long term, making none of the money I've spent now a waste. Because pretty much no matter what CPU is the most reasonable to get for me - my Radeon 9700 pro will almost certainly be able to keep up to it.

So far, it's sure been worth it to me.

PS and Trivia

1. I've got a new power supply on order, but amazingly enough my Radeon 9700 Pro worked fine right off the bat with my crappy generic 250 watter with one fan. Don't ask me why.

2. My CPU is unlocked, so I'm going to slowly increase the multiplier and see how it goes. So far at 1260 Mhz and counting.

3. Some comparative benchmarks, between my old but overclocked Radeon LE (running at 175 Mhz) and my "stock" Radeon 9700 Pro:

3DMark 2001SE
Radeon LE: 3500
Radeon 9700 Pro: 9300

Unreal Tournament 2003, 640x480, Flyby
Radeon LE: 62.4 fps
Radeon 9700 Pro: 112.6 fps

Unreal Tournament 2003, 640x480, Botmatch
Radeon LE: 36.0 fps
Radeon 9700 Pro: 39.7 fps

(The above probably shows the best where I am CPU limited more than with likely any other game)

The rest of the UT 2003 benchmarks I screwed up a bit on, since the Radeon LE's Control Panel Texture and Mipmap detail settings are only "Quality" instead of "High Quality." But I'm not putting back in my Radeon LE to correct this! :)

Unreal Tournament 2003, 1024x768, Flyby
Radeon LE: 40.6 fps
Radeon 9700 Pro: 106.9 fps

Unreal Tournament 2003, 1024x768, Botmatch
Radeon LE: 25.5 fps
Radeon 9700 Pro: 39.7 fps

Unreal Tournament 2003, 1600x1200, Flyby
Radeon LE: 18.4 fps
Radeon 9700 Pro: 61.3 fps

Unreal Tournament 2003, 1600x1200, Botmatch
Radeon LE: 12.8 fps
Radeon 9700 Pro: 36.7 fps

[ErrorS]

wow my Radeon8500 is faster then your R9700 in UT2K3 :o

edit: and a 10k in 3dmark ;o

[Rogozhin]

Mine too!

But it is more than likely you proc.

Also my 3dmark at standard is 9184 with my modified radeon 8500.

But I think you did the correct option. Also your system memory plays a huge part in gaming and benchmark scores!

I just ran my PC2100s at the highest settings (manual) possible and I then ran sandrasoft memory bandwith benchie and am withing 3 points of pc 2700 at cas2!

Also my 3d mark went up by 200 points and in games you can feel the difference!

But my radeon 8500LE ($85 at newegg.com) runs at 290/290 regular game oc and 300/300 bencmark (no artis).

I still want a 9700 though!

also my proc is a amd xp 1800@1.67

You did well my friend!


Rogo

[Joe Cool]

Yes botmatches in UT 2003 are very CPU limited, but I wanted to provide a worst case counterexample to what I was writing about, since the other benchmarks I showed (even the UT 2003 Flyby) were showing pretty vast improvements even with my CPU.

I managed to OC my CPU to 1333 Mhz now btw. 3DMark went from 9300 to 9795.
Note this is with Hiqh Quality Texture and Mipmapping (from Control Panel).

(Later add): My UT2003 flyby score went from 112.6 fps (1200 Mhz CPU) to 119.2 fps (1333 Mhz). The botmatch went up from 39.7 fps to 42.4 fps.

[YeuEmMaiMai]

I still use a Radeon LE overclocked to 175Mhz (for some reason the Rage3d tweak will not let my mem clock go higher)

It is in my second PC a Intel Seattle-2 based unit built by intel. It is a very good card for that PC.

[Gator]

if your motherboard supports it, why not get an AthlonXP1600 for only $54 at http://www.newegg.com

yes, the ghz difference may not seem like a whole lot, but the architecture is better and I bet you'd see a nice system performance boost. It would else help eliviate some of the cpu bottlenecking your having.

Also, if you only have SDRAM, I highly recommend DDR instead. I saw a 1100 point difference in 3dmark from switching to DDR in my board, and 256megs is about $60 these days.

[Joe Cool]

Gator, are you writing to me? Going from a Thunderbird 1.2 to a XP 1600+ wouldn't be a gigahertz jump at all - only (effectively) about 300 Mhz, and I've already got my 1.2 successfully overclocked 200 Mhz to 1.4.

I was going to upgrade my CPU, but now would need to go considerably better than a 1600+ to see much of a difference. I'm not sure it's worth the money right now.

[Gator]

Originally posted by Joe Cool
Gator, are you writing to me? Going from a Thunderbird 1.2 to a XP 1600+ wouldn't be a gigahertz jump at all - only (effectively) about 300 Mhz, and I've already got my 1.2 successfully overclocked 200 Mhz to 1.4.

I was going to upgrade my CPU, but now would need to go considerably better than a 1600+ to see much of a difference. I'm not sure it's worth the money right now.

i was just making a suggestion for some performance boost if you're on a budget. Of course i recommend something more respectable like a sweet AthlonXP2400, but thats a lot more. But 300mhz aside, the cheapo AthlonXP1600 would provide more boost than that because it's newer architecture. So it's not a total loss is all I'm saying. And I mean you gotta admit that's pretty cheap for an AthlonXP :)

[ErrorS]

ignore the mhz crap.. AthonXP is ALOT faster then a T-Bird.. going from 1ghz T-Bird to 1.7ghz AthlonXP doubled my performance ... games were ALOT faster..

that 1.4ghz AXP at newegg are aroias and agoias.. either of them should OC to 1.8ghz EASILY. . 1.9ghz+ with good cooling .. 1.75ghz = 2100+? supposidly the speed of a 2.1ghz T-Bird (and i dont doubt it) .. AXP gives ALOT of room where you can run at 166mhz FSB .. that really helps games

so in short.. i thought the same thing "400mhz? I wont notice any difference" .. but IMHO its the best upgrade I have ever done.. better performance increase overall going from 1ghz T-Bird to 1.4ghz AthlonXP(OCed) then going from Radeon7500 to Radeon8500..

[YeuEmMaiMai]

Originally posted by ErrorS
ignore the mhz crap.. AthonXP is ALOT faster then a T-Bird.. going from 1ghz T-Bird to 1.7ghz AthlonXP doubled my performance ... games were ALOT faster..

that 1.4ghz AXP at newegg are aroias and agoias.. either of them should OC to 1.8ghz EASILY. . 1.9ghz+ with good cooling .. 1.75ghz = 2100+? supposidly the speed of a 2.1ghz T-Bird (and i dont doubt it) .. AXP gives ALOT of room where you can run at 166mhz FSB .. that really helps games

so in short.. i thought the same thing "400mhz? I wont notice any difference" .. but IMHO its the best upgrade I have ever done.. better performance increase overall going from 1ghz T-Bird to 1.4ghz AthlonXP(OCed) then going from Radeon7500 to Radeon8500..

you are slightly confused athlon ex are both thunderbird and thoroughbread cores

A Tbird is really fast compared to a regular athlon and the Tbred is slightly faster than a tbird

[ErrorS]

Originally posted by YeuEmMaiMai
you are slightly confused athlon ex are both thunderbird and thoroughbread cores

A Tbird is really fast compared to a regular athlon and the Tbred is slightly faster than a tbird

huh? you're saying im confused? wtf is this

[ReDeeMeR]

lmao, dont take AMD as Intel, if your buying Intel 200-300mhz dont matter much, but with AMD even 100mhz matters alot.

[Kev1]

UT2003:

Flyby: Avg 111 fps
Botmatch: Avg 49 fps

At 1024 x 768, 32 bit color, no AA or Ansio, all details maxed, physics set to normal. Yes, Athlon XP 1600 makes a difference, particularly if you overclock the fsb :eek:

I'll see your Radeon 9700, and raise you a GF3 Ti200 :D

[Juntari]

I want to try to overclock my CPU, I have 1600 XP that I bought about a year ago.

What kind of cooling would I need, and is the heatsink + fan very hard to remove? I heard some cases where people used to puncture their mobos using drivers to get it off.

I could go for Radeon 9700 Pro right now, but I am still holding out for NV30. And probably I would not upgrade my CPU untill FSB on AMD boards is increased and maybe until the Clawhammer is released. I am not too keen with the technicalities, but I am thankful that AMD has made upgrading a relative painless process so far.

[SnakeEyes]

Kev just made Pelly's point (and mine). My 2100+ is only overclocked to 1825Mhz (just under 100Mhz faster), and gained me about 5 fps overall in UT2003. That's minimum framerate. The average framerate didn't change by nearly so much, but then again, neither did my max framerate, since the max is usually limited by my Ti4600. Of course, the average number and max numbers are both playable. What made the biggest impact was the higher minimum framerates, since that determines whether you get fragged or get the frag, in most cases. (Most dips happen during intense combat.. as the processor gets loaded heavier).

While I know that the 9700 will absolutely demolish my Ti4600, as long as my favorite software is CPU limited where it counts most, my Ti4600 is more than enough. I could probably go to a 2400+ before I started seeing situations in UT2003 where the video card is more of a concern than my processor. (100+ fps for the video card is more than adequate. It's those 16-30 fps dips when the processor gets loaded that irk me).

This is also why my next upgrade will be both processor and video card. I plan to buy the fastest AMD that I can afford (including the motherboard, most likely), and then make a decision between ATI's latest-and-greatest and nVidia's at that point. (The 9700 looks really good to me for such a setup, but then again, nVidia's will most likely too, and ATI probably will have R350 out close to that point, so..)

[Kev1]

If you have stock cooling now, its not too bad taking the fan off. To be extra careful though, I would remove all the expansion cards from the mobo and then remove the mobo from the case.

After that is done, put mobo on anti-static pad and maybe put foam padding that came in mobo box under the anti-static pad
(by anti-static pad I mean use the bag the mobo came in to rest the mobo on when you take it out of the case). If you bought your computer as a system and did not build it yourself, try and snag an anti-static bag from somewhere. Also wearing a wrist strap to ground yourself is good idea too (I just use 10 ft length of copper wire and tie it from my wrist to a metal object).

With mobo on table (On static pad), just use flat screwdriver in small notch on clip to press down and unclip one side of the heat sink. Be careful, because as you mentioned a slip here puts screwdriver through mobo. Once one side is off, other side just unhooks. Be careful to not lean heatsink to much on the Athlon XP CPU core, because you may chip it and then it won't work. I hope you are using something like a "Cool Shimm". If not you may want to get one.

I am using an Alpha Pal 8045 Heat Sink with a 37 cfm Sunon fan. My Athlon XP processor never leaves the 40C temp range, even overclocked. If you want to use that kind of Heat Sink, you must have 4 holes around the cpu socket to mount the Alpha (Its huge and mounts differently using screws not clips, I like it much better as there is less chance of damaging your mobo or cpu during install or removal) . Also besides holes, make sure there are no capacitors in the way. If you know who made your mobo, check Alpha's site to see if its compatible with their heatsink.

Anyway, the Alpha Pal 8045 comes with mounting instructions. Its fairly easy except that the mobo has to be out of the case. If you used another clip type heatsink then you may be able to do this whole operation without removing the mobo from the case. Thermaltake makes some nice clip on fan/heatsink combo's. Also, make sure you use a very tiny amount of Artic Silver on the cpu core before you put on heatsink. Instructions for doing so are on Artic Silvers website.

Phew. My fingers are tired. Good luck :)

[Juntari]

Thanks for such in-depth explanation.