DX10, Vista, GPUS, CPU's? whos confused

[Sven579]

I thought i was a bit of nerd I normally happly build my own systems, but after i have trolled on the net for a while I’m still feeling a little lost.

I have a

AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3500+ (socket 939)
1.00 GB of DDR Ram (cas 2)
Geforce 6600GT over clocked (PCIE)
Ausus A8N32-SLI-DELUX
On XP home


Now this self built system has run awesome for me, but im being a gamer im needing an upgrade to run things like supcom or (insert latest game here)

Il buy a another gig of low cas ram .. done simple :)

I know i need a new GPU, but this is were the drama starts!!

I was looking at Geforce 8800GS, which is a DX10 card, I know it can run direct DX9 but will it take huge performance hit ? is going to run badly with out DX10 installed ?

Would I really want to buy a direct x9 card, like 7900 instead:confused: ?

Will I need to buy windows Vista to go with the card? Or is the difference in performance negligible? Can I get away with XP for 6 months longer?

I read on some forums that the DX10 cards needs every thing else in the system to beefy or it really wont perform like should, will my CPU be the bottle neck?:confused:

Now I’m all left a bit flustered I look at my CPU, I’m not convinced it’s that slow,
The AMD 3500, has an actually runs at 2.21 Ghz, will I really notice that much in difference if I got and spend couple hundred dollars getting a new CPU? I doubt a 3800 is that much faster.:rolleyes:

I haven’t got a duel core, but I’m under the impression that really only comes into its own when multitasking, and I don’t work on excel spreadsheets while playing battlefield 2142, so if I do get one I should buy the fastest single core I can afford ?

Sorry for the short essay any one care to discuss, shed light on or rant about any of the following topics, it would be much appreciated, before I give up any buy it anyways

cheers :cool:

[odannyboy000]

Hi, these are all good questions. To answer, I'll simply say "yes". :)

Okay, first off, if you are going to upgrade your video card I highly recommend getting a DX10 card. The 8800GTX, for example, outperforms EVERY DX9 card available, so you will NOT take a hit (in fact the opposite).

You do not need vista, in fact I recommend not upgrading to vista for some time, because it makes games perform more slowly.

I read on some forums that the DX10 cards needs every thing else in the system to beefy or it really wont perform like should, will my CPU be the bottle neck?

This is true, you need to have a good CPU to unlock the full potential of these great video cards. I recommend a dual core solution. If you don't want to get a new motherboard, then go with AMD's X2 CPU's. I suppose you could go with something like an FX-57 or whatever the new one is today.

I see you posted a 8800GS that you were looking at, if I were you I'd spend 100 or so dollars more and get the step up 8800GTS which has 640MB memory!

If you post your budget I can help you more.

I will also say that if you have the money and are looking to upgrade, sell your current computer and build an Intel based system. The Core 2 Duo is the best CPU on the market right now. ( I am going by benchmarks, in which it beats AMD in practically EVERY CPU test imaginable.)

In fact, according to tomshardware.com, the Core 2 Duo (One of the better models) is the only CPU that doesn't bottleneck an 8800 GTX.

But, as you will see, C2D are expensive compared to AMD right now, because AMD has lost so much business to Intel they had to lower there prices.

[Sven579]

thanks heaps for the advice,looks like i got the graphics card sorted then!! i think il order it in the next day or two.

the general feeling i get is that vista is a bit of a peice of crap for now, needs a bit of smoothing, and software makers need to fix up there software for vista , but in the long run its much better.

so i should wait a while for vista before i jump in. The tip of the sword is also the bleeding edge type thing.

but problem i have with rushing out to get a new cpu, im under the impression that duel core cpus, run two cpu's togther, and they share the work load. thus getting rid of the problem of making faster cpu's as that was getting hard.

so in theory youd get twice the preformance!! but of coarse there are losses as time is spent sorting out which cpu does what so it works out to 1.7 times the preformance. which is still much faster.

then we get back to the real world were 95% of software dosen't support duel core cpu's so when i run a game it picks 1 cpu and uses that one exclusivly so the i lose all the benifit of having a duel core cpu??

please jump in if im missing something.

Continuing on train of thought my current chip runs at 2.21 GhZ, the fastest X2 chip runs at 2.41 MHz, do i really want to rush out and buy a new chip to pick up 200 MHz of cpu power (when im playing a game)

Yea im not keen on jumping to a new core 2 duo set becuase then i might aswell be in DDR2 country , and id need new MB, and although they are both better the differnce in gameplay wont be huge for the price.

"The biggest downside to the 8800 GTS 640 Mb is that its cheaper 320 Mb cousin offers very close performance for much less scratch." - toms hardware

I would have thought id rather pick up another gig of ram or more , rather than get and extra 320 Mb of ram on the vedio card ? its a bit hard to say which would help more ....

and if i can pick the GS up for $440 aus, 100 bucks is 25% of the way to getting number 2 put in.

brand in the old days used to make a fair bit of diffrence, i cant even find any reviwes or anything , seeing as i cant find a gigabyte one im going to go for a leadtek one ?? is all a bit of a muchness these days ?? any thoughts , im not sure i can trust a brand called sparkle.

well im happy to spend around 600 hundred, but my pockets could go as deep as 1k, australian dollars mind.

p.s sorry if my spelling and grammer is crap

[Sven579]

So as a gamer, i think i have managed to get an answers from the net.:cool:

DX10 , its here , but not really , no rush just yet
Vista, its here aswell, but not really no rush just yet
GFX cards . still buy the biggest bang for you buck
Dual core CPU's . way over hyped, hardly any new games use it yet. no rush this year.

im still a little lost weather id be better off with more ram or slightly faster single core cpu.

maybe next year we will need a dual core , DRR2, vista comp,

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/a64-x2-4200/9.html

"To summarize the game tests, I have to say
that nothing here today surprised me.
Modern game engines just aren't multi-threaded
nor are they designed with parallelism in mind."

[saphalline]

but of coarse there are losses as time is spent sorting out which cpu does what so it works out to 1.7 times the preformance.Yes and no. In a classic SMP-based environment, there is a lot of time lost due to separation and recombining. But that's really only for threads vs handles. Recent code has improved this, both on the OS level (Vista and 64-bit *Nix kernels) and on the application level (various multi-engine games). Splitting up a job is one thing, doing two jobs at once is entirely different.

then we get back to the real world were 95% of software dosen't support duel core cpu's so when i run a game it picks 1 cpu and uses that one exclusivly so the i lose all the benifit of having a duel core cpu??Not at all! Even the moldy old NT-based WinXP is able to handle multiple CPU's quite well. So you run an older game that doesn't use dual-core. What happens? The game defaults to using core zero, and WinXP sees an opportunity and transitions itself over to core one. So now you've got an entire core dedicated to nothing but the game. The OS is free to run itself on the other core, and any and all services (such as networking) run on that core, too.

Or just in a productivity environment, you can have WinXP and M$ Excel running on one core, while Photoshop gets the other core. Or oftentimes, to save power, even one application uses both cores, by flipping instructions between them (done by the OS). This ensures no single core is fully used (thus saving power and heat) unless it needs to be, such as when you're gaming or re-encoding a music file.

In any case, more modern games are using dual-core in much better ways, and adding the 64-bit version of Vista helps even more. There's a lot of power at our disposal, and some game companies are upping the ante. Take Alan Wake, for example. This is a game coming out this year that will require dual-core! As in, if you don't have a dual-core CPU, you won't even get to the main menu! Oblivion is already a year old, and it uses dual-core just fine. Crysis is probably the most hyped upcoming FPS game because it comes from the makers of FarCry, and this is a game that will run best on a quad-core 2GB RAM system running Vista with a DX10 vid card! :eek: Sound like a lot of power? So what? A system like that today costs no more than a PIII 1GHz 256MB RAM system running Win98SE with a GeForce vid card back in 2000. I've even seen benchmarks of that Supreme Commander game you mentioned that shows increased performance with dual-core. ;) And it should for a 2007 game! It really comes down to the fact that DX9 was released over 2 years ago now, and DX10 just recently came out. I expect games in 2007 to be dual-core capable and run on Vista at the very least. If it can't do that, I'm not interested. Because that's what I have, I spent a good deal of money to get it, and I want to see some advantages!

"The biggest downside to the 8800 GTS 640 Mb is that its cheaper 320 Mb cousin offers very close performance for much less scratch." - toms hardwareThere was a time when Tom's Hardware was considered THE website for gaming hardware. But ever since Tom Pabst himself left...

The problem I've seen with the 320MB version is that it can't keep the GPU afloat at the more advanced settings. Yeah it can keep up at 1280 x 1024 with 4x AA, but this should be a minimum visual experience today! Especially for a $400 vid card! For crying out loud, the G80 is so advanced that 4x AA reduces performance by less than 2%. This is well within the margin of error for any benchmark! Essentially, 4x AA is free! If I were going to buy an 8800 GTS, I'd buy the 640MB version to go with a widescreen LCD monitor for enjoying games at 1440 x 900 and higher. No sense crippling a high end vid card for the sake of gaming standards from 2 years ago. I appreciate their value-ended approach, but when you're buying a Lamborghini, why cut costs by going with cloth seats instead of plush leather?


In the end, I'd recommend doing major upgrades across the board. If you want to see Supreme Commander in all its glory, you will need a dual-core CPU, another gig of RAM, a GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB or higher vid card, and an eventual upgrade to Vista 64-bit Premium or Ultimate. If you merely want a decent gaming experience with Supreme Commander, you will only need another gig of RAM and a GeForce 7950 GS, with an eventual upgrade to a DX10 vid card and Vista. With gaming being focused more on the need for dual-core and DX10 and Vista as we continue into 2007, your system can handle it just fine. I have Socket 939 myself and I anticipate getting another 18 months of high end gaming out of it. Yes, it will decline over time, but 18 months is doable (barely) with an Athlon64 X2, lots of RAM, and constant vid card upgrades.

[jlreich]

I totally agree a dual core is well worth it for gaming. I have a s939 X2 4400+ and just by upgrading to that from my 3000+ games are better and the default/recommended settings given by games for my system jumped up considerably. Settings across the board went up on games like HL2-Ep 1, D3, and Oblivion.

I also agree on getting the higher end video card. The extra cash is well worth it. And keep in mind it is good investment since you will be able to move it to your next machine. PCIe x16 isn't going anywhere for quite a while.