possible bottleneck apart from the obvious 8600gt

[baka101]

Hi all I'm new to your forum and hope i am posting in the right section. Anyway I would like to read off my system components so you can help me to find a possible bottleneck apart from the obvious 8600gt and decide on my next possible upgrade it will be either a CREATIVE SOUND BLASTER X-FI TITANIUM FATALITY PRO or NVIDIA GEFORCE 9800GT 1GB PCIE HDCP DUAL DVI depending on outcome of this thread. Any here is my system it is quite old

Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 2.66GHZ WOLFDALE - Socket 775, FSB 1333, 6MB CACHE

Kingston HYPERX DDR2 2GB PC2-6400 - DDR2 800MHZ, CL5, DIMM 240-pin

Asus P5KPL-VM - LGA 775, INTEL G31, FSB 1333, DDR2 800, PCIE X16

Seagate BARRACUDA 7200.10 160GB - SATA2, 3.5LP, 8MB, 7200RPM

Asus EN8600GT SILENT/HTDP/512MB - 512 GDDR3, PCI-E 16X

I was also going to buy a 1GB of Kingston HYPERX DDR2 PC2-6400 RAM to bring my ram up to 3GB as everyone knows Windows Vista Ultimate 32 only supports 3GB of RAM.

So would I be able to get NVIDIA GEFORCE 9800GT 1GB PCIE HDCP or would that cause a bottleneck, do I have a possible bottleneck NOW apart from my 8600gt.

Or should i just get a CREATIVE SOUND BLASTER X-FI TITANIUM FATALITY PRO and don't worry about the video card upgrade.

I do play alot of games like Mirrors Edge, FEAR 2 demo, Devil May Cry 4 and upcoming titles 1st Person Shooters,Street Fighter 4 etc..

Thank you any help is welcome, I must make a decision in 2 days from now as that is when I get either soundcard or graphics card.

[norfolk]

Originally Posted by baka101

Hi all I'm new to your forum and hope i am posting in the right section. Anyway I would like to read off my system components so you can help me to find a possible bottleneck apart from the obvious 8600gt and decide on my next possible upgrade it will be either a CREATIVE SOUND BLASTER X-FI TITANIUM FATALITY PRO or NVIDIA GEFORCE 9800GT 1GB PCIE HDCP DUAL DVI depending on outcome of this thread. Any here is my system it is quite old

Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 2.66GHZ WOLFDALE - Socket 775, FSB 1333, 6MB CACHE

Kingston HYPERX DDR2 2GB PC2-6400 - DDR2 800MHZ, CL5, DIMM 240-pin

Asus P5KPL-VM - LGA 775, INTEL G31, FSB 1333, DDR2 800, PCIE X16

Seagate BARRACUDA 7200.10 160GB - SATA2, 3.5LP, 8MB, 7200RPM

Asus EN8600GT SILENT/HTDP/512MB - 512 GDDR3, PCI-E 16X

I was also going to buy a 1GB of Kingston HYPERX DDR2 PC2-6400 RAM to bring my ram up to 3GB as everyone knows Windows Vista Ultimate 32 only supports 3GB of RAM.

So would I be able to get NVIDIA GEFORCE 9800GT 1GB PCIE HDCP or would that cause a bottleneck, do I have a possible bottleneck NOW apart from my 8600gt.

Or should i just get a CREATIVE SOUND BLASTER X-FI TITANIUM FATALITY PRO and don't worry about the video card upgrade.

I do play alot of games like Mirrors Edge, FEAR 2 demo, Devil May Cry 4 and upcoming titles 1st Person Shooters,Street Fighter 4 etc..

Thank you any help is welcome, I must make a decision in 2 days from now as that is when I get either soundcard or graphics card.

I would go with the 9800gt FTW.(You will notice the improvement)
From what I"m to understand the onboard sound is quite sufficent and is rarely nowaday"s considered a bottleneck. Hope this help"s

[Eagle Eye]

Hi Baka and welcome to the forums.

I don't see any potential for a bottleneck by the addition of a 9800GT.

Adding a soundcard will not add any performance it might sound better, get the videocard instead.

What resolution do you play most of your games?

Regards,

EE

[sswilson]

Not sure how much of a hit you'd take, but keep in mind that your single 1G stick of memory will not be running in dual channel. (Drives me nuts to see all of these "big box" computers with 3G... :) ). Since memory is so inexpensive you'd be better off to pick up a 2X1G kit which matches your current memory.

+1 vote for the vid card.

[JD]

Originally Posted by sswilson

Not sure how much of a hit you'd take, but keep in mind that your single 1G stick of memory will not be running in dual channel. (Drives me nuts to see all of these "big box" computers with 3G... :) ). Since memory is so inexpensive you'd be better off to pick up a 2X1G kit which matches your current memory.

+1 vote for the vid card.

Exactly what I was going to say. You'd be worse off running 3GB than 2GB since you'll take a hit in the memory bandwidth. Either get another 2x1GB kit, or better yet, get a 2x2GB kit so there's less stress on your motherboard. Maybe these: mushkin 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800 or if you want to stick to Kingston: Kingston HyperX 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800

And I see that the 9800GT 1GB is about $180-200. At that price you'd be MUCH better off with a HD4850 512MB or 9800GTX+ 512MB. Both cards are faster for that same price. And I kind of doubt a 9800GT needs 1GB of RAM.

Example: XFX Radeon HD 4850 625MHZ 512MB 1.99GHZ DDR3
EVGA E-GEFORCE 9800GTX+ SC 756MHZ 512MB 2.24GHZ 256BIT DDR3

[Eagle Eye]

Good catch Jdrom I assume to often the 9800GT people are talking about have 512Mb, 1Gb on an 9800GT is useless.

Regards,

EE

[ImmaPC]

I would say definitely go with the video card upgrade, but if it is a 9800GT, it better be 512MB, otherwise go with a 4850 512MB or 9800GTX+512MB like jdrom said.

BTW You'd me MUCH better off buying a cheap $40 2x1GB kit that matches your current RAM's speed and timings, or you could buy the Same Kit and just drop it in with your normal set.

Alternatively, You Can Find Various Speeds And Various Timings At Awesome Prices. Just Look And Ye Shall Find!

Remember, a number of those links are from retailers you may not have heard of, retailers I haven't heard of, but are still good (for pricematching from at NCIX anyways! =D )

[baka101]

The 9800GTX and HD4850 are both out of my price range, and due to living in new zealand and exchange rate we don't get the mass of choices when it comes to buying computer parts or competitive prices unfortunately.

But thanks for the idea about get another stick of ram I decided to go with a extra 2gb of ram even though windows may read it as 3.5gb etc plus I already have 2gb of ram in there and only have one more slot available. Also you guys can't seem to find a possible bottleneck in my system like the CPU maybe holding it back or seagate HDD etc.

Anyway how come don't go with the 1GB version of 9800GT won't it compliment my Samsung 2693HM 26" lcd monitor with max resolution of 1920x1200 or doesn't anything use that much ram.

Thanks

[JD]

Originally Posted by baka101

The 9800GTX and HD4850 are both out of my price range, and due to living in new zealand and exchange rate we don't get the mass of choices when it comes to buying computer parts or competitive prices unfortunately.

Well that 9800GT 1GB goes for $180-200 here in Canada and so do the HD4850s and 9800GTXs. I'm not quite sure why that wouldn't transfer over...

Originally Posted by baka101

But thanks for the idea about get another stick of ram I decided to go with a extra 2gb of ram even though windows may read it as 3.5gb etc plus I already have 2gb of ram in there and only have one more slot available. Also you guys can't seem to find a possible bottleneck in my system like the CPU maybe holding it back or seagate HDD etc.

When you upgrade to a 64bit operating system, you'll be able to use all 4GB. You should be moving to 64bit this year, next year at the latest come Windows 7 since I'm guessing you skipped Vista.

Also I don't see anything else being a bottleneck. Sure the hard drive always technically is since it's the slowest piece in every PC but upgrading to something "faster" isn't going to do much for gaming.

Originally Posted by baka101

Anyway how come don't go with the 1GB version of 9800GT won't it compliment my Samsung 2693HM 26" lcd monitor with max resolution of 1920x1200 or doesn't anything use that much ram.

Well you see the GPU itself (9800GT) simply isn't fast enough to be able to render 1GB of textures in one go. So that memory for the most part will probably just sit empty. I don't understand why some manufactures pump up the amount of RAM on slow GPUs. It's even more stupid when they shove 1GB on a 9300GT. It makes the card seem "faster" to an average consumer that doesn't know anything about video cards, which you seem to have fallen for. However in real-world application, it doesn't help. But of course there are exceptions to this, for example the 1GB HD4870 is quite a bit quicker than the 512MB version because the actual GPU is fast enough to be able to handle the additional data.

And TBH, if you have a 26" LCD, a 9800GT isn't going to be that great. You should really try and go for a HD4870 or GTX260 but I guess since you've been using a 8600GT all this time, a 9800GT will be faster anyways but I doubt you could run maximum settings.

[baka101]

I was looking for 9800GT 512MB and found this GEFORCE GALAXY 9800gt 512 GDDR3 which is $226.94NZD but when reading, Minimum 400W or greater system power supply (with 12V current rating of 26A)* ok my PSU says

MAX OUTPUT POWER IS 400W

INPUT
115VAC 10A MAX, 60Hz 230VAC 5A MAX 50Hz

OUTPUT
+23V 18A MAX
+5V 40A MAX

+3.3V 28A MAX
-12V 0.5A MAX

+5V/SB 1.5A MAX

So if anyone can decipher that it would even mean I could go with GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB PCI-Express OEM even which is $336.20NZD but would have to get my 2GB RAM at a latter date.

So thanks for your ongoing help.