Processors

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Well I'm in the works on getting a new computer. Dude I'm getting a Dell . My question: is the Pentium 4 1.5 GHz processor enough to play most games and stuff over the next couple of years or do I need to get higher with the Pentium 4 2.53 GHz? I just don't want to have my computer out-dated so soon. So how fast are processor levels coming in to the market and how fast are gaming companies requiring them for their games? Will I be able to play most games within the next 2-3 years with a Pentium 4 1.5 GHz processor, or will I need to go higher? That's my question.

Actually I want to tag another question onto that. Will an Integrated Intel Extreme 3D Graphics Video Card hack it? Or will I need to get one of those Voodoo/GEForce cards?

[ January 13, 2003, 00:10: Message edited by: Big B ]

 

Pentium 4 1.5 Ghz is built on Willamette core, so it's preety weak, so if you realy want a Pentium 4, get atleast the first one on Nortwood core, 2.23 Ghz or something close to it. But you should consider buying an Athlon XP, since they are more powerfull at lower frequencies and more cheap to boot.

Now, about the graphic card. I'd sugest atleast an ATI Radeon 9000 or someting close to it, since they are cheap and can handle todays games.

 

I have an AMD Athlon XP 1600+ and it's starting to get a little slow.

If it's gaming you are primarily going to use your computer for, I would spend more money on the processor and graphics card, because you are going to get irritated that things don't run as fast as you wish or look as good and end up buying more power anyway....

Another thing you should watch out for is these cheap mainboards that have only two memory slots or two or three PCI slots, because you may want to expand with a new soundcard or network card or something.

If I was buying a new computer today and didn't know that much about it, I would ask questiones like you do here and then make a list of what you want and then go to a computer store that has all of these parts and ask them to put them together for you.

 

I agree on Athlon XP series. Mine is an XP2000, which, according to Direct X Diagnostics, runs at about 1.63GHz IIRC.

If going for gams, get a decent amount of DDR Ram (512mb), a good graphics card (radion as already mentioned, or GeForce4), and i would highly recommend a 5.1 EAX sound card with good speakers.

I don't really know much about those integrated / on-board components so can't give any advice.

 

Big B, if you buy good parts, building your own system is easy.

The hardest part is fastening the mainboard to the case/tray. Because you want all those little holes to line up properly, and no one ever sends those little plastic holders.

Other than that, it's plug and chug. If you're not unlocking your processor, there's nothing that requires any kind of fine toolz or skillz.

Seriously. Think about it. Even if you were to order all your parts from Newegg, you'd still come out on top by several hundred dollars. And more often than not, with a considerably faster gaming machine...

 

@Turumbar: AMD Athlon XP 1600+, and IT'S GETTING SLOW?!?!?!?
You don NEED to have 150 fps in every game you know...

 

Sure I do. What do you mean...???

It's perfectly fine, but it's well over a year old now and games are getting better. I was just pointing out to Big B that there are games that need or could use more power than I have. So if he want's something that will last a couple of years, he better buy something better than my 1600+

 

A 2400 XP if it's an Athlon CPU he'll be getting would be my advice as they've reacently dropped in price to a nice affordable level. Add a nice graphics card and max the amount of DDR ram on the motherboard and a good system that'll last a bit.
For the graphics card I would advise staying away from ATI's until they actually realise a driver should be both performance and good graphics, not just one. No driver I've heard of has done both yet. A Gforce 3ti top of the range will last a year or two more IMO, or a gforce 4 ti. Or then again spend a lot on it and get the new ones due out soon .

(edit: a sentence didn't make sense.)

[ January 13, 2003, 23:43: Message edited by: Vermillion ]

 

okay you have two options when it comes to buying a computer buying top of the line, or buying midrange.

First decide the processor company you want to buy from. AMD or Intel

Next decide if you want your computer to be upgradable, if you do make sure that if you buy AMD you buy a Nforce2 or VIA KT400 board. This will allow you to support the new 333 fsb speeds that AMD has. On the Intel side, any processor with 512k of cache is good, as that is current processor.

For a processor, if money is not an issue buy a Intel P4 2.8($373) or 3.06($610). If you want to actualy play games and eat, Intel p4 2.4($178) or Amd XP 2600 333 (274) or AMD XP 2100 ($86)

for video cards radeon 8500($66), 9000 pro($97), geforce ti4200($142) are all good choices

You should look at reviews of processors and motherboards before you purcase a computer

www.amdmb.com
www.anandtech.com
www.tomshardware.com

prices found at www.pricewatch.com

 

Actually, the AMD XP 2800+ (clocked at 2.25 Ghz) is faster for than anything Intel has thus far, and it's quite a bit cheaper. If you're using your machine for gaming, go AMD. If you need to do a lot of multi-tasking and business with it, get an Intel.

I wouldn't buy anything with less than 512 MB RAM at this point, 1024 is preferable. The GeForce 2 or GeForce 4 MX will both be good for a long time yet, and they are very cheap. I do not recommend ATI boards, since they tend to have driver problems.

I'd worry about RAM before I worry about spending lots of extra cash on those things. I was actually able to get any modern game running on a 450 Mhz P3 with a TNT2 and 512 MB RAM. Certainly video cards and fast processors are important, but if you can't afford going with the faster boards there, try to increase RAM.

They're crap, don't go with them.

If money is not an issue, go with the ATI Radeon 9700 as your video card. ATI has fixed the driver issues with this board that plagued their earlier ones. At this point, a GeForce FX might be the better choice though. It is nearly twice as fast as the Radeon at most graphics-intensive programs, and should cost only about the same. Failing that, get a Ge4 TI 4600, which is a very good video card and should cost only slightly more than the 4200, but it's significantly faster.

[ January 16, 2003, 02:10: Message edited by: Rastor ]

 

Look.

I'm like, Anti-Intel. But I'm anti-Intel for monetary reasons.

The truth is the P4 chips are faster than the Athlons. For gaming purposes, yes. For audio and video editing, yes; definately audio and video. It's not even a race there.

But for gaming, the limiting factor, right this very second, is the video card. The AGP bus still has a long ways to go before it's maxxed out.

Right this minute, the video card makes the greatest impact.

So, if you have a 2.4ghz P4, or a 1.6ghz Athlon, you're maxxing out that framerate. On everything. Unreal Tournament 2003, Battlefield 1942, Doom III.

Everything.

Now, as far as D&D goes, the processor is the limiting factor. But you're still limited to 60 updates per second; ALTHOUGH, the p4 will maintain that 60 ups far further than the Athlon will. Mind you, I'm speaking of THE fastest processor clock speed that's out right now.

For first person shooters, everything hinges on the video card. The Radeon 9700pro is limiting factor with a 2000XP. The Nvidia FX (i'm guessing) will bump that up to a 2700XP.

It takes all the parts. And just one slow part, like any good rate limiting reagent, holds the whole reaction back.

Personally, I've got a 2000XP. It's unlocked, and I'm using a 166mhz FSB.

Needless to say, my video card is maxxed out. But I'm still pulling over 30fps on everything, so it's all good to go.

Seriously. Anything over a solid 30fps you just don't notice. It's got to be a solid 30fps, though; you'll notice if it drops down to the 25fps range.

$1500 dollars goes a long, long way; if you build your own system.

 

It doesn't even have to be that much IMO. In the UK where they commit a shop form of highway robbery £500 tops would get a great gaming PC. Ordering online if thats possible for you, even through someone you know, would help shave the cost also.

 

First at Rastor, yes the 2800+ is a nice chip, yes it about the same speed of an Intel 3.06 ( Here for a review of both ) but the problem is that the processor cannot be bought. The processor release was a paper release (they hand out sample to websites, magazines and that's it)

Second 512 ram is about todays average, 128 barely runs winXP, and with 256 your computer still might tip into virtual memory. So if you are looking for a computer makes sure it has at least 256 of ram, but try to get 512.

Third the geforce 4 T14600 is still really expensive with a price of about $220 while you can buy a geforce 4 Ti4200 for 142 dollars (www.pricewatch.com)(the difference between the two is about a 10% drop in framerates)

Fourth the release of geforceFX is rumored to be late feburary, and if everything goes as normal, Nvidia will start selling it for about $400.

ohh and ejsmith don't say:

An Intel 3.06 get about 20 more FPS compared to a Intel 2.4. That is without overclocking with water, peltier's, condenser's, and LN2 cooling

The point is that you have to research what you want, than be able to say I will buy this, and not worry about what comes out after me, as what I bought is good enough.

[ January 16, 2003, 07:03: Message edited by: Thorin ]

 

I've read that Geforce FX 5800 will ship with a 500$ price tag, and that Geforce FX 5800 Ultra will ship with a 600$ price tag. And i wouldn't recomend to pre-ordering it, since it hasn't been reviewed yet anywhere, and there is still no benchmark results (Excluding what nVidia tells us).

As for problem with ATI graphic card drivers, they are a thing of the past, their Catalyst drivers are very good and work for alot of their past graphic cards starting with Radeon 7500, which was released more than a year and a half ago...

 

Not according to everything i read/everyone i talk to. They way the P4 is constructued makes it a lot less efficient. To go into Mac territory, a 600Mhz G3 processor runs at about the equivalent speed of a 1.5-2Ghz P4 (i can't remember the exact figures) so it goes to show that slightly older technology is better than a supposedly faster newer technology.

 

Intentioner of the Damned what you are prolly thinking about is the dual cpu tests that are conducted between apples, intel, and amd. On a side note, the 1.2 apple is not old technology, thats the fastest processor they have released.

http://www.barefeats.com/pentium4.html
shows a competion between a dual apple 1.25ghz , dual Amd 1900MP, and dual P4 2ghz. The author is a little biased but you will notice that Amd wins 3 of the 4 benchmarks, and places 2 in the 4th.

for another look http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=50000333
reviews current Intel, Amd and Apple processors. Basically it shows that current Intel and Amd procesors either single or in 2 beat Apple computers in most areas.

http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/2002/11_nov/reviews/cw_macvspciii.htm
Shows the slaughter of an apple trying to compete agianst the new Intel 3.06.

So in summary apples processors are not really better at audio or video. So when an apple fan tells you they are, lead them to the benchmarks, showing them otherwise.

[ January 16, 2003, 16:11: Message edited by: Thorin ]

 

i'm the easily confusable type of person.
Appologies if i give misleading info.
I still like OS-X. Especially since windows XP was Microsoft's effort to keep up with Mac.

 

Ok.

When you compare the two processors, you run the game AT 640X480.

Why?

Because the video card can handle that all day long. It's the processor that's the bottle neck. Boost that to 800x600, and you're right at the edge of the GPU's (Graphics Proccessing Unit) performance edge. On ALL the games. Unreal Tournament. Unreal Tournament 2003. Medal of Honor. Battlefield 1942. No One Lives Forever 2.

And that jump to 240fps over 200fps IS NOT NOTICABLE. Not with your eyes. Not with the monitor that you have running at 150hz. Yes, it shows the relative processing power. And it is a statistically significant difference (>5.0%). You can see the same difference if you encode a video from DVD, to Xvid or Divx. And stand-the-heck-by, because there will be a 30 minute difference between the two processors. At least, if you use an encoder that has the SSE2 extensions slapped in.

Now, change that up to 1600x1200x32@100hz, 4xFSAA. On Unreal Tournament 2003.

Hello 30fps. And that's not even a solid 30fps. That's a demo movie 30fps. Turn off that 4xFSAA, and it jumps up to the 50fps area.

You can slap that Radeon 9700pro in a Nforce mainboard, and an Intel845 mainboard, and you're still going to be pulling the same fps. 30fps with 4xFSAA on, 50fps with it off. IF you have a processor that can handle it.

Remember, "Hardware sound" pulls some MAJOR processing power, nowdays. On a P4, and Unreal Tournament 2003, it can very well pull a full Gigahertz, 1ghz, from the total processing clock cycles. That's a crazy amount, because the physics alone take around 500mhz.

As far as the frames per second go, it WILL vary a little. But NOTHING will be statistically significant. There will be NO 5.0% or greater difference. It is ALL under 2.0%. Whether you're using a +2700XP, or a 3.6ghz P4.

I'm not trying to justify it, here. And I'm not touting AMD over Intel.

I'm touting what works for you. If you want a beatdown in the Icewind, get your beatdown in the Icewind going. You can do it with a VIA Cyrix, if you want. Personally, I use my cash for other things, like gunpowder and blank brass, or a 19" monitor. But to each, his own.



Although, right this given second, I'm fairly Anti-Creative Labs. I see the Audigy giving people more problems, with both Intel and AMD boards, then the Sound Blaster Live did. Personally, I use SB Live Values, just because of the price and the fact that bioses nowadays have taken into account its PCI mastering deal. It's also nice to be able to, with a fair amount of confidence, play Star Control 2 again...

 

Holy damnit. I just read the spec of the Dell. 8mb of cache memory. That's like, 12 times more than most computers!?!?

 

Heh, you guys are funny arguing over what's better. Well the update is I still haven't bought my new computer. I was waiting it out and will probably order it on-line sometime in April (probably when Dell announces a Free Shipping Deal). I have to get a Dell, because my family is getting this computer for me as my graduation gift, and they have their mindset on Dell. Which is fine with me, as long as I get a good one.

My price range is somewhere in the Dimension 4550 series. It looks like Dell is now offering the Pentium 4 Processor at 2.53GHz w/533MHz front side bus/512K L2 Cache at a reasonable price. So I will probably be going with it. I like that because I was very suspicious of the 1.5 Ghz processor I mentioned a few months ago.

Now the video card, well that Integrated Intel Extreme 3D Graphics Video Card crap is nowhere to be found and thank goodness. The most pracitcal option without having to add too much money on to my current price is the 64MB DDR NVIDIA­ GeForce4 MX™ Graphics Card with TV-Out video card.


Depending on price, memory is going to be 128MB DDR SDRAM at 333MHz or 256MB DDR SDRAM at 333MHz.


Now there might have been some confusion about my level of standards. I don't care to have the most mind-blowing graphics and mind-blowing speeds. I just want the games I pick for the next couple of years at least, to run and to run without being moronically slow to the point where you can't hardly play them. When it gets to the point where ejsmith was talking about, where you can't tell a difference because they're so fast, I don't care. I know I won't be able to tell a difference. I just want the games I buy for the remainder of this year, next year, and to an extent the next year after that, to run and to run reasonably.

So does the above processor, video card, and memory sound like it could meet my expectations?

On a side note, I got a book about upgrading computers and I plan to tear my old computer up and play with it once I get my new one. So maybe in 3 (at the earliest) to 4 years from now, I will feel confident to build my own system, or at least upgrade the one I have.