FPS... what should we expect?

[�io]

Not sure why you included me in your economics tip but i already planned on waiting till feb-march before buying, i'm gonna wait and see how much the FX is. Thanks anyway though.

[Saint]

When I bought my computer I considered getting a GF2, but then I said "Oh what the hell, it is on my parents." and I got the GF4. I am so glad I did because I would have had to fork out the $200 to upgrade to a higher end vid card.

[powdahound]

nVidia for lyfe

[Dragoon412]

Originally posted by Dio
Do NOT get MX, if you can't afford/don't want an FX or 9700pro get a TI. MX sucks.

That's why

[�io]

Yeah but i wasn't sugessting i couldn't afford a 9700pro or anything i was just telling Sandtaco that if he couldn't he should get a TI not an MX.

[Sputty]

a good but cheaper card is radeon 8500 or if you odn't mind spending a tiny bit more get a 9000, support DX 9

[Cao_Cao]

guys your processor has to do allot w/ it to.... You want your processor to be as equal as you can or better then your vid card... what i mean is that if your running a 1k processor and have a geforce 4, your not gonna get the best out of it, i've lived throught this before. I had to end up buying a better processor now it runs great.

Just an thought...

Peezy

[Camping Carl]

Sorry, Cao_Cao but no. Processor speed usally makes far less difference than you might think. If you've got 1.5+ cpu, you'll be fine for a while.

[Sputty]

He's talking about wait time between the video card and the processor,..he's right too. You cna have a radeon 9700 but the processor can't keep up with it and so it's a real aste of money..heh..but you're right, a 1.5+ Ghz will work fine with basically any video card

[Camping Carl]

Theoretically yeah there's a wait time, but when actually put to the test, I've never seen a really big change. A 1 ghz may not be great, but it should work just fine. You wouldn't be wasting money on a good graphics card. Then again, if you're getting a good graphics card with a cpu below 1 ghz, yeah now that would affect performance noticably. Anyway that's not my point, the point is, in order of importance:

1. RAM
2. Video Card
3. Processor

Obviously, they all need to be fairly decent, one bad one will kill performace. Bus speed's important to, but I'm not sure where that would go. I've never had the opportunity to test to many bus speeds with different set-ups.

[Navaron]

What the hell, I've got a question that could work out on here. I've found a oem 9700 pro, and it says the only dif is that it doesnt have a memory heatsink and doesn't have those little games with it. I don't know if it needs a memory heatsink or not.

Also, whats the best gaming mother board and chip combo, new amd 2800s or the p4 3.00 on what the hell ever board? Just curious.

[Dragoon412]

Actually, in a gaming environment, the video card is going to be more important than RAM, but you're right -- the system's RAM, processor, and video card are the three biggest factors in regards to system performance. One note, though: you're better off with a faster timing scheme and lower clock speed on your RAM than you are with higher clock and sloppy timing. If you don't know what that means, just get as much of the fastest RAM your system will support, plug it in, then smile and nod.

As for the 9700 Pro and the like, though, a processor really isn't going to bottleneck it *that* badly. Features like anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing can make jaw-dropping improvements in the appearance of a game, and while they heavily tax a GPU, they don't place any additional strain on a processor. Very few moderns games need a real beefy processor, because modern video cards are essentially a seperate subsystem that handles ALL of the graphics and rendering. Yeah, if you have an older card or game that uses software T&L or something to that effect, your graphic quality will be very limited by your processing power, but it's not like you should get a crappy video card just 'cause your processor's a little out of date.

[Camping Carl]

Well, first I suppose it doesn't need a heatsink. It may just depend on how much heat the other parts in your pc generate. If you buy it and it overheats....

Anyways, I get a bad feeling about that, for them to put a heatsink on it... it might not be a good idea to have it off. Also I'd say either amd or intel would be good, the intel may have a faster ghz, but amd's are excellent chips to.

[Camping Carl]

dragoon,

Yeah I suppose it's true that video card is more important than ram. As long as you have at least 256 mb, preferably 512mb tho.

[Dragoon412]

Nav,

The 9700 Pro OEM is essentially just an underclocked version of the retail 9700 Pro. They should, physically, be the same, so double-check on that heatsink bit. Traditionally, it's cheaper to buy a wholesale-price OEM card from ATi and then "overclock" it (which is to say, just bump the clock speed up to the same as the retail version's) to get the exact same performance for less money. But if they're stripping heatsinks off of the memory now... man, that's bad news.

As for the best gaming MB/Processor combo, personally I'd favor the P4 with a VIA 850 chipset and RDRAM support. Specifically, I'd recommend this board -- I feel it's the finest motherboard being made, right now, and you'd be hard-pressed to find someone that would disagree (and actually had any clue what they were talking about). Asus is, quite simply, the best. They're very expensive, though, so you may want to look into Chaintek, who also makes an excellent product.

I favor the P4 for several reasons:

1. RDRAM support

2. Heat -- my last couple Athlon systems have had heating issues, namely 'cause those chips clock so damned hot.

3. Power -- Athlon chips eat power like mad, so you need a very powerful power supply to run one reliably.

4. AMD isn't particularly trying to keep up with Intel in the desktop performance market, anymore. Servers, yes, portable devices, yes, but not desktops, which is bad for consumers, but it at least makes the choice easy: P4s are the fastest thing out there right now.