[stoncold]

I just found these forums and I think they are GREAT! I have one question before I begin my overclocking. My mainboard is only a 4x AGP board. Should I replace it? Is it worth the money for the performance boost I will get? Or should I scrap what I have and move up? I really don't like the thought of how much a full system upgrade will cost me, so here is my plan:

a: Get the heatsink/fans/thermal paste you recommend, as well as the ddr400
b. get a geforce 6600gt to replace the 5900xt.
c. possible motherboard replacement if I get enough feedback stating it will be worth the cash for the gain.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[mycomputersucks]

WELCOME! I'd say it would deffinitely be worth the money to upgrade. But what would the main use of the system be? It would be much easier to recommend parts to you that way. Have fun here

 

[ShawnMcGrail]

Welcome!

Well, Before recommending an upgrade on the mother board, Could you run this program and take a screenshot? It will tell us all the details of the CPU.

 

[pbasil1]

hey welcome to OC.net

you will definately want the 8X agp slot, so ne mobo.... then the 6600gt is a good card, but i recomend the 6800gs or the 7800gs is even better for agp!the new heatsink should be a thermaltake big typhoon, or zalman 9500(your choice)...

 

[stoncold]

Will do once I get home from work. My goal is to get pretty good gameplay at the lowest cost possible to me. I am married so the budget for things like this are...well, small at best. I put this sytem together over a year ago, and it handled what I played quite well at the time, but the new games just don't play well enough for them to be enjoyable. (ie I want to grab COD 2 but I know it's going to play terribly) I have a few items I'm going to sell off to try and reclaim some of the money I spend.

p.s. I just noticed you have a DOD:source server, thats the game that just prompted me to take action

I think that game is more so net lag than anything else. Plays fine with 8 players or less for me, above that...forget it.

 

[cyrixMII300]

welcome aboard mate!!! enjoy the ride.

post that pic and we will move on from there shall we.

 

[Ropey]

The move from 4X to 8X on an AGP textural graphics transfer will be minimal as the textures on your card will be stored on the video board's ram. Thus AGP 8x vs AGP 4x is really of minimal benefit even with 128MB of onboard dram as your video card will necessitate you dropping the quality down to a 128MB level anyway.

AGP Textural transfers were created at a time when most video boards had at maximum 64 and usually 32 or less MB of on video board dram.

This necessitated a method of transferring the graphics textural data quickly and with a proprietary interface. Thus AGP was created.

If you look at the PCI-e standard you will not find the textural transfer as it is now realized that there is no need for such a transfer with 256/512/1GB of dedicated video ram that is now faster than the system ram.

R

 

[stoncold]

Ok, heres the info you requested.

 

[Namrac]

ahh, the good ol' 2.4 P4 Northy. You should have some luck with that with some decent RAM. Good luck.

 

[stoncold]

cool. I'll order the ddr400 and the cooling needs tonight/tomorrow and get the ball rolling.

 

[ShawnMcGrail]

Well, Have you tried overclocking it yet?

Since its a 133FSB chip, You still have a 33Mhz bump to go to see how well it will clock before needing new ram.

 

[stoncold]

I attempted to overclock, but mind you I only have stock cooling, and I believe the crappy thermal paste I used initially is pretty much gone by now. I was able to boot to windows at 160:160 but, performance was low....much lower (almost 3000 points!) than 151:184, which boosted my 3dmark scores by about 700 points. I assume this is due to the heat, so I am currently running at stock speed till the parts I need come in.

 

[ShawnMcGrail]

Okay, Well then the CPU is probably good then!

Grab the new motherboard, Heatsink & fan, And new RAM if you want.

I'd say buying DDR400 RAM would either be future-proofing for a new CPU (IE a 200FSB one) or if you can pass 166FSB with this current CPU (To which I see no doubts.

).

If the CPU maxes out around 160-180, You could probably run that DDR333 along with the DDR400 making a nice 2GB set with little problems, Considering that even cheap RAM will overclock a bit.

 

[amd_hardsoftware]

Hello. and welcome. I think that i can help you out a lot. first of all, dont listen to this:
Quote:

The move from 4X to 8X on an AGP textural graphics transfer will be minimal as the textures on your card will be stored on the video board's ram. Thus AGP 8x vs AGP 4x is really of minimal benefit even with 128MB of onboard dram as your video card will necessitate you dropping the quality down to a 128MB level anyway. AGP Textural transfers were created at a time when most video boards had at maximum 64 and usually 32 or less MB of on video board dram. This necessitated a method of transferring the graphics textural data quickly and with a proprietary interface. Thus AGP was created. If you look at the PCI-e standard you will not find the textural transfer as it is now realized that there is no need for such a transfer with 256/512/1GB of dedicated video ram that is now faster than the system ram.

especially as your budget is limited. 8X agp means that the transfer rate from GPU to CMP's and to Screen is twice as fast as 4XAGP (basically), so there will be a DEFINITE increase in performance, and 8X AGP cards are newer, with a lot more memory, also ddr or gddr3 memory. so YES IT IS FOR SURE DEFINITELY WORTH IT TO REPLACE MOBO. YOU DONT REALLY NEED A FULL SYSTEM REPLACEMENT EVEN THOUGH YOUR PROCESSOR IS A BIT SLOW, YOU CAN GET SOME LIFE OUT OF IT. (cough...OC!!!...cough)

Anyways, I have found a large list of Socket 478 mobos online that your P4 2.4GHz 478 processor will fit in with 8X AGP slot each. (my recommendations are in the numbered list (whole list shows every one))
THE WHOLE ENTIRE LIST ON THIS PAGE:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...TTR22=&ATTR23=
MY NUMBERED LIST (get #3 mobo, it is awesome)
1.ECS 648FX-A2: A good choice, though not for OCing, good for everything else
2.MSI PM8M-V: A solid mobo, good for just about anything
*****3.(THE BEST FOR SURE BUY THIS ONE, BUY THIS ONE)
ASRock P4VM800: The best, my personal favorite, i would buy this one. it has GREAT OCing features and an extensive Pheonix BIOS. A lot of reviews on newegg confirm this with many customers daying "great overclocking features, powerful but also easy-to-use" which is also good for you as you are starting out*****+ it isn't very expensive @ that newegg page

THE ZALMANN 9500 is an amazing heatsink, and it is almost as good as average watercoolong, but it is more expensive than most other heatsinks. I also have a list of good heatsinks, from cheap to expensive: Heatsinks
BUT MY cheap RECOMMENDATION, which is on that page, is for sure the
TR2TT TR2-M12 80 x 80 x 25 mm Ball Cooling Fan - Retail @ ONLY $9.99!!!
Listen to this review:
Reviewed By: cheap_overclocker, 2/11/2006 8:14:32 PM
This reviewer reports that his/her technical understanding of this type of product is high and has owned this product between 1 week to 1 month.
"Great for the price
Pros: Does a pretty good job, better then stock. It runs my overclocked P4 2.53 Northwood (over clocked to 3.0) at 53C max load, and 34C idle. I did polish the bottom with a metal polish and used artic silver 5, I would recomend a feash batch of artic silver, mine seemed a little extra gooy then the first time i used it. It is a solid hunk of copper, the fan isnt noticable and its a great value"
The others on that page are a bit better, look at the product, price, and reviews, but you can see that this one is a bargain

As fot the thermal paste, NOTHING BEATS Arctic Silver. It is the BEST. It really pwns all others, and you will never appreciate the importance of thermal paste until you see the effects of this stuff. You can find it herearcticsilver5.

Finally, i got a list of nice memory, both low latency and fast types, balanced, not cheap crap or expensive diamond plated ram:http://www.newegg.com/ProductSort/Ca...sp?Category=17
i recommend the CORSAIR ValueSelect 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM System Memory - Retail link @ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145026
Well, theres all that i have. good luck on your system rebuff!

 

[stoncold]

Thanks, that was the ram I intended on buying, and I'll check out those other links. I appreciate all the responses...maybe I'll squeeze another year out of this system

 

[Neocold]

Hello, and welcome to Overclock.net

First off, I would recommend that you NEVER buy ANY ECS motherboard... They are the cheapest, crappiest boards on earth. Almost any other motherboard on that market is better, if not all.

Second, from reviews I have read on these forums and other sites on the Internet, the zalmann 9500 is overpriced and not worth it.

Other than that, AS5 is most certainly the BEST thermal paste available on the market today. This paste alone put a 10-13 degree drop on my temps IMMEDIATELY after application.

Finally, just incase you don’t already know, Northwoods are to be kept below 55c. Going above 55c on a northwood is bad news. Also, that CPU you have is known to be one of the best overclockers!

Good luck in your over clocking and have fun!

 

[stoncold]

Thanks! If and when I get a new board, I was thinking of sticking with A-Bit. I love their softmenu, and I've never had any trouble with any of the boards I've bought from them. I ordered the XP-90 with the Panaflo 92 mm Fan and the AC5 paste. Should be up and running faster by the end of the week. After that, I'll look into buying the Corsair DDR400 if I get stuck due to my RAM.

 

[stoncold]

My cooling right now must be awful. I go pretty high temps with the stock cooling, and no OCing.

 

[Ropey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by amd_hardsoftware 8X agp means that the transfer rate from GPU to CMP's and to Screen is twice as fast as 4XAGP (basically), so there will be a DEFINITE increase in performance

And you have some proof of this view? Twice as fast? 8X AGP is twice as fast as 4X AGP? Do you mean theoretically or actuality?

Here's a bit of information if you really wish to research before saying not to listen to somebody.

http://www.playtool.com/pages/agpfix/agpfix.html

Quote:

Originally Posted by PlayTool.com Both your motherboard and your AGP card support some or all of the AGP multipliers (8X, 4X, 2X, 1X). By default, most AGP cards are initialized to the highest multiplier supported by both. Unfortunately, that speed can be flakey, especially if it's 8X. On paper, AGP 8X is twice as fast as AGP 4X, but even very taxing games rarely saturate even an AGP 4X port. At most, you lose a few percent by going from AGP 8X to AGP 4X. And even cutting back to AGP 2X isn't exactly going to devastate your game performance if your video card has a fair amount of RAM on it. And outside of games, the speed of your AGP port makes very little difference.

AGP 8X has proven to be almost completely useless compared to AGP 4X. I'm all for upping the bandwidth but AGP did not do what was expected and thus the move to PCI-e which does NOT do any textural transfers to main memory and works on a 100MHz stream. I'd go so far as to say that AGP was a failure. You'd be hard pressed to find an example where AGP actually speeds up a game and especially nowadays.

R

 

[amd_hardsoftware]

the chart on the link to that site proves me right. and how does the extra bandwidth somehow not affect the transfer spped from VPU to screen?
AND your source is worse than NO source...look at it, if you actually read all of it instead of quoting a little bit that agrees with you you will see that it is an OPINION BASED ARTICLE. for example, take a look at this section of the article:

Quote:

On paper, AGP 8X is twice as fast as AGP 4X, but even very taxing games rarely saturate even an AGP 4X port. At most, you lose a few percent by going from AGP 8X to AGP 4X. And even cutting back to AGP 2X isn't exactly going to devastate your game performance if your video card has a fair amount of RAM on it. And outside of games, the speed of your AGP port makes very little difference.

in fact i think it is part of what u used. lol it doesn't prove anything electronically.scientifically, just says "there is no difference" i can say that, any1 can say that. youd have to prove it. if you PROVE it then i will say you are right. but if you dont prove it what am i supposed to do?