9800 Pro vs gforce 5900

[ron_tayan]

I just ordered a 9800 Pro for $200. Im excited about my order eventhough Ill have to get a new power supply to power such an awesome card. Now after my card has been shipped, I came across some benchmark threads comparing the 9800 pro to the 5900 FX. It seems that the 5900 dominates in every category. Those benchmarks also caused me to do a little on the side researching as far as price goes. To my disbelief I find the 5900 for $177. Did I get ripped off and should I put my card on Ebay before I even open it?

[Jasmania]

I can only comment on the 9800 Pro. I have a Sapphire 256meg 9800 Pro with an Arctic Silent VGA Cooler replacing the stock heatsink & fan. I love the card and am able to run FarCry with everything maxed out to very high, with 6x FSAA & 8X AF. Is the 5900 a better card? I can't say. I can say that MY Radeon is a killer and I am very pleased with it's performance. I suspect that this is one of those debates that could go on forever....good luck with whatever you decide. ;)

My system-
P4 2.4C o/c'd to 3.12
Asus P4P800 Deluxe Mobo
2 gigs of OCZ PC3200 Dual Channel DDR RAM
Sapphire 256mg Radeon 9800 Pro w/ Arctic VGA Cooler
2 160GB hard drives w/ Vantec HD Coolers
SoundBlaster audio
Skyhawk Jupiter aluminum case w/ 500 watt PS

[Nissian X]

I just ordered a 9800 Pro for $200. Im excited about my order eventhough Ill have to get a new power supply to power such an awesome card. Now after my card has been shipped, I came across some benchmark threads comparing the 9800 pro to the 5900 FX. It seems that the 5900 dominates in every category. Those benchmarks also caused me to do a little on the side researching as far as price goes. To my disbelief I find the 5900 for $177. Did I get ripped off and should I put my card on Ebay before I even open it?
Ron, heres what you do, follow these steps exactly:
1.Click on Private Messages right under where it says " Welcome ron_tayan".
2. Then Send a Private Message to "Renzatic Gear"
3. Write what you wrote about the two cards and stuff.

You'll have your answer in under 24 hours, if you don't, I give you permission to shoot me.
By the way, I too have the 9800 pro, and it's awsome, though the drivers are a little bit weird with some games.
Good Luck.

[ron_tayan]

Thanks for the advice folks.

I just received my card today at 5:00pm. It's 11:00pm and I am still trying to get the $200 piece of s*it to work right!. I am utterly disappointed. I upgraded from a Geforce 5600 Ultra, and I dont see any frame rate improvement. The game that I play 85% of the time on my machine is NWN. Words cant explain how excited I was before I put the new card into my machine. I was happily pondering on playing NWN without stuttering and with shadows at a decent resolution and frame rate. To my surprise...(and demise) I saw no change in frame rate. I still can only achieve 25-30 fps max...regardless of my resolution! Keep in mind that 25-30 fps occurs when Im walking alone without any other npcs around in a closd area like a cave. You should be able to imagine what happens when Im in Lyth Myathar.

Damn, what does one do when he cant play his favorite game at a higher level after wasting $200 on a card that was supposed to be superb?

Now, Im going to download drivers tonight. I have read that the best catalyst for NWN is 3.9 or 3.8. Hopefully one of those two will bring about some change, because I am pissed beyond belief at this moment in my life,

[Renzatic Gear]

What's the specs and speed of your processor? What about ram?

[ron_tayan]

Man, Im really disappointed with this card. I always get ripped off when it comes to vIdeo cards. I dont believe that this "high end" card costed $400 at one point in time. I remember back when I had a 500mhz celeron system with 128 megs of RAM. I bought a Geforce 2 card and my gaming performance increased greatly. That card costed me 100 or so dollars and was low to mid range. Now I have an athlon XP 2200 (yes it's dated...but still....1.8 gigs is not worthless) with 768 MB of DDR RAM. This so called "high end card" barely brought an improvement over my GForce FX 5600. I get 20-30 fps on Morrowind at 800/600 resolution with my viewing distance at it's lowest.

Im speechless.

Max Payne 1.........45-50 fps (before fighting begins) at 800/600 with all the extras set at medium level and disabling all special effects.

GTA 3 is ok. I get 70 fps with everything maxed out except for trails. It can drop to 20.

Alien vs Predator 2 800/600 resolution I get an average of 30 fps before action. During action my fps drops to the teens.

Mafia 800/600 resolution = 24 fps average which drops into the teens often. All extras are set to medium.

Serious Sam 2 800/600 = from 32 to 95 during the Grand Catherdral Demo.

I dont see how this card represents "high end cards". In all honesty, I didnt expect to run every game "maxed out", but I did expect twice the frame rate of my GF 5600 Ultra. Most (more than 90%) of my games perform at the same level as my mid range 5600. I think that I wasted my money ....bigtime!

[ron_tayan]

Hey, Renzatic. I have read how your 9800 Pro performs. Do you have any suggestions? Currently, I am downloading the new driver. My system specs are Athlon XP 2200 and 768 MB of DDR RAM.

[Renzatic Gear]

Hmm..your comp is actually better than mine at the moment but I'm getting better framerates than you are by and far...I can play Max Payne 2 with all the options set to their fullest with antialiasing and aniso and still get well over 60 FPS...

We'll get the basics out of the way first.

First off, how did your comp perform when you had the FX installed? About the same?

How long has it been since you checked for viruses or spyware...anything that could eat up CPU cycles and slow down your games...

How much stuff do you have running in your taskbar?

Is your card actually detected as a 9800 Pro when you check out your settings in Windows?

Has it been awhile since you did a reformat? Windows, no matter what version, collects alot of crap overtime and starts getting a little chunky after awhile.

Now for the more indepth stuff...

Have you tweaked your bios at all? What do you have your AGP bus set to (i'm guessing 4x)..what about your AGP aperture size?

Whats your core and memory clock set to? If you get the Omega drivers (what I use..based off the 4.1 cats) it'll come with a program called Radlinker you can use to check this out.

If you can check out the ambient temperature see if the card is getting too hot. Any funky problems with the fan?

Do you have AGP Fastwrites and Sideband Addressing on or off?

Are you sure the card isn't busted in any way? You should see a pretty hefty jump when going from an FX5600 to a 9800 Pro.

Edit: Oh yeah..how many watts is your power suppily? Also, did you plug the dongle in the card when you installed it? You might be running in powersaver mode. If you don't have the card plugged directly in to the power suppily it'll slow it down tremendously.

[Aku]

Alien vs Predator 2 800/600 resolution I get an average of 30 fps before action. During action my fps drops to the teens.

Mafia 800/600 resolution = 24 fps average which drops into the teens often. All extras are set to medium.

Serious Sam 2 800/600 = from 32 to 95 during the Grand Catherdral Demo.

I don't know, I think I matched your performance on AVP2 with my old P3 600 and a GeForce 2. Is your system optimized? Background apps turned off, plenty of free memory, etc.?

[ron_tayan]

Hmm..your comp is actually better than mine at the moment but I'm getting better framerates than you are by and far...I can play Max Payne 2 with all the options set to their fullest with antialiasing and aniso and still get well over 60 FPS...

We'll get the basics out of the way first.

First off, how did your comp perform when you had the FX installed? About the same?
------------------------------------------

Yes, my performance is on the same level for Morrowind, NWN, Mafia, and Serious Sam 2 (which already gave me excellent performance....great engine...eventhough the environment isnt as lush and active as NWN.)

How long has it been since you checked for viruses or spyware...anything that could eat up CPU cycles and slow down your games...

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I just ran Ad aware earlier this week. I may do it again today. Im very good at shooting down spyware before it gets into my system.

How much stuff do you have running in your taskbar?
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I have fraps (on sometime off sometimes), Norton anti virus (I disabled it to check for fps improvements), and the ATI icon.

Is your card actually detected as a 9800 Pro when you check out your settings in Windows?
--------------------------------------------------------------
Yes

Has it been awhile since you did a reformat? Windows, no matter what version, collects alot of crap overtime and starts getting a little chunky after awhile.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I ran both diskdefrag and disk cleanup earlier this week. I havent reformatted though.


Now for the more indepth stuff...

Have you tweaked your bios at all? What do you have your AGP bus set to (i'm guessing 4x)..what about your AGP aperture size?

---------------------------------------------------
I have never really tinkered with the Bios. I do know that my AGP bus is 4x, though.

Whats your core and memory clock set to? If you get the Omega drivers (what I use..based off the 4.1 cats) it'll come with a program called Radlinker you can use to check this out.
--------------------------------------------------------
I searched my ATI folder for the word "radlinker", and there were not any results found. I did update to catalyst 4.4 this morning. That may have something to do with it.

If you can check out the ambient temperature see if the card is getting too hot. Any funky problems with the fan?
--------------------------------------------------------
How can I check that?

Do you have AGP Fastwrites and Sideband Addressing on or off?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I dont know how to turn those on or off, so shouldnt they be at the default setting?

Are you sure the card isn't busted in any way? You should see a pretty hefty jump when going from an FX5600 to a 9800 Pro.

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It looks ok. It was packed nicely, and the wrap aroound the card had not been opened.

Edit: Oh yeah..how many watts is your power suppily? Also, did you plug the dongle in the card when you installed it? You might be running in powersaver mode. If you don't have the card plugged directly in to the power suppily it'll slow it down tremendously.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

I just ordered my 400 watt power supply earlier this week. I installed it two days before I recieved my card since I saw that people had issues with power who owned a 9800 pro.

I do have one question, though. There are two power plugs on the card. One plug recieves pins. The other plug has pins. The plug that has the pins is plugged into my power source. The other plug that receives pins is not plugged into anything. Could that be an issue?

I am close to selling this card to anyone for $150. I am so tempted to go to Best Buy to buy that GeForce 5900 for about $200.

[Renzatic Gear]

http://users.chartertn.net/greymatt/plug.jpg

Okay, so you did plug a dongle into that, right? If you're using one of those dongle extenders...

IE This:
http://users.chartertn.net/greymatt/dongle.jpg

Take it out and plug the PSU directly into the card. You don't need to use those unless your cords are too short to reach the card itself. It's possible that the one you got might be bad. Try and do that before you start doing anything else.

See, it isn't the card itself that sucks, I and alot of other people have the exact same card and I'm running games a helluva lot faster than you are on a slower comp (hell, I was actually running games faster than you on my old Geforce 3)..it's obviously something else. Either your card is bad...which is pretty doubtful, but when your comp is running that slow you gotta assume it...or something is lying around on windows messing you up.

Right now I'm not gonna worry about AGP or bios settings. Those are really only good for eeking extra performance out, and right now your card isn't even running up to specs. And Radlinker is only available with the omega drivers, which are a tweaked set of catalysts. You might be able to get it off of www.guru3d.com (http://www.guru3d.com), but anything you can use to overclock your card will be good here...I just wanna find out what your core and memory clocks are set to.

Also, when you upgraded from the Geforce to the Radeon did you make sure that all your old drivers were completely deleted? When I upgraded, before I formatted, my comp was still trying to read my old Geforce 3 since I still had some old detonator remnants lying around. Radeon cards are pretty finicky about drivers, even moreso than the Geforces which were pretty bad themselves, having any driver sets, even different catalysts, can mess you up sometimes.

Oh, and to check for ambient mobo temperature get a program like Sisoft Sandra..if your board is equipped to check for temps it'll show up in mainboard information.

[ron_tayan]

Thanks for the help. I formatted my hard drive and Alien vs Predator 2 is running a little bit better. I did download aquamark last night. I got a score of 27335. Someone who I compared my system to had a score of 35212, though. Our systems were identical except that his driver for his video card was a little older, he had 512 MB of RAM (I have 768), and he had an athlon xp 1900 (I have a 2200). His speed was still 1798 MHz, though. The parameters for the test were:

1024x768 x 32bit AA: Off AF: 4x DETAILS: Very High

My core memory is 378/338

His 380/340

My FPS average = 27.34

His FPS average = 35

My FPS max = 65.000

His FPS max = 90.909


My scores AquaMark Score: 27335 (CPU: 4165, GFX: 4068)

His scores AquaMark Score: 35212 (CPU: 5814, GFX: 5049)

I guess that the problem is somewhere in my computer. It's back to stock condition, so Im at a loss at what to do here.

[ron_tayan]

lol Now I just compared my scores and system specs against people who have system specs that are similar to my own. Im #205 out of 213 from best to worst. The comedy just kills me lol.

[Renzatic Gear]

Yeah, I'm kinda drawing a blank here...

There's really no reason why that card is running like it is...unless it's woefully underclocked by the manufacturer or something.

If you're feeling particularly desperate you could ask for a replacement card from whoever you bought it from...

[Renzatic Gear]

Okay, I just caught what your core memory was there..sorry about that.

Anyway, I ended up getting Aquamark and only scored a tiny bit better than you did. My average FPS was 30.1 with a max of 75 with 30126 aquamarks.

looking at the Toms Hardware benchmarks of the game

http://www20.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030918/aquamark-19.html

It looks like we're getting about average in comparison to the rigs they tested it on...the only difference there is they used 8x Aniso whereas we just used 4x.

Try and get some more game demos...Max Payne 2 in particular. Turn everything up to its fullest with 4x AA and 8x Aniso on and use FRAPS to clock your framerate. I usually get in the 60's with that game...and since our Aquamark scores were pretty similar you might be able to get the same there...in theory.

[Nissian X]

What I'd do if I were you, is just keep screwing around with it, and tweaking it, thats what I did, with a little help and it worked.. Don't forget, some games react very differently depending on what drivers you have installed. Thats why, even when you uninstall the driver, keep the install program.

Also, some games and demos have problems with AA and AF, if you notice any screw ups, just switch those two to "Application Preference".

[Jupiter_x]

I have a small question to ask? Renzatic Gear maybe you would know this?
I am currently running the following specs for my PC:
AMD 3000+, 512 DDR (400 mhz), Asus: A7N8X Deluxe (Nforce 2, AGP 8X), Radeon 9700 Pro, I am using the onboard 5.1 soundstorm as my sound for now...sounds great though!

Don't get me wrong, my games and other programs are blazing fast, no problems here (Halo runs at 60fps)

However when I go into "DXDIAG" (DirectX 9.0b) it states that my CPU is 1.8ghz???
When I go into "System" in "Control Panel" it says my CPU is....I believe.....1.7???

Now I realize AMD CPU speeds are lower than the number they are given (ie: 2200+ is actually 1.8 ghz) but in my case this sounds to low for a 3000+....wierder still before I reformatted my PC, the "DX" and "System" originally said my CPU was 2.2 ghz!
Are the 3000+ Cpu's not what they are cracked up to be or is this something in the bios that needs to be addressed???

[Renzatic Gear]

That's weird as hell, I've never heard of that happening before...

Have you noticed any performance degradation? Messed with your multipliers at all? Anything like that?

[Jasmania]

You mentioned that you have DDR ram but don't specify what type of DDR. Is it PC2100, PC3200, etc?? also, who is the manufacturer? If you begin to eliminate everything else, its possible that low end or budget ram can under perform & cause a bottle neck, slowing everything else down. I know because I once had problems with not one, but two sticks of generic 256mb ram.

Just a thought......

[Jupiter_x]

That's weird as hell, I've never heard of that happening before...

Have you noticed any performance degradation? Messed with your multipliers at all? Anything like that?

I have not noticed any degradation...I noticed the FarCry Demo I installed had some slight issues, Once in a while, right when the level loads up, even when playing mid level, I get a pausing for a split second, yet the framerate is decent most of the time.The sound is great most of the time, but gets a sort of "scratchy" sound once in a while.
Now this is a demo of the game and maybe when you get the full version you get a patch. Some PC games are like night and day when you patch them!
Other games like Halo, Deus Ex2, Morrowind, KOTOR, Unreal 2004 run flawlessly!...even before patching!

[Jupiter_x]

You mentioned that you have DDR ram but don't specify what type of DDR. Is it PC2100, PC3200, etc?? also, who is the manufacturer? If you begin to eliminate everything else, its possible that low end or budget ram can under perform & cause a bottle neck, slowing everything else down. I know because I once had problems with not one, but two sticks of generic 256mb ram.

Just a thought......

:confused: You know, that is a good question! I know I have 1 stick of 512 DDR in my current PC (AMD 3000+), my motherboard is capable of running ram up to "400mhz" and that is the speed of my ram!
I know that with my old PC (Pentium 1ghz) had 512 SDR (PC 133).

I thought the ram in my new PC (AMD) was PC 400 because it is 400mhz, but I am not sure what it is! How do I find out? do I look on the stick itself or do I go into my windows to find it? :confused:

Thanx for the help!

[Jupiter_x]

Renzatic, what are Multipliers?

[Renzatic Gear]

If you don't know what a multiplier is then chances are good you haven't messed with it. It's what determines the speed of your processor in conjunction with your FSB speeds. An Athlon XP 3000+ is running at 2.16Ghz, so your multiplier settings would look like:

13 x 166 = 2158 or 2.16Ghz (166 is the actual speed your FSB is running at..it's considered doubled when you're using DDR so 166 is 333 and 200 is 400)

You change all this stuff by either moving jumpers around on the mobo or going into your bios. It's how you get your comp to take full advantage of a new processor if you upgrade...or if you wanna overclock your current chip.

And you can find out the make and model of your ram by getting (and I recommend this all the time) SiSoft Sandra (http://download.guru3d.com/sandra)

Really, I think your only problem is that windows isn't reporting the speed of your processor properly. I'd say you're still running at 2.16Ghz even if the OS is saying you're just at 1.7...you could probably fix that with a windows update or something if it's really bothering you, but it's nothing to worry about. Sandra should tell you the proper speed your proc is running at so just check it out there.

Those hiccups in Farcry are cuz you don't have as much ram as the game wants. You're running 512, but the game needs a full gig of memory if you wanna run it perfectly smooth. Also, that hissing noise is a problem with the soundstorm...and I think it's been fixed with some of the most recent drivers. Check out Nvidia and look up Nforce drivers if it bothers you too much.

[Jasmania]

Ron_Tayan, my suggestion regarding the RAM was originally meant to address your issues.

Jupiter X, if it helped you as well, Cool. JX, remember, mo' ram is always mo' better and avoid generic, "no-name" ram like the plague. I currently run 2 GB of OCZ PC3200 in dual channel config. RAM bottlenecks are not an issue.

Ron_Tayan
Like Gear, I also have a Radeon 256mb 9800 Pro and have had great luck with it. Mine was made by Sapphire. You didn't mention who made yours.
I know its a rare thing, but there are more "generic" knock-off models made that won't meet the specs of the real ATI cards. I occasionally see these show up on Ebay. They usually have some line like-"imported direct from an overseas contractor for ATI"
Yeah, right. :rolleyes:

Let us know who the manufacturer of the card is and the specs and maker of your RAM. Maybe that will help us to get your rig running up to expectations.

[Jupiter_x]

Renzatic Gear and Jasmania thanks again for the help and information on programs to help with idenifying my PC!

Will Sandra be able to tell if my ram is PC3200 or whatever? What does that mean PC3200 anyway? I am confused between the 400mhz and PC3200?...I remember back in the SDR days PC100 meant 100mhz and so on, or so I thought!

I was thinking about checking the settings of the jumpers on my AMD, I had this one built at the store even though I custom ordered every part! maybe they did not set the jumpers!
I had to rebuild my older PC (Intel 1ghz) from the ground up...the motherboard was punched! I noticed on the original board the jumpers were in thier factory settings and when I installed the new board I set the jumpers accordingly (the ram the CPU speed, bla bla bla) So I assume just maybe my AMD is not set properly, as fast as it is it might have even more power...oh please,oh please...Yea I will check the jumpers!

[Renzatic Gear]

I think it's how many gigs of data the ram can shift per second. It's one way to judge how fast the ram is beyond looking at the FSB speeds it's designed to run at.

Just doublecheck your processor settings inside of another program before you start changing FSB settings. Like I said before, you might running up to specs with the only problems being a little Windows error that doesn't really affect you in any way.

Oh, I just thought of something...you might have an XP3000+ 400FSB but are only using 333Mhz ram. If that's the case then yeah, you'd just be running at 1.7Ghz. Most of the time newer mobos will be able to detect the multiplier the chip is designed to run at, but it can't manually set the FSB speeds...so if that's the case you'll be running at:

10.5 x 166 = 1743 or 1.75Ghz

Instead of..

10.5 x 200 = 2100 or 2.1Ghz

So you've either got slower ram than what you need, or the people that built your comp didn't set the FSB to where it's supposed to be. That actually makes more sense to me..see what kinda ram you have and what it's set to, see if it can actually support 400Mhz, then if it's set wrong go to the bios and change the FSB from there (since you're using an Nforce 2 board you can change all that without having to crack open your case).

[Jupiter_x]

Thanx yet again, Unfortunetly I was at work on the hospital PCs when I was typing my posts to you and Jasmania, So had to guess my speeds, I am on my home PC now (AMD 3000+) and I double checked the speeds in DX 9b and System: DX9b says= 1.3ghz and "System" says=1.29Ghz!

When I custom ordered the ram for this PC I originally ordered it with 333mhz, but I then told them to upgrade it to 400 for $20 more and they did...or at least they said they did! :(

I will double check the ram and check the bios now!

Keep it easy

Jup

[Jupiter_x]

Oh I stumbled across a couple of programs on Driver Guru 1. ATI "DNA" drivers 2. Radlinker!
I was looking at some earlier posts from you guys and noticed these names brought up, you mentioned Omega drivers: are they the same as the DNA drivers?

[Jupiter_x]

You mentioned that you have DDR ram but don't specify what type of DDR. Is it PC2100, PC3200, etc?? also, who is the manufacturer? If you begin to eliminate everything else, its possible that low end or budget ram can under perform & cause a bottle neck, slowing everything else down. I know because I once had problems with not one, but two sticks of generic 256mb ram.

Just a thought......

I checked my Ram: The Manufacturer is "Kingmax" and the DDR Type is PC3200! (Hey it is red in color :D) ....it matches my Radeon Card :cool:

L8ER

[Renzatic Gear]

Oh I stumbled across a couple of programs on Driver Guru 1. ATI "DNA" drivers 2. Radlinker!
I was looking at some earlier posts from you guys and noticed these names brought up, you mentioned Omega drivers: are they the same as the DNA drivers?
Yup, the Omega and DNA drivers are tweaked Catalysts...the guys that make em usually fix a few things here and there to help out image quality and performance a bit.

[Jupiter_x]

Yup, the Omega and DNA drivers are tweaked Catalysts...the guys that make em usually fix a few things here and there to help out image quality and performance a bit.

Sweet! I guess I will install them!
I figured out why all the Programs were saying I was running at only 1.3 my bios defaulted when I re-formatted (I assume) and I went back in to set up the speed to166mhz at 13.5X...I am running at 2.2 ghz or 2.16 according to "system"

Is it possible to bump it up to 3 ghz? (I pushed it to 200 mhz but she just hung, no reboot)

L8ER Bro!

[Renzatic Gear]

lol, that's weird too. Your bios usually isn't affected by a reformat since it isn't on the harddrive, I think the thing might've been set that way the entire time unless you reset CMOS or you had some really funky power surge. As long as everything is running alright it's all good, though.

Yeah, it's possible to bump it up to 3Ghz...but it'd take alot of cooling and knowhow getting it to run stable. Processors are designed to run at certain speeds, and if you push em beyond that they start producing alot more heat and eating more power. If it gets too hot, or doesn't get enough power you'll start crashing...not only that but each chip that's produced has a different quality wafer that more or less determines it's max performance...and that's pretty much random, you could go out and get another XP3000 only to find out you can't push it as far as the one you've already got.

Overclocking is pretty hairy if you wanna push your comp to extreme amounts. You can't make huge jumps at one time, you basically have to make tiny steps, test it out to see if it works, then make another one til you reach your cap.

[Jupiter_x]

lol, that's weird too. Your bios usually isn't affected by a reformat since it isn't on the harddrive, I think the thing might've been set that way the entire time unless you reset CMOS or you had some really funky power surge. As long as everything is running alright it's all good, though.

Yeah, it's possible to bump it up to 3Ghz...but it'd take alot of cooling and knowhow getting it to run stable. Processors are designed to run at certain speeds, and if you push em beyond that they start producing alot more heat and eating more power. If it gets too hot, or doesn't get enough power you'll start crashing...not only that but each chip that's produced has a different quality wafer that more or less determines it's max performance...and that's pretty much random, you could go out and get another XP3000 only to find out you can't push it as far as the one you've already got.

Overclocking is pretty hairy if you wanna push your comp to extreme amounts. You can't make huge jumps at one time, you basically have to make tiny steps, test it out to see if it works, then make another one til you reach your cap.

Ok, I will leave it as it is! I was just in my Asus Probe program and it said I was also running @ 2.2ghz but said my Cpu was capable of 3ghz, and when I went to the "Alienware" site to look at what they have, they have a program to test your PC specs against theirs. Now I realize they use 64 meg processors now but upon the comparison, Their program stated stated my PC again is 2.2 gig and theirs is 3.2 Gig??? I thought hmmm! these are AMD processors shouldn't theirs say like 2.4 gig? unless they overclock thier PC beyond! :confused:

Yeah! I also used Sandra....all night....she is nice....yessssss! :D Yet she said my motherboard temp was too high (102 .C) but my Asus Utility said (54 .C) same with my Bios!....My PC is Psycho I think!

[Renzatic Gear]

3Ghz isn't the max your processor is capable of, there's no way to figure that out (wish there was), it's the max your mobo can support.

Also, Alienware isn't just AMD exclusive, they build P4 comps as well. They might've been comparing your comp to a top end Pentium...cuz as far as I know AMD hasn't broke the 2.5Ghz barrier yet.

And as far as the different temperature readings, your comp heats up when it does intensive work like running benchmarks or games. If I were to take a guess, you might've been sitting idle for awhile when you ran Sandra (cuz 102F actually isn't all that bad), and you were probably through playing a game when you ran the Asus temp checker and went into the bios. Or Sandra was flat out wrong...

[Jasmania]

JX,
Well if the RAM is Kingmax, you are in good shape. Kingmax is a very reliable producer and their RAM is usually very fairly priced. With PC3200 there won't be any bottlenecks. They been around for quite awhile and I've used their memory in a couple of comps. Sounds like you solved your problem is any case. As for overclocking, if you want to try it, do as Gear suggests. Do a lot of research until you really understand the process and move up in clock speeds in small increments.
As soon as you begin to get artifacts or any weirdness, back off. Make sure you have adequate cooling-(ESSENTIAL!!!) and be sure you know how to reset your mobo if you have a failure-(JUMPERS!!!) I currently have my CPU overclocked, my Graphics card overclocked and my RAM slightly overclocked to keep everything optimized.
If you do decide to experiment, remember that AMD chips run hotter than Pentiums and there is always the potential to cut the long term life expectancy of your hardware when you OC, even when everything is running fine.

[Jupiter_x]

I have been tweeking my PC for days now, even changing virtual mem! I just want this Pig to run like stink!...HL 2?.........need I say more?

I am decent with PC knowledge I build most of mine, I have repaired quite a few for friends and family in the last few years, yet I still have so much to learn!

Thanks to you both!
Jup

[troll]

hello guys. Iv read through the whole forum and i think u guys understand in this stuff and can help me and thus i ask:
i am buying a brand new computing system (i chose pc) and i have a few conflicts:
wats better athlon xp 3200 (2.4 Ghz) or p4 2.8 Ghz - price is the same, and benchmarks said that athlon works better even though the lower speed. also the athlon has 400 mhz bus and p4 has 800.
second thing is which ram should i buy - my choice about processor is kinda on p4; so for 800 mhz bus of processor do i need ddr 400 (this means that dual=800?) or something else for being fast enough ram for 800 fsb of motherboard and processor?
also i am really conflicted about gforce vs radeon - i keep seeing perfect reviews and bad critisism about each and i dont know wat to do... if anyone can help me please do! and also how much ram - 512 is enough? wat is better 1g stick or 2 of 512?

[ron_tayan]

Whoa! A lot of knowledge is being thrown around in this thread. Believe me. I am taking notes. I gave up on my system, though, after it illustrated poor performance with Hitman 2, UT24k, and KOTOR. The choppiness is irritating. I decided to buy a P4 3.2ghz barebone. Hopefully, a jump from an Athlon 2200 XP to a P4 3.2ghz should boost my performance.

[troll]

nvm guys i bought comp the only dillema i [/U]still[U] have is which video card. if anyone can help i will be gratefull.

[troll]

guys plz reply to my question i need help with choosing either newest gforce either newest radeon...

[And_so_it_goes]

i'm sure they are both reall good. gforce has tended to have more stable drivers over the years. me, i'm waiting to upgrade my ti 4800 se untill the new type of gpu interface comes out, when i'll throw down for the motherboard, processor, ram and all.

[Jasmania]

As I stated in the second post in this thread-I can only comment on the 9800 Pro. I have a Sapphire 256meg 9800 Pro with an Arctic Silent VGA Cooler replacing the stock heatsink & fan. I love the card and am able to run FarCry with everything maxed out to very high, with 6x FSAA & 8X AF. Is the 5900 a better card? I can't say. I can say that MY Radeon is a killer and I am very pleased with it's performance. Remember that the next gen cards will be available soon. If you are looking for a new card around $200, the Radeon 9800 Pro or the NVidia 5900FX are a toss up. If you have $500 to spend you might want to wait for the new NVidia & Radeon offerings. Check this link originally posted by Matthew Craig-

http://gear.ign.com/articles/506/506325p1.html?fromint=1

Good luck with whatever you decide.

[troll]

thx and i must admit that i c more good reviews about the radeon then the gforce but the problem is that the driver problems REALLY scare me - wat if il buy it and it wont work at all?! wat then?!

[Jasmania]

Tfe ATI driver issues you have heard about tend to be pre-Radeon. The Catalyst and Omega drivers for Radeon cards are stable. I've used both NVidia and ATI graphics cards over the years. Both are good. Unless you are an overclocker or performance freak that tweaks everything, either card will give you good features and framerates depending on your system. (I like the Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro because it OC's well.)

As I mentioned before, the big difference will be in the NVIdia 6800 or ATI X800 series. If you have the money and want to wait, these cards will have a marked difference in performance specs. For $200 or less, either the 9800 Pro or NVidia card will perform well now and for the next-gen games as well.