PIII 500 w/ Ti200 = overkill?

[stefanb]

I just built a 1.8a system that is at 2.5Ghz and I'm about to order a Gainward Ti200 to replace this ATI-AIW 32 DDR card, I know I will get excellet performance from it.

My wife's computer, however, is a PIII 500 with a Voodoo3 card only getting 20FPS in Urban Terror. If I put a ti200 in it would that be overkill for the slow processor or would it still be a drastic improvement?

What kind of FPS are possible on a 500Mhz with PC100, anyway, regardless of the vidcard?

 

[Tracert]

I wouldn't think that would be overkill, FPS should increase pretty well (I'd say 50%) with that.

As far as what is possable, I am not sure. There has to be someone here who could give you better numbers.

 

[stefanb]

50%, as in 30FPS? heh for $140 it better do more than that...I'm getting 90FPS with this 32meg ATI-AIW Radeon on my P4, I wonder what I should expect, perhaps 210+?

AnAndTech has a nice article showing an OC'ed Ti200 is about the same as a OC'ed Ti500 in Quake:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1581&p=3

 

[Tracert]

Didn't the GF3 come out when the PIII800 was the rage. I would imagin that 500 MHz isn't going to pull it down all that much. I am not sure how the scaling on this card works and hope someone who has more familiarity with this setup may be able to help you. I do know that I would expect a noticable improvement. Besides your not going to leave it at 500 Mhz forever right?

 

[stefanb]

The system is running on an Dual Asus P2DBS MB, and it's overclocking is very pathetic..You can adjust the FSB only to 104, not very good when you are already at 100...probably not bad if I was running a 66FSB chip on it, but useless to me at this point.

This board will support slockets so I might up it with a celeron or something one day... I built a case for it and this is a big motherboard so I will have plenty of room to swap it out for something faster in the future, or throw 2 PIII 800's in it or something...

WARNING: ANOTHER SHAMELESS PLUG OF MY CUSTOM CASE AHEAD!

 

[Monaco]

personally I doubt you'll notice any difference at all. A P3 500 doesn't have the juice to hit the fill-rate limit of a V3, let alone a Ti200. You might get a small boost, but not worth $140 that's for sure.

The CPU just can't send data to the card fast enough. If you want to upgrade, a new CPU is the first thing I'd get, preferably a P3 EB- that will be able to push the V3 faster, and give you quite a speed boost. As it is, I'm betting 30-40FPS or so is your system's max, with any vid card.

I'd follow that up with a new motherboard- if it's a P3 500 it is using one heck of an old chipset. Once I got a decent chipset and CPU of at least 1ghz, I'd get the Ti200- it just ain't worth it until then.

hey! Is that Dr. Octagon I see in your CD drive???

nice case BTW

 

[stefanb]

Yeah that's what I figured... I will try putting this 32Meg Radeon card in it and see what it does first.

Very good eye, it is Dr. Octo! Kool Keith + Automator + Qbert = increadable!

 

[Monaco]

hell yah, Octo is awesome. Keith Turbo Rules

try looking for the Dr. Instrumentalyst version of that CD, it's got no vocals and longer cuts of some tracks, it rocks super hard.

Good plan on the Radeon- my money says it performs pretty much the same as the voodoo. Although it probably won't bog down so much on hi-poly scenes as the v3.

 

[stefanb]

well, scrap this thread, the motherboard only supports AGP x1 apparently. It wouldn't even boot with this Radeon card...

Oh well, looks like my wife is stuck at getting 20FPS until we can overhaul her computer...not likely soon as we are going to Europe for a month in September (weeeeeeeeee!)

Also means I can buy mine now instead of waiting for the cash to buy 2 of them....still sux though because I want her to have a nice system. She could play on the one next to me, which is a Celeron [email protected] getting 70FPS, but I have a Layla 24bit audio system hooked up which has a 2 second sound delay ONLY on ID Software products, namly Quake pt release 1.30+ and RTCW (and ofcourse they say it is my $1000 sound system that is not compatible, even though it lives and breathes DirectX for production plugins and has no problems with other games)...

So it's either 20FPS or 2 sec sound delay for her...I'll be fine at 210FPS and bose speakers though..

 

[Spec_Ops2087]

when you said that you would get 210+ with a ti200...sorry but NO...not to be harsh but the ti200 are just bargen cards...yes they are good but no where near as fast as regualar gf3's and ti500...yes you can O/C it but it uses a crappy type of ram....Not to mention to get it up to that speed you would need some serious cooling



Spec

 

[stefanb]

yeah i got the instrumentalist cd on accident first and was blown away and went back for the vocal version and was like DAMN that guy is nuts...now I pick up everything I can get from Keith and Automator...

Check out Analog Brothers... Ice T, Kool Keith, plus a host of others...

Also the Automator's "Music to make love to your old lady by"..it's gonna be a classic..heh

 

[stefanb]

Oh yeah? Have a look at this:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1581&p=3

That Gainward GeForce3 Ti/450 can overclock almost as fast as an overclocked Ti500

 

[funnyperson1]

when you said that you would get 210+ with a ti200...sorry but NO...not to be harsh but the ti200 are just bargen cards...yes they are good but no where near as fast as regualar gf3's and ti500...yes you can O/C it but it uses a crappy type of ram....Not to mention to get it up to that speed you would need some serious cooling



Spec

no the Ti200s have been shown to overclock beautifully....almost all of them hit regular Geforce3 speeds and the good ones can hit Ti500 speeds stock cooling....

 

[Tracert]

funnyperson1,

Havent you bought an 8500 yet. For some reason I thought you were getting one soon?

 

[Tracert]

personally I doubt you'll notice any difference at all. A P3 500 doesn't have the juice to hit the fill-rate limit of a V3, let alone a Ti200. You might get a small boost, but not worth $140 that's for sure.

The CPU just can't send data to the card fast enough. If you want to upgrade, a new CPU is the first thing I'd get, preferably a P3 EB- that will be able to push the V3 faster, and give you quite a speed boost. As it is, I'm betting 30-40FPS or so is your system's max, with any vid card.

I'd follow that up with a new motherboard- if it's a P3 500 it is using one heck of an old chipset. Once I got a decent chipset and CPU of at least 1ghz, I'd get the Ti200- it just ain't worth it until then.

hey! Is that Dr. Octagon I see in your CD drive???

nice case BTW

So would you say that before anyone buys a TI200 they should at least have a PIII 1 Ghz in order to get any real benefit?

 

[Monaco]

not necessarily. It depends on the situation: in stefanb's case, a new CPU and mobo are more important than that vid card.

In most cases, you are buying a Ti200 to OC it and play tons of games and do 3Dmark tests, etc- in that case yah, a P3 1ghz is bare minumum. The only way to take advantage of how fast these new vid cards are is to pair them with a top-line CPU and mobo. Notice nobody ever does a vid card review with P3s anymore- they use XP1800+ with DDR and the whole shebang.

Reviews with slower systems would show the cards all performing the same, because they are CPU-limited. No reason to trade up vid cards if the new model is limited by your CPU- in that case, it's time to get a new CPU instead.

 

[stefanb]

well she's getting an upgrade faster than she thought...i put my 600 celly at 900 in her blue case and installing everything right now. The Sandra benchmarks show it barely below a PIII 1Ghz..

 

[funnyperson1]

funnyperson1,

Havent you bought an 8500 yet. For some reason I thought you were getting one soon?

no...im not going to upgrde for at least 6-12 months....im happy where im at....though for people getting new cards o think the 8500 is the best value...

 

[Tracert]

It would be interesting to see where the break point is. Kind of balancing CPU speed's and Video cards. That way you could put together an efficient machine without spending more then you have too for friends & family.

Did that make sense? I'm kinda tired and may not be thinking straight enough right now.

 

[freddiedaman]

Good point there. My PII300 became bottleneck in my old system when I put a GF2MX200 in it, so I'm guessing a MX400 would be the optimal card for a PIII500. It sure is optimal (costwise) to have a GFX card that matches your CPU, but that is not how it usually works in this rapid speedrace.

It's more like:

"- OMG my new vid.card is fast, I need a new CPU" and then:
"- Jeez my new CPU rocks! I need to get DDR and a killer vid.card"

And so on and so on

/freddie