X1950GT VS X1650GT IceQ Turbo

[Cloud52379]

Hello all i was introduced to this site by a friend of mine and i have loved working with it. i read the posts often. It has come to a time where i really need to upgrade my dated AGP system and the ancient geforce 6200 that i have running it lol.

Now i ask which in your opinion is a better card. The X1950GT is 256mb@256bit. I have heard many good things about IceQ Turbo's though. the turbo card is 512mb@128bit. Both cards are the AGP versions.

As a side note i eventually will be building a whole new system and going PCI-E 2.0., but for now i just want to make my agp system run good.

1 of my systems as of right now...

P4 3.4GHz
1 gig of ram
geforce 6200 PCI.


P.S: i will most likely be upgrading to 2 or 3 gig of ram soon also.

thanks again!

[Radiator]

The X1950 GT is a hell of a lot better card . Get that one .

[Cloud52379]

So i opted for the X1950GT, i am now experiencing performance problems, i can score decent on benchmarks, but when i log into play the game i play a experience the same framerate as i did with my old geforce 6200.

Why would i be getting sub par performance from this card???
My specs:
Motherboard: ASUS P4S800-MX
PSU: Xtreme switching power supply (400W MAX) (LP-6100D)
CPU: 2.267 GHz running at 3.4GHz (http://www.cpu-world.com/sspec/SL/SL7XY.html)
RAM: 1GIG 2 X 512MB PC2100 266MHz 184-pin (VS512MB266)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon X1950GT AGP.

Any ideas? i have read a lot that with this or other mid range cards you need to upgrade a bunch of other stuff, in this case i am betting i need to upgrade all of it =P

What should i upgrade to get the most out of this Video Card. please =)

thanks!

[Radiator]

First of all , you need a lot more RAM... not to mention faster RAM . If you had said you have such slow RAM before , I would have recommended just not buying anything at the moment .

[Cloud52379]

I see, yeah i knew i had some old ram, the best i can upgrade to atm is ddr400 (pc3200) do i even bother getting 2 or 3 gigs of that? Or should i look into getting a better mobo that will support superior ram?

Let me know anything you can =) i mean i dont have a lot to spend but i suppose i could splurge just a lil...

thanks

[wyz135]

and if possible get a better processor...

[Radiator]

I see, yeah i knew i had some old ram, the best i can upgrade to atm is ddr400 (pc3200) do i even bother getting 2 or 3 gigs of that? Or should i look into getting a better mobo that will support superior ram?

Let me know anything you can =) i mean i dont have a lot to spend but i suppose i could splurge just a lil...

thanks

Get a new PC and sell your old one... no point in wasting even more money on that , because with a new mobo , you'd need a new CPU , new RAM , new harddrives ( new ones use SATA technology and not IDE ) and a new video card , etc. which is essentially getting a new PC .

[Headfoot]

Cloud,

You are experiencing the same framerates for one of two (or maybe both) reasons:

1) If you play games at a low resolution (800x600, 1024x768, and sometimes even 1280x1024) your games are CPU bound. That means that your graphics card has more power than the CPU can handle. There are two ways to fix this problem. The first and best way is to increase your screen resolution. If you have a CRT monitor (big boxy older monitor) you should be able to go all the way up to 2048x1536. I would suggest turning your resolution to either 1280x1024 or 1600x1200. This will work the graphics card more and you will get the same framerates (hopefully, or maybe a little lower) but it will look better. Also, instead or along with the resolution increase you can turn on more visual effects and eye candy. Turn the settings up. Again it will look better but you will get similar frame rates. This is dependent on if your computer really is CPU bound.

2) Your RAM is simply too slow. DDR400 would help and not be too expensive for 1.5 gb.

I would suggest playing with resolutions and increased visual settings first since it won't cost you money, and then if that doesn't help then get better ram. Beyond that it is not worth buying a new processor or anything else. At that point you would be better off just getting a new computer.

[Radiator]

That CPU shouldn't limit the card THAT much , though .
Then theres another question - does your motherboard support DDR400 RAM ?

[Cloud52379]

Dual-Channel DDR 400
3 x 184-pin DIMM Sockets
Max. 3 GB unbuffered PC3200/PC2700/PC2100/PC1600 non-ECC DDR RAM Memory (Twinbank)

thats what my mobo will handle as far as ram. I have changed things around a lil bit and went back to my AMD board (ASUS A7N8X)

Motherboard: ASUS A7N8X {bios has been flashed to newest .bin}

PSU Xtreme Switching PS. (400watts) 25 amps on +12v. {i am thinking of upgrading to a 600watt Thermaltake}

CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2600+ barton.

RAM: 1GIG 2 X 512MB PC2100 266MHz 184-pin (VS512MB266) {I think i can get my hands on 2 to 3 gig of DDR400 which i am thinking will make a bit of a difference}

Video Card: ATI Radeon X1950PRO. {yeah got my hands on the Pro version probably selling my GT one to a buddy of mine}

That's about it atm, So all in all i am thinking if i upgrade my ram and PSU i should notice a difference, ill play around with the resolutions in the meantime to see if i can get anything better as far as framerates....

Looking forward to your replies =)

Thanks guys,

Rob

[Radiator]

You do realise that the Pentium 4 3.4 Ghz is a hell of a lot faster than the AMD 2600+ XP ?

[Cloud52379]

I was thinking that my pentium cpu was better but the amd with the better cache i thought might be close. here are links to the exact cpu's that i have.

Which is better iyo:

Pentuim CPU: http://www.cpu-world.com/sspec/SL/SL7XY.html

AMD CPU: http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/AMD-Athlon%20MP%202600+%20-%20AMSN2600DUT4C.html


thanks again, whichever is faster ill use... :)

Rob

[Radiator]

Well I know for a fact , that the Pentium 4 3.4 Ghz in real world performance is tons faster than the 2600+ XP . The 2600+ XP is about as good as my CPU ( mid-end when it came out ) and the Pentium 4 3.4 Ghz was high-end when it came out... and before the AMD64 CPUs came out , Pentiums reigned suppreme , performance-wise .

[Cloud52379]

Thank you for the reply again =)

Im not sure how much it matters but the pentium that i have IS a celeron D and its only rated 2.267 Ghz. i have been overclocking it to 3.4 Ghz. it also has 256 cache, that being said, still a better choice over the amd?

Thanks again.

Rob

[Radiator]

Theres a huge difference between a Celeron ( which indeed is a piece of shit ) and a Pentium 4... I don't see why you said P4 in your first post .
Anyway , a 2600+ XP is tons better than a Celeron , so keep on using that .