Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: jimson on September 15, 2010, 04:06:03 PM
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Pretty happy with this system, but wondering what would make the most difference in an upgrade, newer Vid card or something else?
Also wondering if I should upgrade the OS. XP home edition SP3 currently recognizing about 3.25 gigs of ram
EVGA 512-P3-N802-AR GeForce 8800GT Superclocked 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card
GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard
E8400 cpu
PC Power & Cooling S75QB 750W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply
Pioneer 20X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE Model DVR-115DBK
Creative 70SB073A00000 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST3250310NS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
CORSAIR XMS2 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X4096-6400C5
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Windows 7 pro or ultimate 64 bit version and possibly a new higher end videocard......
but with what you have now, you should be able to just bout max out with hi res pkg in AH..
if you OS is clean, tuned and tweaked.....
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Ah, thanks.
I can run most, if not all of the eye candy, but would like to position myself for the future and have a little overkill so I don't have to worry about tweaking stuff much.
What are the better video cards that are on the market these days?
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be aware there's a lot of problems with win7 64 and the xtremegamer sound card. I have that card and it stopped working after either win7 or creative update. I cant get it to work.
semp
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What are the better video cards that are on the market these days?
AMD Radeon 5850 or Nvidia GTX460 1G
However, AMD will release the HD6000 series soon, so I'd wait a bit to see what they are worth.
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Just be aware that as you improve the video card, you will likely lose additional memory from 32 bit XP. This is because the video memory is direct mapped into the address space, and you only have 512 now, while newer cards that are less than 1 GB are "harder to find" - and present the ugly choice of optimizing your choice for "now" or "after an upgrade to w7 64 bit".
<S>
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Actually, just a 9800GTX+ would be almost ideal for your CPU. I have an ASUS P5K-E MB with an E8400 and 4GB of PC-8500 Mushkin Ascent RAM. I have an 8800GTS KO and play all games on max. settings.
But I'd ditch the 32 bit OS first. I went from 32 XP Pro and went to Vista Ultimate 64 and do NOT regret it.
You could also use faster RAM as that MB supports 1066 and 1200 (you have 800).
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Actually, just a 9800GTX+ would be almost ideal for your CPU. I have an ASUS P5K-E MB with an E8400 and 4GB of PC-8500 Mushkin Ascent RAM. I have an 8800GTS KO and play all games on max. settings.
But I'd ditch the 32 bit OS first. I went from 32 XP Pro and went to Vista Ultimate 64 and do NOT regret it.
You could also use faster RAM as that MB supports 1066 and 1200 (you have 800).
Going higher ram speeds would require overclocking the memory bus. Usually the optimal situation is to have synchronized speed on CPU FSB and memory. Asynch ram is actually slower in many benchmarks so you'll gain some, lose some. You get absolutely the least bang for buck 'upgrading' your ram 'mhz speed' compared to upgrading any other component. Well, maybe killerNIC is worse than that!
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Going higher ram speeds would require overclocking the memory bus. Usually the optimal situation is to have synchronized speed on CPU FSB and memory. Asynch ram is actually slower in many benchmarks so you'll gain some, lose some. You get absolutely the least bang for buck 'upgrading' your ram 'mhz speed' compared to upgrading any other component. Well, maybe killerNIC is worse than that!
That motherboard will do 1066Mhz without overclocking, and with a FSB of 1333MHz on his E8400, I don't think he's gonna get sync'd speeds so he might as well have faster a-sync'd speeds.
Just be aware that as you improve the video card, you will likely lose additional memory from 32 bit XP. This is because the video memory is direct mapped into the address space, and you only have 512 now, while newer cards that are less than 1 GB are "harder to find" - and present the ugly choice of optimizing your choice for "now" or "after an upgrade to w7 64 bit".
Are you sure of this? I'm running 32bit XP with a 1GB card on 3.25GB RAM (4GB installed) and all is available. Nothing changes on my RAM between my old 256MB card and my 1GB card.
I think you may be thinking of video cards that use shared memory.
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That motherboard will do 1066Mhz without overclocking, and with a FSB of 1333MHz on his E8400, I don't think he's gonna get sync'd speeds so he might as well have faster a-sync'd speeds.
Thank you. I looked at the specs and came to that very same conclusion.
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That motherboard will do 1066Mhz without overclocking, and with a FSB of 1333MHz on his E8400, I don't think he's gonna get sync'd speeds so he might as well have faster a-sync'd speeds.
Heh first of all you're so off base it's not even funny. You're confusing the Intel "quad pumped" 333mhz fsb rating with your DDR2 rating.
Yes, the E8400 actually runs at 333Mhz bus speed. After multiplier of 4 it becomes 1333. DDR2 however has only a multiplier of two (2) so sync ram speed is actually 666Mhz.
I would never in a million years pay the price of 4gb ram sticks to get 200mhz bus speed change as a result. That's just retarded folks. He will get perhaps 1 fps gain (IF he's lucky) and pay 80 bucks or more.
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would like to position myself for the future and have a little overkill so I don't have to worry about tweaking stuff much
You guys are forgetting the point here.. he doesn't want the hassle of overclocking, and all of that.
Jimson, really it all comes down to how much money you want to spend, and what you want to use it for.
Got $1000? Get a new motherboard, i7 setup, 12GB RAM, and an ATI5850 and Win7 Home Premium 64bit.
Got a couple hundred bucks? You can get a nice little upgrade going to an ATI 5830 or 5850.
If all you use the computer for is basic computer stuff (email, www, etc) and Aces High, then don't bother upgrading the Operating System, as that extra 750MB of Ram isn't going to make THAT MUCH of a difference. If you DO decide to up the Ram further, then Win7 Home Premium 64bit is the way to go. Don't let the name fool you, the "Ultimate" version really offers little more than Home Premium, and you're likely to find you won't even use those options.
I will say this... the 9800GTX+ is only a marginal upgrade over the 8800GT. Really, it's not that much of a difference.. it's basically the same card with a little faster memory and slightly higher clock speeds.
I'll use Aces High as a benchmark here with my system. I had the following:
- ASRock G43Twins-FullHD Motherboard
- Intel E7400 C2D (2.8GHZ, slightly OC to 3.0GHZ)
- 4GB DDR3 1066 RAM
- 9800GTX+ Video Card
- USB Turtle Beach Headphones.. nothing fancy about the hard drives or anything else
- Win XP Home (32bit)
I was able to handle Aces High at 512 textures sliders about 2/3 of the way to max and no shadows and run a steady 55-60FPS at 1920X1200 resolution. 1024 (hires) textures didn't seem to affect FR too much until I flew into a lot of action, fire, etc in which it would drop down to 25-30 at times. Higher sliders dropped it down to 40 or so consistently, and shadows REALLY killed things. This is all with a notch of AA in AH settings. It actually seemed to perform slightly worse by disabling AA which doesn't make sense, but perhaps it liked to be stressed... and likewise 2 notches was too much for it... but 1 notch was JUST RIGHT.
Then I upgraded to Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit. Didn't really see much of a performance increase in Aces High. I would have to say... about the same.
Then I upgraded to an ATI 5830 Video Card. I've been a die hard Nvidia fan throughout the years ever since I had a three bad ATI experiences in the 90's with poor drivers and compatibility issues - all of which were corrected by switching to Nvidia, but all the rave reviews about the ATI 58XX line couldn't be ignored. The price was right, people were talking good things, and I can't complain one bit.
I ordered it knowing it was the 'low end' of the 58XX line, and while I was hoping for the best, I expected the worse and I have to say that this card met me right in the middle of my expectations. No, it's not a beast, and if I had the chance to do it again I probably would have saved up for a 5850, but I don't regret my purchase at all.
With the 5830 I can run 1024 Textures with hires, All sliders maxed out, and self shadows at 1024 AND maintain 60FPS all day long. Turning on other planes' shadows kills it big time. Cranking self shadows to 2048 takes a pretty good hit as well. With this latest AH update, I set 2048 hires textures and while flying the new Mossie, my frames are still maxed out. I also enabled the new building shadows and they don't seem to affect things anyway.
So can I max EVERYTHING out? Well no. I was hoping that I could, but I knew that an entry level 58XX card probably wouldn't do the trick. Is AH pretty? Oh yes! Most definitely. Was the 5830 an improvement over the 9800GTX+? *YES*... if I had to guess, I'd say a 30-40% improvement is realistic. I can only IMAGINE what the high end cards are capable of.
Then I upgraded to a Velociraptor Hard drive. Paid way too much for a 160GB hard drive, and while it is definitely MUCH faster (computer boots much faster, game loads much faster, no stuttering when a plane with a custom skin comes into view, etc)... I don't feel it was worth the investment. Looking back I should have used that money to upgrade to a 5850 instead, BUT like I said, no regrets at all.
So, to answer your question... without spending your money to rebuild the system with a new MB, Processor, Memory... really your best bet is a video card, but if you're going to do that don't skimp out. I highly recommend the 5830 or if you can afford it, the 5850. The Fermis (Nvidia) are nice from what I've heard, but I'm an ATI fanboi now. Runs cool. Performs well. I use ATI Tray Tools and now have a significant OC on my graphics card with no ill effects. I just can't complain.
Unless you specifically WANT TO upgrade to Windows 7, I can't really see a reason to recommend it unless you want to up the ram to 8GB or more... but I don't believe even that will make a significant increase in AH performance.
Now if you use the computer for other intensive things, then this might all be a different story...
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Thank you. I looked at the specs and came to that very same conclusion.
As a friendly reminder I suggest learning the bus multiplier basics before shelling out advice on use of someone's hard earned dough.
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Lotsa good info for me to consider.
Thanks for the replies.
I'll probably start with an upgraded Video card.
Not sure about the OS. I am started to do some AH film making and such, but I don't think I need to move up to i7 yet.
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As a friendly reminder I suggest learning the bus multiplier basics before shelling out advice on use of someone's hard earned dough.
You made a decision for me. I thank you for it. Goodbye. :aok
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Upgrading from an 8800GT to a 9800GTX is a waste of money.
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Are you sure of this? I'm running 32bit XP with a 1GB card on 3.25GB RAM (4GB installed) and all is available. Nothing changes on my RAM between my old 256MB card and my 1GB card.
I think you may be thinking of video cards that use shared memory.
Pretty darn sure... that's been my experience, and that of others on the board to date. With the advent of PCI-E, there is no longer a video memory aperture, it's direct mapped into the address space.
<S>
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Upgrading from an 8800GT to a 9800GTX is a waste of money.
Not according to someone who builds PC's for a living. You go ahead and figure out who that "someone" is.
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[. . .]
Are you sure of this? I'm running 32bit XP with a 1GB card on 3.25GB RAM (4GB installed) and all is available. Nothing changes on my RAM between my old 256MB card and my 1GB card.
I think you may be thinking of video cards that use shared memory.
Windows 32-bit only can access ~3.25Gb of RAM total throughout the system. So if you have 2Gb of System RAM and a GPU with 1Gb VRAM that's 3Gb of the RAM it can access. However, Onboard GPUs with shared RAM actually "steal" System RAM to run, so in essence it'd be like having 1.5Gb of System RAM and a 512MB GPU. If the System is accessing the 1GB GPU that's 2.25Gb (assuming there is 4GB) of System RAM it can use where it needs (background tasks, game, etc.) and any 1 program, I think, can only access 2Gb at a time. So if the background tasks need 1Gb of System RAM that leaves 1.25Gb of RAM for the game to run off of.
Least that's what I've gathered from listening to Skuzz, TD, and the others around here who know way more then I ever will. :)
I'm sure I'm wrong somewhere (or all of it!), but hopefully Skuzz/TD or someone can correct it.
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I was trying to stay out of this thread.
32 bit Windows OS's can address 4GB of RAM. However, all memory addressable buffers (sound card, video card, ethernet....) are mapped starting at 4GB and then it goes down from there. If you have a 256MB video card, then instantly subtract 256MB from 4GB to find the highest amount of memory the OS will be able to use for applications.
If you have a 1GB video card, subtract 1GB from 4GB (regardless of the physical amount of RAM in the computer), which yeilds 3GB. This means 3GB will be the most system RAM available to the OS for applications.
The reason? When all 32bits of a binary number are set, it is equal to 4GB (4294967296-1). This is the largest directly addressable number for a 32 bit system. However, if Microsoft would properly implement PAE (physical address extensions), then a 32 bit OS could address 64GB of RAM. UNIX OS's have been doing it for years.
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Knew someone smart would correct me soon enough. :P
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I was trying to stay out of this thread.
32 bit Windows OS's can address 4GB of RAM. However, all memory addressable buffers (sound card, video card, ethernet....) are mapped starting at 4GB and then it goes down from there. If you have a 256MB video card, then instantly subtract 256MB from 4GB to find the highest amount of memory the OS will be able to use for applications.
If you have a 1GB video card, subtract 1GB from 4GB (regardless of the physical amount of RAM in the computer), which yeilds 3GB. This means 3GB will be the most system RAM available to the OS for applications.
The reason? When all 32bits of a binary number are set, it is equal to 4GB (4294967296-1). This is the largest directly addressable number for a 32 bit system. However, if Microsoft would properly implement PAE (physical address extensions), then a 32 bit OS could address 64GB of RAM. UNIX OS's have been doing it for years.
See Rule #2 :lol
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...{snip}... However, if Microsoft would properly implement ...{snip}... UNIX OS's have been doing it for years.
Skuzzy, if you start in on the things that Unix OS's were doing correctly before the PC even existed that Windows still doesn't do correctly today, you'd need more than 32 bits just to assign each bullet a number...
<S>
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Ripley's right on the RAM speed. It's a waste of money so you can say you've got "fast" ram. With his CPU stock the most he'll get out of his RAM is 667 regardless what speed the RAM is capable of. Even if he OC's the CPU it's doubtful he'd exceed 800Mhz RAM.
Simple math: dual core double pumped CPU on a 1333 FSB = 1333/4 = 333.333 clock cycle.
DDR2 RAM processing requests from the CPU = 667 (333.333 clock cycle x 2)
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Ripley's right on the RAM speed. It's a waste of money so you can say you've got "fast" ram. With his CPU stock the most he'll get out of his RAM is 667 regardless what speed the RAM is capable of. Even if he OC's the CPU it's doubtful he'd exceed 800Mhz RAM.
Simple math: dual core double pumped CPU on a 1333 FSB = 1333/4 = 333.333 clock cycle.
DDR2 RAM processing requests from the CPU = 667 (333.333 clock cycle x 2)
{small voice}
What BE meant to say was quad pumped CPU (# of cores doesn't matter - or at least, I've never read so) on a 1333 FSB = 1333/4 = 333.333 clock cycle
Yes, I know,there's one in every crowd ... :)
P.S. I just realized that my post could be taken as though I'm supporting the argument against faster RAM. I meant it neither for or against, simply a clarification of the calculation.
PPS. OK, I looked at the thread in depth, and now I'm really confused, I just shouldn't be looking at this stuff at 3 in the morning when I can't sleep. I have to be missing something stupid, because I don't get the arguments against (potentially) upgrading RAM. His current memory is limited to 6.4 GB/s max. With no processor overclock the system clock is set to 333, and the memory clock for DDR2 800 is 200, so the motherboard is using a 6:5 divider. So how wouldn't DDR2 1066 at 8.5 GB/s max be a better solution, regardless of the 8:5 divider (if I looked it up right)?
Assuming reasonable timings on the DDR2 1066, why are you guys saying that faster RAM would be "worthless"? It might not be cost effective, but I don't see where the argument that "DDR2 however has only a multiplier of two (2) so sync ram speed is actually 666Mhz".
or With his CPU stock the most he'll get out of his RAM is 667 regardless what speed the RAM is capable of
apply.
As far as I know, assuming no OC on either processor or RAM, that's not going to happen until he gets memory that has to be clocked faster than the processor clock (which is 333 MHZ without any OC, and would correspond to something like DDR2 1333 (actually, something beyond that since DDR2 1333 - which AFAIK doesn't exist - would be where you'd get to a 1:1 divider, or "synced" memory ). DDR2 1066 is still only clocked at 266 Mhz. And would be as much as 1/3 faster on memory intensive operations.
<S>
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Not according to someone who builds PC's for a living. You go ahead and figure out who that "someone" is.
It doesnt matter he is wrong. The 9800 GTX has a texture fill rate of 43.2 and the 8800 GT of 39.2 and that difference (10%) isnt worth an upgrade. The GTX 280s are pushing 48.2 and the 285s 51.8 which is much better for the money (25% performance increase).
I knew this of course because I own a ton of Geforce cards and yes I have compared them. The 8800s are all you need for AH. The 9800s are good if you need a card and dont want to spend a lot of money but they are virtually the same as 8800s. In a game like ROF or WOP the 280s will get you to top performance and the only time anyone would need the latest 400 series is for something like FSX. 285s texture fill rate actually beats the 480s on paper but 480s have four times the raster engines effectively quadrupling the power.
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{small voice}
What BE meant to say was quad pumped CPU (# of cores doesn't matter - or at least, I've never read so) on a 1333 FSB = 1333/4 = 333.333 clock cycle
Yes, I know,there's one in every crowd ... :)
P.S. I just realized that my post could be taken as though I'm supporting the argument against faster RAM. I meant it neither for or against, simply a clarification of the calculation.
PPS. OK, I looked at the thread in depth, and now I'm really confused, I just shouldn't be looking at this stuff at 3 in the morning when I can't sleep. I have to be missing something stupid, because I don't get the arguments against (potentially) upgrading RAM. His current memory is limited to 6.4 GB/s max. With no processor overclock the system clock is set to 333, and the memory clock for DDR2 800 is 200, so the motherboard is using a 6:5 divider. So how wouldn't DDR2 1066 at 8.5 GB/s max be a better solution, regardless of the 8:5 divider (if I looked it up right)?
Assuming reasonable timings on the DDR2 1066, why are you guys saying that faster RAM would be "worthless"? It might not be cost effective, but I don't see where the argument that or apply.
As far as I know, assuming no OC on either processor or RAM, that's not going to happen until he gets memory that has to be clocked faster than the processor clock (which is 333 MHZ without any OC, and would correspond to something like DDR2 1333 (actually, something beyond that since DDR2 1333 - which AFAIK doesn't exist - would be where you'd get to a 1:1 divider, or "synced" memory ). DDR2 1066 is still only clocked at 266 Mhz. And would be as much as 1/3 faster on memory intensive operations.
<S>
Actually most Intel chipset/bios combos automatically adjust the memory multiplier to 2.4 etc. utilizing the 'faster' ram. However benchmarking has proven over and over that running the memory asynch actually carries a performance penalty that eats away increments of the speed boost. That combined with the fact that the CPU can only utilize the bandwith it's FSB asks for make investing to a 'faster' ram an act of futility. Very, very poor way to spend your money and downright wrong to suggest this to someone who is looking for an _upgrade_. That 80 bucks combined with selling the old card on ebay would constitute the price of a next-gen GPU and true speed increase for example.
In car terms 'faster ram' is equivalent to changing your air filter to a free-flow model for the price of a ECU chip or a supercharger. Gee, I wonder which one I would take. Filter or a supercharger? :)
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OMG, you are absolutely right...
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ram-speed-tests,1807-14.html (Note that even the synthetic memory tests shows what's really only a marginal difference between fastest and slowest in the testing.)
I've still got some sort of block thing going though, because I still don't ken the how and why. I'm missing a piece of the picture or getting senile. And I *thought* I knew this... I need to dig out the timing charts (the ones with the clock cycle diagrams) because I'm obviously making an erronous assumption somewhere.
<S>
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OMG, you are absolutely right...
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ram-speed-tests,1807-14.html (Note that even the synthetic memory tests shows what's really only a marginal difference between fastest and slowest in the testing.)
I've still got some sort of block thing going though, because I still don't ken the how and why. I'm missing a piece of the picture or getting senile. And I *thought* I knew this... I need to dig out the timing charts (the ones with the clock cycle diagrams) because I'm obviously making an erronous assumption somewhere.
<S>
You're not TOTALLY in the woods though because if you raise both CPU FSB and memory speed you get considerable speed gains. But that falls into overclocking territory again.
<S>
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Heh first of all you're so off base it's not even funny. You're confusing the Intel "quad pumped" 333mhz fsb rating with your DDR2 rating.
Yes, the E8400 actually runs at 333Mhz bus speed. After multiplier of 4 it becomes 1333. DDR2 however has only a multiplier of two (2) so sync ram speed is actually 666Mhz.
I would never in a million years pay the price of 4gb ram sticks to get 200mhz bus speed change as a result. That's just retarded folks. He will get perhaps 1 fps gain (IF he's lucky) and pay 80 bucks or more.
You totally misunderstood what I was saying.
I'm saying, that right now, he's at 1333/4=333.25Mhz FSB, and his RAM is at 800/2=400Mhz. He's already A-Sync, to sync he'd have to downclock his RAM to 666.4 (333.25 pre-multiplier). I'm very familiar with bus and RAM speeds, there is no reasons to belittle me. I wasn't aware of the tests on Tom's Hardware, but I had always personally gone for sync'd speeds just because I thought it made sense.
Basically what I was saying was that because he's already A-Sync, going to higher speed RAM would be a technical upgrade. I never once told him he should do it.
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{small voice}
What BE meant to say was quad pumped CPU (# of cores doesn't matter - or at least, I've never read so) on a 1333 FSB = 1333/4 = 333.333 clock cycle
Yes, I know,there's one in every crowd ... :)
P.S. I just realized that my post could be taken as though I'm supporting the argument against faster RAM. I meant it neither for or against, simply a clarification of the calculation.
PPS. OK, I looked at the thread in depth, and now I'm really confused, I just shouldn't be looking at this stuff at 3 in the morning when I can't sleep. I have to be missing something stupid, because I don't get the arguments against (potentially) upgrading RAM. His current memory is limited to 6.4 GB/s max. With no processor overclock the system clock is set to 333, and the memory clock for DDR2 800 is 200, so the motherboard is using a 6:5 divider. So how wouldn't DDR2 1066 at 8.5 GB/s max be a better solution, regardless of the 8:5 divider (if I looked it up right)?
Assuming reasonable timings on the DDR2 1066, why are you guys saying that faster RAM would be "worthless"? It might not be cost effective, but I don't see where the argument that or apply.
As far as I know, assuming no OC on either processor or RAM, that's not going to happen until he gets memory that has to be clocked faster than the processor clock (which is 333 MHZ without any OC, and would correspond to something like DDR2 1333 (actually, something beyond that since DDR2 1333 - which AFAIK doesn't exist - would be where you'd get to a 1:1 divider, or "synced" memory ). DDR2 1066 is still only clocked at 266 Mhz. And would be as much as 1/3 faster on memory intensive operations.
<S>
It's not a quad pumped CPU. It's a double pumped dual core. The math is still a multiple of four.
As far as memory transfer rates that's fine as long as the RAM can deliver on it's promise. That brings us to the next paragraph.
What SectorNine50 said. DDR2 667 runs on a core clock of 333.33, DDR2 800 runs on a 400 clock and DDR2 1066 on a clock of 533. He's already running a faster RAM clock than his CPU core clock and so the RAM he has is already waiting for the CPU. It makes no sense to go faster with RAM than what you need. Once the clocks are synced it might be worth something to look for lower latencies but that's a marginal real world performance gain. Not worth spending on as an upgrade but maybe if you were looking for benchmark bragging rights or if you were building it into the initial investment.
So back to two paragraphs ago, the RAM can't deliver it's maximum performance so the memory transfer rates go out the window.
Oh, one last thing. It's the asynchronous interaction between the CPU and RAM on different clock cycles that leads to the degradation in performance using faster RAM as they occasionally miss a beat so to speak.
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It's not a quad pumped CPU. It's a double pumped dual core. The math is still a multiple of four.
Is this the case? Mind linking a source (Not that I don't believe you, I just would like to read about it)? That would mean each core is running at half of the total frequency, and that their speeds together are additive. I was under the impression that both cores were doing 4 cycles before dumping to the FSB.
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Asyncronous, bus speed ram clock multipliers? :confused: Man you guys lost me on the first page. :lol
I appreciate all the advice. I built this PC from component, but about all I feel comfortable doing is swapping out cards and such.
I may have a line on a legitimate free copy of win7pro 64 bit, and I think I'll start shopping video cards to start with.
If I ever decide to try any sort of OCing it's obvious I'll need to do a lot of research first.
:salute
And carry on, I might be learning stuff here.
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You totally misunderstood what I was saying.
I'm saying, that right now, he's at 1333/4=333.25Mhz FSB, and his RAM is at 800/2=400Mhz. He's already A-Sync, to sync he'd have to downclock his RAM to 666.4 (333.25 pre-multiplier). I'm very familiar with bus and RAM speeds, there is no reasons to belittle me. I wasn't aware of the tests on Tom's Hardware, but I had always personally gone for sync'd speeds just because I thought it made sense.
Basically what I was saying was that because he's already A-Sync, going to higher speed RAM would be a technical upgrade. I never once told him he should do it.
In that case I'm sorry because I read something likes of "He can't achieve sync speeds with his current ram since his motherboard doesn't support going to (false idea of sync) 1333 anyway'.
In his case he might actually get a better overall performance if he did cut his multiplier to two and be in sync.
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In that case I'm sorry because I read something likes of "He can't achieve sync speeds with his current ram since his motherboard doesn't support going to (false idea of sync) 1333 anyway'.
In his case he might actually get a better overall performance if he did cut his multiplier to two and be in sync.
Pretty interesting that they are cranking up memory speeds so high considering most FSB's are 200-333. Although, I guess now that processors tend to have the memory controller built into them, chances are they benefit greatly from faster RAM.
I personally did the above; bought 800Mhz RAM, sync'd it to 200, then overclocked my FSB to 300 (My motherboard capped there, unfortunately). Hopefully when I get my new MB, I can get the sucker up to 350+ on air cooling... :cool:
Gotta love high multiplier, low FSB! :t
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I may have a line on a legitimate free copy of win7pro 64 bit, and I think I'll start shopping video cards to start with.
Sorry for the diversion into the theoretical.
I agree, a video card is your best candidate for a best bang for the buck upgrade, even more so than an OS change (although if it's free, it doesn't count.) I might suggest that you do not limit yourself to Nvidia cards, ATI was generally the best bang for the buck last I checked once you move away from the low-end. The 5770 is a pretty decent performer for around $150 and it's hard to go wrong with the 5850 if you want to spend another hundred bucks or so.
What I'd suggest doing is determining what your budget is, going here
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2010-gaming-graphics-charts-high-quality/benchmarks,111.html
picking the resolution you want to run at, and whether or not you feel strongly about antialiasing, and use the "Sum of FPS Benchmarks" at whatever is closest to your resolution and AA choices.
If your not sure, I'd suggest you use Sum of FPS Benchmarks 1920x1200 with anti aliasing, 4AA (High Quality)
Then, look at how the card choices in your budget range compare in the benchmark vs their cost. Make sure you realize that CF and SLI means more than one card, and not to compare those results!
Also take note that unless you do upgrade OS to 64 bit, anything over a 1GB card is going to start drastically affecting the amount of memory XP has available, so bear that in mind as you move up the scale to cards with more than 1GB of RAM.
<S>
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Before upgrading your vid, you should verify the specs on your PCIE slots. The older MBs are not PCIe 2.0 and to unleash the full potential I would think the right slot could make a difference. However, if it does run on your board a newer card would be more compatible for a future MB upgrade.
You have a pretty fast processor for your current mb and the max memory for XP 32. Any MB upgrades would logically lead to a more capable (i5/i7) and these require new everything (memory/cpu). Think its worth while to get a quad core?
A SDD drive is worth a look but requires Win7, which is rumored to be coming out in October with a 3 pac for $150.
There is a new SDD drive which requires a x4 PCIE slot - does a 580 mb read. Unfortunately I don't have one of those on my p43 MB and will have to go with a rampage III formula. that means memory and a CPU. It bothers me that the chip industry is working in this fashion to force huge investments in PCs in order to stay current every 2 or 3 years. They could easily stick with the same form factor for 5 years and squeeze everything out of it but that would affect their current cash flow model.
Infidelz.
SIOA
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Before upgrading your vid, you should verify the specs on your PCIE slots. The older MBs are not PCIe 2.0 and to unleash the full potential I would think the right slot could make a difference. However, if it does run on your board a newer card would be more compatible for a future MB upgrade.
No current single GPU card requires more than x16 pci-e 1.0 so he's fine.
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Is this the case? Mind linking a source (Not that I don't believe you, I just would like to read about it)? That would mean each core is running at half of the total frequency, and that their speeds together are additive. I was under the impression that both cores were doing 4 cycles before dumping to the FSB.
I don't remember where I read that but do remember reading it at several sources as I was preparing to OC my CPU. It makes sense when you think about synching the CPU and RAM in that each core operates with relative indepencence. As I'm sure you're aware there are times where a single core is taking almost the entire load. I see this regularily on my system monitor. My CPU is an E6750 2.66 Ghz Core2Duo OC'd to 3.2 Ghz on a 1600 FSB linked and synched to 4 Gb DDR2 800 Kinston HyperX (4-4-4-12). Unfortunately I'm running 32 bit XP Pro and only see 3.25 Gb of my RAM (eVGA 8800 GTS G92 512 Mb GPU) but it does everything I need it to do so I'm happy.
I look occasionally at possible upgrades but I'm just not that far behind the curve yet to make it worthwhile.
Oh... and to the OP, your best upgrade would be a new GPU along with a CPU OC. You might have to get a better air cooler but that can be done cheaply (mine was under $30 for a 10-15 C drop in temps). I'd skip the OS unless it's free and look for a GPU with under 1 Gb of memory. Contrary to what others have said you would see a performance gain going to a 9800 GTX+ although marginal compared to a newer card. The plus side of that idea is it's inexpensive at this point. If your MB is SLI compatible another cheap idea would be to find another card just like the one you have on ebay (verify the part number is the same) and slap that in in SLI. I guarantee you'd run everything in AH on max. Getting a 20% OC on an Intel CPU is easy. PM me if you want details.
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That's a possibility too.
If I get a free/cheap 64 bit OS, I have 2 more gigs of corsair ram I could scavenge out of an unused PC. I could have 6gigs of ram and 2 8800gt's in SLI probably for less than 200 bucks.
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That's a possibility too.
If I get a free/cheap 64 bit OS, I have 2 more gigs of corsair ram I could scavenge out of an unused PC. I could have 6gigs of ram and 2 8800gt's in SLI probably for less than 200 bucks.
Just make sure you're running Dual Channel on the RAM, running 6GB on Single Channel would be slower than 4GB of Dual. My $.02.
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The RAM discussion lack relevance IMO.
If I were you, and I almost have the same setup, except that I have an E8500 and a GTX260 instead of what you have, I'd upgrade the video card, because that's the only thing that's really lacking, to whatever near-top-of-the-line AMD video card you want to pay for, and sit on the rest of your money and wait. Don't worry about the RAM thing because even if you get a 1GB video card, the Win32 addressable memory problem is not going to slow down your system for whatever applications you likely actually run, let alone Aces High. Don't upgrade the OS yet either. Yes you have memory "wasted", but its a sunk cost at this point as you don't gain enough with an OS upgrade or memory upgrade or both to warrant the cost(s). Put that money aside and wait for something worth spending it on to come on out.
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The RAM discussion lack relevance IMO.
If I were you, and I almost have the same setup, except that I have an E8500 and a GTX260 instead of what you have, I'd upgrade the video card, because that's the only thing that's really lacking, to whatever near-top-of-the-line AMD video card you want to pay for, and sit on the rest of your money and wait. Don't worry about the RAM thing because even if you get a 1GB video card, the Win32 addressable memory problem is not going to slow down your system for whatever applications you likely actually run, let alone Aces High. Don't upgrade the OS yet either. Yes you have memory "wasted", but its a sunk cost at this point as you don't gain enough with an OS upgrade or memory upgrade or both to warrant the cost(s). Put that money aside and wait for something worth spending it on to come on out.
That may be the direction I go as this MOBO doesn't support SLI, but I do have free memory to upgrade to 6 gigs and likely a nearly free 64 bit OS.
So only the vid card is a matter of cost.
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definitely upgrade the vc.
Another thing is you may want to over clock that puppy a tad. that would make a huge difference. Get some pointers first.
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I still say the 9800 GTX is a waste and not enough improvement to warrant spending money over. In fact the performance benefit is just like the older SLI improvements that people were referring to as wasteful. Unfortunately the 9800s have slid right off most comparison sites already (because its not much different from the 8800s).
Anandtech has a video benchmark comparison page you should check out:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU/88
Bear in mind when using that that CF means crossfire (two cards) and SLI means scaleable link interface (two cards). Except for the fact that you cant use two cards I would suggest two 460s in SLI which outperform a 480. Probably your PSU wouldnt handle it though. I will suggest Evga because they have the best warranty going.
I would stay away from SSDs. The only thing (mostly) an SSD can do for you is program startup time. After Windows has started a program the first time every startup thereafter will be just as fast as an SSD because of the windows cache.
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Since no one has brought it up, the LENGTH of your Video Card will depend on the Case you have.
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Also something anyone interested in the biggest bang for buck is this test between the 5870 in Crossfire and the 480 in SLI:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/163?vs=159
Of special interest is the effect of the highest resolutions (in this case Crysis Warhead) and the affect of gamers quality and enthusiast shaders (its not even close). However if your monitor can only handle lower resolutions its obvious the Crossfire system is the way to go.
Then of course the temperatures and power consumption and noise levels come into play. The SLI system is much warmer and uses much more power but it is on a par with noise.
@jimson: I know your system wont do more than one card. Thats not a bad thing since you can avoid heat issues and you wont need the bigger PSUs (yours is fine for most situations anyway). I also know there are games out there (RoF for one) that just wont use SLI (not sure about Crossfire). But for AH you just dont need a monster video card.
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take a look at this site. cpus, gpus, hd ratings all in one place. but mainly post the case you are using, some cards may not fit. if you have something like the tempest, than you can almost put a plane in there too. they're big.
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/
semp
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I still say the 9800 GTX is a waste and not enough improvement to warrant spending money over. In fact the performance benefit is just like the older SLI improvements that people were referring to as wasteful. Unfortunately the 9800s have slid right off most comparison sites already (because its not much different from the 8800s).
Anandtech has a video benchmark comparison page you should check out:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU/88
Bear in mind when using that that CF means crossfire (two cards) and SLI means scaleable link interface (two cards). Except for the fact that you cant use two cards I would suggest two 460s in SLI which outperform a 480. Probably your PSU wouldnt handle it though. I will suggest Evga because they have the best warranty going.
I would stay away from SSDs. The only thing (mostly) an SSD can do for you is program startup time. After Windows has started a program the first time every startup thereafter will be just as fast as an SSD because of the windows cache.
Chalenge is right on the videocard the 9800 was a notorious rip-off from Nvidia, essentially a rebadged 8800 performance wise. It would make little sense to purchase one if you already had a 8800. Better to invest a few bucks more to a current generation model.
Chalenge is kinda right about the SSD part too. Windows will cache programs after they've been run or superfetched, SSD will however affect bootup times and that first time run naturally. If your game needs to load a texture for the first time, it might be the time that the stutter kills your aim. However it's anyone's judgement whether that warrants an investment of 200 bucks or not. I wouldn't.
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Also something anyone interested in the biggest bang for buck is this test between the 5870 in Crossfire and the 480 in SLI:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/163?vs=159
Of special interest is the effect of the highest resolutions (in this case Crysis Warhead) and the affect of gamers quality and enthusiast shaders (its not even close). However if your monitor can only handle lower resolutions its obvious the Crossfire system is the way to go.
Then of course the temperatures and power consumption and noise levels come into play. The SLI system is much warmer and uses much more power but it is on a par with noise.
@jimson: I know your system wont do more than one card. Thats not a bad thing since you can avoid heat issues and you wont need the bigger PSUs (yours is fine for most situations anyway). I also know there are games out there (RoF for one) that just wont use SLI (not sure about Crossfire). But for AH you just dont need a monster video card.
i dont see the 300.00-400.00 in extra cost worth it
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I was trying to stay out of this thread.
32 bit Windows OS's can address 4GB of RAM. However, all memory addressable buffers (sound card, video card, ethernet....) are mapped starting at 4GB and then it goes down from there. If you have a 256MB video card, then instantly subtract 256MB from 4GB to find the highest amount of memory the OS will be able to use for applications.
If you have a 1GB video card, subtract 1GB from 4GB (regardless of the physical amount of RAM in the computer), which yeilds 3GB. This means 3GB will be the most system RAM available to the OS for applications.
The reason? When all 32bits of a binary number are set, it is equal to 4GB (4294967296-1). This is the largest directly addressable number for a 32 bit system. However, if Microsoft would properly implement PAE (physical address extensions), then a 32 bit OS could address 64GB of RAM. UNIX OS's have been doing it for years.
That I sure didn't know.
May I ask, If you have a 1gig video card does that not mean the vc is carrying its own memory? If that be the case, then why would it subtract from the ram? Is it because MS allocates so much to Ram for certain things such as sound and Video and when a VC is added it says, okay, we don't need this in RAM?
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getback,
Here is an analogy.
One man has 10 fingers but no toes. He can only count on his fingers. If you give him 5 apples and ask him how many he has, he will count up to 5 and answer correctly "5". If you give him 10 apples, he will answer 10. If you give him 11 apples however, he still answers "10". Easy enough, right? But what happens if in addition to those 10 apples, you give him 4 oranges that he MUST count first, before he starts counting apples? If he has 4 oranges and 10 apples, but you ask him how many apples he has, he will answer "6". With 32 bit windows, the apples are system RAM, oranges are video RAM, and whenever you add more oranges, they have to be counted before you start counting the apples. That's just how it works.
With 64 bit windows, imagine that same dude, but with 1000 hands instead of 2. He can count a hell of a lot of apples and oranges... Probably more than we need for the next few years until memory density and bus bandwidth catches up to address space. Being able to count 400,000,000,000,000,000 apples doesn't help much if it takes you a week to retrieve each one before you can eat it, and that is the reason why although you see 32 bit windows systems shipping with their "max" of 4GB installed, you don't see 64 bit windows systems shipping with the full amount of memory they can theoretically address installed. The memory isn't that dense and it would take too long to transfer all that information over the current memory and cpu bus anyhow. Eventually the subsystems will catch up, but it will take a while since bus bandwidth is lagging the fight right now.
BTW I see this as being the next major impetus to improving home LAN speeds in the next few years... 5 years ago, I could transfer the entire contents of the largest HD on the market from one computer to another in under an hour, over a cheap home lan. Today, transferring an entire 3TB drive from one computer to another over even gigabit ethernet can take a day or longer, depending on the speed of the computers and the quality of the network components end to end. The bottleneck will be information transfer once again, just like in the days of the 56k modems. Next up - fiberoptic home lan starter kits.
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getback,
Here is an analogy.
One man has 10 fingers but no toes. He can only count on his fingers. If you give him 5 apples and ask him how many he has, he will count up to 5 and answer correctly "5". If you give him 10 apples, he will answer 10. If you give him 11 apples however, he still answers "10". Easy enough, right? But what happens if in addition to those 10 apples, you give him 4 oranges that he MUST count first, before he starts counting apples? If he has 4 oranges and 10 apples, but you ask him how many apples he has, he will answer "6". With 32 bit windows, the apples are system RAM, oranges are video RAM, and whenever you add more oranges, they have to be counted before you start counting the apples. That's just how it works.
With 64 bit windows, imagine that same dude, but with 1000 hands instead of 2. He can count a hell of a lot of apples and oranges... Probably more than we need for the next few years until memory density and bus bandwidth catches up to address space. Being able to count 400,000,000,000,000,000 apples doesn't help much if it takes you a week to retrieve each one before you can eat it, and that is the reason why although you see 32 bit windows systems shipping with their "max" of 4GB installed, you don't see 64 bit windows systems shipping with the full amount of memory they can theoretically address installed. The memory isn't that dense and it would take too long to transfer all that information over the current memory and cpu bus anyhow. Eventually the subsystems will catch up, but it will take a while since bus bandwidth is lagging the fight right now.
BTW I see this as being the next major impetus to improving home LAN speeds in the next few years... 5 years ago, I could transfer the entire contents of the largest HD on the market from one computer to another in under an hour, over a cheap home lan. Today, transferring an entire 3TB drive from one computer to another over even gigabit ethernet can take a day or longer, depending on the speed of the computers and the quality of the network components end to end. The bottleneck will be information transfer once again, just like in the days of the 56k modems. Next up - fiberoptic home lan starter kits.
Welp, that's what I think I thought. Doesn't sound logical though.
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I don't remember where I read that but do remember reading it at several sources as I was preparing to OC my CPU. It makes sense when you think about synching the CPU and RAM in that each core operates with relative indepencence. As I'm sure you're aware there are times where a single core is taking almost the entire load. I see this regularily on my system monitor. My CPU is an E6750 2.66 Ghz Core2Duo OC'd to 3.2 Ghz on a 1600 FSB linked and synched to 4 Gb DDR2 800 Kinston HyperX (4-4-4-12). Unfortunately I'm running 32 bit XP Pro and only see 3.25 Gb of my RAM (eVGA 8800 GTS G92 512 Mb GPU) but it does everything I need it to do so I'm happy.
Okay, so I just did a little reading myself and it cleared up a LOT:
The reason the FSB has a multiplier of 4 is because it sends data 4 times a data cycle. If you imagine a sine curve (what a clock cycle looks like on a graph), the FSB will send a signal at the top, bottom, and every time it crosses the x-axis, which equates to a total of 4.
This means that even though a processor may be multi-core'd, the FSB is still considered "Quad Pumped" (aka QDR or Quad Data Rate) because when the data is sent from the bus is independent of the number of cores in operation.
So basically, the reason we want to match the system speed (FSB/4) to the real RAM speed (Mhz/2) is because in a Dual Channel memory system, the RAM will effectively pick up on all 4 data cycles of the FSB (each channel will pick up 2 of the 4).
FSB sends out 4 bits (QUAD DATA RATE) of data in one cycle (200Mhz x 4 = 800)
-DDR (DUAL DATA RATE) channel one picks up 2 bits of data in one cycle (200Mhz x 2 = 400)
-DDR channel two picks up the other 2 bits of data in one cycle (200Mhz x 2 = 400)
And if I'm understanding correctly, in a single channel memory situation, you want your true RAM speed to match the FSB speed/2 because:
FSB sends out 4 bits of data in one cycle (200Mhz x 4 = 800Mhz)
-Single DDR channel picks up 2 bits in one cycle (400Mhz x 2 = 800Mhz)
-Single DDR channel picks up 2 bits in another cycle (400Mhz x2 = 800Mhz)
So effectively, by the time the FSB has finished it's cycle, the memory has gone through 2 cycles to compensate for only being able to pick up 2 bits at a time. Kind of interesting stuff, isn't it?
However, now that the memory controllers built into all the new Intel chips, Core i3', i5, i7, and i9, (which AMD has been doing for some time under the name of Hyper Transport) my understanding is that this will all go out the window, and ultimately faster RAM means better performance.
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That I sure didn't know.
May I ask, If you have a 1gig video card does that not mean the vc is carrying its own memory? If that be the case, then why would it subtract from the ram? Is it because MS allocates so much to Ram for certain things such as sound and Video and when a VC is added it says, okay, we don't need this in RAM?
I am not sure I understood eagls analogy. I suck at them.
Ok, the problem is how does the CPU directly address the RAM on the video card? The RAM on the video card has to be memory mapped so the CPU can address it directly. This is how a lot of performance is gained for video cards. Same with any hardware buffer. The memory on the local device has to be given a physical memory address so the CPU can read/write data from/to it.
In a 32 bit operating system, the highest physical address the CPU can address is 4GB. So, during the initilization of all the devices in the computer, any memory that needs to be mapped so the CPU can access it directly, is placed starting at the 4GB boundary and proceeds downward.
BIOS ROMS, on add-on cards, also have to be memory mapped so the CPU can run the BIOS code. However, most of the BIOS roms will unmap themselves after they run, unless they need to BIOS code to be present at all times, then they stay loaded at the memory address they were assigned.
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I am not sure I understood eagls analogy. I suck at them.
Ok, the problem is how does the CPU directly address the RAM on the video card? The RAM on the video card has to be memory mapped so the CPU can address it directly. This is how a lot of performance is gained for video cards. Same with any hardware buffer. The memory on the local device has to be given a physical memory address so the CPU can read/write data from/to it.
In a 32 bit operating system, the highest physical address the CPU can address is 4GB. So, during the initilization of all the devices in the computer, any memory that needs to be mapped so the CPU can access it directly, is placed starting at the 4GB boundary and proceeds downward.
BIOS ROMS, on add-on cards, also have to be memory mapped so the CPU can run the BIOS code. However, most of the BIOS roms will unmap themselves after they run, unless they need to BIOS code to be present at all times, then they stay loaded at the memory address they were assigned.
Okay, I was off a notch on my thinking. Its starting to sink in though.
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i dont see the 300.00-400.00 in extra cost worth it
Well look at it this way. If you buy a $200 card you will be happy for about a year or a little more. Then you will either upgrade with a second card just like it or a brand new better card. Sometimes when you want SLI you cant find the exact same card so you have to weigh buying two exact same cards or buy a brand new better card. Right now the 2## cards are cheaper because of the Fermis (4## series) but the Fermis are much better scale-wise than any previous series. You might think that $450 for a 480 is a lot of money and you would be right. You could also spend $700 on the latest 5970 for about the same performance. I would bet that a 480 or 5970 either one will not have to be replaced for at least two years and you could very easily push that further (especially with an Evga warranty should any card go bad).
To put an ugly rumor to bed... the 480s I am running now (not the original releases) run at the same temperature and noise level as 8800 GTs and my systems boot faster now too.
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Now I find something that completely shows the opposite about memory "sync-ing..."
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2146/6
EDIT:
And it seems this is why!
http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic9046.html
It makes sense. If you go over sync speed, other components can access the RAM while the processor is not. Therefor, you get a speed boost! :cool:
No performance loss for going over sync speed, but it's how much performance you gain per dollar that is in question.
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Well look at it this way. If you buy a $200 card you will be happy for about a year or a little more. Then you will either upgrade with a second card just like it or a brand new better card. Sometimes when you want SLI you cant find the exact same card so you have to weigh buying two exact same cards or buy a brand new better card. Right now the 2## cards are cheaper because of the Fermis (4## series) but the Fermis are much better scale-wise than any previous series. You might think that $450 for a 480 is a lot of money and you would be right. You could also spend $700 on the latest 5970 for about the same performance. I would bet that a 480 or 5970 either one will not have to be replaced for at least two years and you could very easily push that further (especially with an Evga warranty should any card go bad).
To put an ugly rumor to bed... the 480s I am running now (not the original releases) run at the same temperature and noise level as 8800 GTs and my systems boot faster now too.
I have a late model 8800gt and it is the same chipset as the 9800, it is just about the same card. I would not upgrade to a 9800.
Video card prices are finally coming down, I would expect lower prices yet and christmas is coming. I also read demand is down for PC's and etc. Demand is suppose to stay soft for ahile, this is good for us the consumer. (If what I read is true)
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You guys are forgetting the point here.. he doesn't want the hassle of overclocking, and all of that.
Jimson, really it all comes down to how much money you want to spend, and what you want to use it for.
Got $1000? Get a new motherboard, i7 setup, 12GB RAM, and an ATI5850 and Win7 Home Premium 64bit.
Got a couple hundred bucks? You can get a nice little upgrade going to an ATI 5830 or 5850.
If all you use the computer for is basic computer stuff (email, www, etc) and Aces High, then don't bother upgrading the Operating System, as that extra 750MB of Ram isn't going to make THAT MUCH of a difference. If you DO decide to up the Ram further, then Win7 Home Premium 64bit is the way to go. Don't let the name fool you, the "Ultimate" version really offers little more than Home Premium, and you're likely to find you won't even use those options.
I'll use Aces High as a benchmark here with my system. I had the following:
- ASRock G43Twins-FullHD Motherboard
- Intel E7400 C2D (2.8GHZ, slightly OC to 3.0GHZ)
- 4GB DDR3 1066 RAM
- 9800GTX+ Video Card
- USB Turtle Beach Headphones.. nothing fancy about the hard drives or anything else
- Win XP Home (32bit)
I was able to handle Aces High at 512 textures sliders about 2/3 of the way to max and no shadows and run a steady 55-60FPS at 1920X1200 resolution. 1024 (hires) textures didn't seem to affect FR too much until I flew into a lot of action, fire, etc in which it would drop down to 25-30 at times. Higher sliders dropped it down to 40 or so consistently, and shadows REALLY killed things. This is all with a notch of AA in AH settings. It actually seemed to perform slightly worse by disabling AA which doesn't make sense, but perhaps it liked to be stressed... and likewise 2 notches was too much for it... but 1 notch was JUST RIGHT.
Then I upgraded to Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit. Didn't really see much of a performance increase in Aces High. I would have to say... about the same.
Unless you specifically WANT TO upgrade to Windows 7, I can't really see a reason to recommend it unless you want to up the ram to 8GB or more... but I don't believe even that will make a significant increase in AH performance.
In a 32 bit operating system, the highest physical address the CPU can address is 4GB. So, during the initilization of all the devices in the computer, any memory that needs to be mapped so the CPU can access it directly, is placed starting at the 4GB boundary and proceeds downward.
BIOS ROMS, on add-on cards, also have to be memory mapped so the CPU can run the BIOS code.
I have watched this thread, and have to disagree with ya Tigger29, in regards to whether Win7 64 bit would be of a great benefit or not for Jimson.....
I would strongly suggest he upgrade to the Win7 Pro 64 bit .... he will benefit from the full use of his 4 gigs of ram plus his use of his video ram..... his computer specs he listed:
EVGA 512-P3-N802-AR GeForce 8800GT Superclocked 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card
GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard
E8400 cpu
PC Power & Cooling S75QB 750W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply
Pioneer 20X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE Model DVR-115DBK
Creative 70SB073A00000 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST3250310NS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
CORSAIR XMS2 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X4096-6400C5
would see somewhat of a significant increase on the Win7 64 bit OS verses what he is seeing on the WinXP 32 bit OS....
I have witnessed 3 different builds , that showed wonderful increases just by upgrading the OS and using the existing PC components.... I built a PC with all 3rd or 4th generation PC parts and stuck Win7 64 bit on the HD and maxed out all settings with 75 fps and hires 1024 textures and shadows on 2048...
to where on the same pc using winxp 32 pro it fell down to 58 to 61 fps in light action..... and down to mid 40s in hvy action. on a 9500GT 512 meg DDR3 vidcard and 3 gigs of ram with an AMD opteron185 Dualcore 2.8 ghz cpu and using onboard sound......
my own PC gets a solid 5 to 6 FPS increase from 69/70 in winXP pro.... to solid 75 FPS in win 7 Ult 64 bit with my ASUS AMD athlon X2 6400+ 3.2 ghz dual core and 4 gigs corsair XMS2 pc6400 ram and creative xtremegamer prof soundcard and Asus 3870 512 meg DDR4 video PC P&C 750watt silencer PSU and Antec 900 case.....with same settings.... and I have 4 HD's in it 2 DVD DL RWs etc...and I built it like 3 or so yrs ago....... it still works great ( knocking on wood heheh )
Jimson,
if you can get ya hands on Win7 Pro 64 bit , go for it....... you'll most likely see an improvement... and may not even experience any flickering or drops for the most part . ( unless you use like 1900 x 1200 screen res )...... say 1600 or lower like me 1280 x 1024 and you be fine I'd think.....
if you can get a better video card, then do that too..... but comparing that old pc I throwed together to your current PC parts.. who should be able to smoke the results I got from that thrown together PC> with ease....
best of luck to ya...
hope this helps...
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I have watched this thread, and have to disagree with ya Tigger29, in regards to whether Win7 64 bit would be of a great benefit or not for Jimson.....
I would strongly suggest he upgrade to the Win7 Pro 64 bit .... he will benefit from the full use of his 4 gigs of ram plus his use of his video ram..... his computer specs he listed:
EVGA 512-P3-N802-AR GeForce 8800GT Superclocked 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card
GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard
E8400 cpu
PC Power & Cooling S75QB 750W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply
Pioneer 20X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE Model DVR-115DBK
Creative 70SB073A00000 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST3250310NS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
CORSAIR XMS2 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X4096-6400C5
would see somewhat of a significant increase on the Win7 64 bit OS verses what he is seeing on the WinXP 32 bit OS....
I have witnessed 3 different builds , that showed wonderful increases just by upgrading the OS and using the existing PC components.... I built a PC with all 3rd or 4th generation PC parts and stuck Win7 64 bit on the HD and maxed out all settings with 75 fps and hires 1024 textures and shadows on 2048...
to where on the same pc using winxp 32 pro it fell down to 58 to 61 fps in light action..... and down to mid 40s in hvy action. on a 9500GT 512 meg DDR3 vidcard and 3 gigs of ram with an AMD opteron185 Dualcore 2.8 ghz cpu and using onboard sound......
my own PC gets a solid 5 to 6 FPS increase from 69/70 in winXP pro.... to solid 75 FPS in win 7 Ult 64 bit with my ASUS AMD athlon X2 6400+ 3.2 ghz dual core and 4 gigs corsair XMS2 pc6400 ram and creative xtremegamer prof soundcard and Asus 3870 512 meg DDR4 video PC P&C 750watt silencer PSU and Antec 900 case.....with same settings.... and I have 4 HD's in it 2 DVD DL RWs etc...and I built it like 3 or so yrs ago....... it still works great ( knocking on wood heheh )
Jimson,
if you can get ya hands on Win7 Pro 64 bit , go for it....... you'll most likely see an improvement... and may not even experience any flickering or drops for the most part . ( unless you use like 1900 x 1200 screen res )...... say 1600 or lower like me 1280 x 1024 and you be fine I'd think.....
if you can get a better video card, then do that too..... but comparing that old pc I throwed together to your current PC parts.. who should be able to smoke the results I got from that thrown together PC> with ease....
best of luck to ya...
hope this helps...
That's a bit odd since every benchmark to date shows XP to have a better performance on dx9 titles. Are you sure you didn't compare a 3-year old XP installation to a fresh Win7? :)
Also as far as AH2 goes, no user will be limited by that missing 700-800mb of ram at 32 bits. You have to run several 32-bit apps on top of eachoters to ever saturate 3gibs.
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fresh installs on 2 seperate HDs, Rip, each HD has dual boot capacity with winxp pro and win7 ult 64 bit ( correction..... I did finally reformat and removed winxp from the donated parts pc and reinstalled just win7 64 when i buttoned it up and packaged it up finally )
on both the old donated pc parts pc and on my own pc....
now my older winxp HD ( the original one ) which is bogged way down pretty good 320 gig. only 34 gig free, but still i keep it serviced/tweaked. i am only getting around 52 with everything on ...... turn the shadows down to 1024 size in advance and i get back to 65 fps...
but seriously, the performace increase is there
am wondering if HTC has the info....... didn't they gather the data of our pc performace/components/settings a while back during one of these newer versions?
I posted those same results, as I posted just now ( above ) back when I did all the comparisons .....
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That does seem odd TC since 32 bit apps (AH) can't access more than 2 Gb of RAM anyway. The only thing that could explain it is if you had other processes running in the background or if you have too many system processes running and they're already stealing over 1 Gb of RAM (unlikely).
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Jimson,
if you can get ya hands on Win7 Pro 64 bit , go for it....... you'll most likely see an improvement... and may not even experience any flickering or drops for the most part . ( unless you use like 1900 x 1200 screen res )...... say 1600 or lower like me 1280 x 1024 and you be fine I'd think.....
if you can get a better video card, then do that too..... but comparing that old pc I throwed together to your current PC parts.. who should be able to smoke the results I got from that thrown together PC> with ease....
best of luck to ya...
hope this helps...
I got lost on a lot of the techno-speak in this thread, but if (and at the time I started this, it seemed a slam dunk) I do get the free copy of win7 64 bit, I won't be limited to the 4gigs of ram.
I found the extra ram that I thought I had installed in another pc. It was actually sitting in a cabinet.
It is 2 1gb sticks of Corsair brand, same brand as I currently have 2 2gb sticks installed, so It's possible that I could at no to very minimal cost (if the guy comes through, I'll send him postage and beer money) have a Win7 64 bit system with 6 gb of ram (if it's all compatible), plus the video card memory, new video card or not.
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That does seem odd TC since 32 bit apps (AH) can't access more than 2 Gb of RAM anyway. The only thing that could explain it is if you had other processes running in the background or if you have too many system processes running and they're already stealing over 1 Gb of RAM (unlikely).
nope, I am very picky about keeping processes down on systems...... and keeping pagefiles in use down....
my system on winxp runs AH with total of 18 processes running.. sitting idle I am 15 to 17 processes and pagefile use is around 217 max(idle) most times.......
I would have to guess that most people just load and go, and have all sorts of stuff loaded up in both winXP and in windows 7..... but for the (5) windows 7 64 bit OS's I have loaded up, they all have performed better than the winXP OS they replaced....... and I would make the assumption at least 2 of those prob had a large process list of like 30 to 35 in winXP.......
we all got our views...... but I have only seen improvements with Windows 7 64 bit, over the 32 bit WinXP OS..... even on other's systems I loaded, who do not use any 64 bit apps.......
the DeLL monitor driver from winXP shorts my system 5 fps on the refresh rate verses the win7 DeLL monitor driver which lets me go to 75 hz verse 70 hz in winXP .........
one thing though....... I came to the conclusion of going by my own "real world" results rather than going by what somone has posted in a report on some online pc magizine..... I have found that most times I get better or more than what most articles claim....... the internet has become so ridiculous it aint funny...... for every thing you find written to be true on the internet, you will find a matching written false contradiction to it.......
heya Jimson, if it helps, great...... I think it will......
but you will not know unless you give it a try...... good luck , either way :cheers:
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My personal Windows XP system will run rampant all over the top of any Windows 7 system (64 or 32 bit).
Any decently cleaned up Windows XP system will run Aces High better than any Windows 7 system can.
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My personal Windows XP system will run rampant all over the top of any Windows 7 system (64 or 32 bit).
Any decently cleaned up Windows XP system will run Aces High better than any Windows 7 system can.
Turning of Windows 7 Aero helps free up a lot of resources, I've noticed. I find it interesting that some games automatically switch it to Basic while others will not. Aces High is one that does not, any reason as to why?
I actually noticed no performance gain or loss when switching to Windows 7. I like the functionality of Windows 7 a lot more as well. I know there is a lot of negativity around the whole "Vista" era of the Windows operating system, but I personally prefer it over XP now (Even with only 2 GB of RAM!).
P.S. The system seems to work a lot smoother and snappier when using ReadyBoost. I dedicated a 4GB flash drive to it. My HDD is clearly the weakest link in my system, and the caching on that flash drive has sped up everything. Very nice.
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EVGA 512-P3-N802-AR GeForce 8800GT Superclocked 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card
I upgraded from a Palit GeForce 8800GT 512MB to Radeon 4870, which I bought second hand, and the performance advantage in AH is clear. With the 4870 I can have everything maxed at 1920x1200 resolution when 8800GT was running AH smoothly with approx. 60% graphics settings. The cost was 58 euros (including 18 euros from an Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 heat sink for complete silent operation). I think it was a bargain when compared to the performance increase.
Otherwise my system is pretty much the same as yours, except that I have a E6550 processor.
Only game which I have problems currently is Rise of Flight, which would really need a new 4+ core processor to run smoothly. Even DCS: Black Shark runs great with the current system.
The OS is Windows 7 and I didn't notice any performance hit in games when I switched from the Win XP. I too much prefer the Win 7 over XP.