Best upgrade from a 6600GT in a P4?

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rbanzai

Limp Gawd
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Jan 12, 2007
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I have a P4 3.2 with 1 gig of RAM running a 6600GT. It will still be a while before I move on to a newer machine and I'm curious if anyone can suggest a video card that would be the most effective and efficient upgrade.

I used to play Oblivion on this machine and typically had to turn most everything down pretty far to keep it above 20 fps while maintaining a decent res (1024x768). I'm not sure where the most serious bottleneck is with this system so I'm not going to try to stuff the biggest video card on the block into it.

I'm more interested in a best bang for the buck upgrade, something that would be a noticeable improvement over Ye Olde 6600GT with spending money on excess talent that would be wasted in this older system.

I see that new 9600GT is out and it seems pretty cool but not terribly far in price from the 8800GT. I've also seen mention of the older 8800GS but it's just hard to tell which of these (or others) would make the most sense in my particular box.

Thanks for any feedback. I'm tempted to reinstall Oblivion but I just don't want to go back to the old poor performance with the 6600GT. :p
 
Does your motherboard have an AGP slot or is it PCI-Express?
If you want to upgrade your graphics card, you need to have 2GB of ram in order to properly run newer games, even Oblivion.
I'm guessing you're on a CRT, what is it's best resolution? By best, I mean one at which there is not much flicker which is impacted by the refresh rate used. For example, my monitor supports 1600x1200 but at a measly 60hz, so I do notice some flicker.
 
Well the 8800GS is pretty new but I think the 9600GT just obsoleted it. It would probably be a good choice, however thats only the case if you're on PCIe, if you're on AGP then it would probably be the 3850.
 
If your AGP, that 3850 is your only good bet, but you better grab one soon, they seem to have only made a few of them and they are going rather quickly.
 
I would not advise you to spend ~200 on an AGP 3850 as it would be overkill if you can only game at 1280x1024. At this resolution, your cpu will be holding you back, even if you were able to turn up some settings using the 3850, it still would not be smooth as your CPU would be playing catch-up with the graphics. The x1950 pro agp would be a much more economical choice, spend the rest of the cash on more ram.
 
I would totally agree with this. A 6600GT to an X1950Pro is a big jump in performance. You can get a X1950 Pro for about $150 or less online at some places.

skadebo said:
I would not advise you to spend ~200 on an AGP 3850 as it would be overkill if you can only game at 1280x1024. At this resolution, your cpu will be holding you back, even if you were able to turn up some settings using the 3850, it still would not be smooth as your CPU would be playing catch-up with the graphics. The x1950 pro agp would be a much more economical choice, spend the rest of the cash on more ram.
Click to expand...
 
rbanzai said:
I am on PCI-e and use a Hanns-G flat panel at 1440x900.
Click to expand...

That resolution leans towards the CPU even more than 1280x1024. Do you want to buy new or used? If used, definitely get the x1950 pro and save some money. If new, then the 3850 256mb would be the best choice as the x1950 pro is almost the same price.

Remember, though, 2gb of ram is very important. The reason I stress this is because I was on an x800xt with 1gb of ram playing older games such as FEAR and Quake 4. An increase to 2GB of ram smoothed things out and I was actually able to turn up even more settings in FEAR. I can only imagine how newer games would fare on 1GB.
 
Thank you for the info. I'm surprised that there are no Nvidia cards that might suit my situation but perhaps I am so far behind they have progressed past the niche that the 3850 inhabits.

I will check to see how my RAM slots are currently populated and look at the cost of moving to 2gb.
 
Yeah, I think it's only at the 3850 256mb version that there isn't any real competition, right after that, everything starts trading blows. I personally find it very complicated what with the 9600GT, 3870, 3850 512MB, 8800GS, and the 8800GT 512 and all of their respective and fluctuating prices.
 
Yeah, I think it's only at the 3850 256mb version that there isn't any real competition, right after that, everything starts trading blows. I personally find it very complicated what with the 9600GT, 3870, 3850 512MB, 8800GS, and the 8800GT 512 and all of their respective and fluctuating prices.
 
When I look at newegg's pricing I see that the price of a 3850 is within about $20 of the new 9600GT. The 3850 I'd probably go for (from Diamond) is $169, just $10 less than the 9600GT. Unless there is a reason anyone can think of why I should avoid the 9600GT I think that one makes more sense.

Either way I expect the improvement over my wheezy old 6600GT should be noticeable. :)
 
I would probably get a 3850 512 AGP. I see that you are not going to be building a new comp soon and you will see a HUGE increase in peformance with the 3850. as far as 2gigs of ram are concerned It does make an impact but no nearly as much as a new vid card.

I recently took 1 gig out of my system to put in a friends system till they get more ram.(they only had 256mb running XP eeek!) I didn't see much difference...I may get a few more jerky movements but thats all, and going to a 512mb video card would probably help that.
 
FalconSS said:
I would probably get a 3850 512 AGP. I see that you are not going to be building a new comp soon and you will see a HUGE increase in peformance with the 3850. as far as 2gigs of ram are concerned It does make an impact but no nearly as much as a new vid card.

I recently took 1 gig out of my system to put in a friends system till they get more ram.(they only had 256mb running XP eeek!) I didn't see much difference...I may get a few more jerky movements but thats all, and going to a 512mb video card would probably help that.
Click to expand...

He is on PCIe not AGP. The cheapest 3850 at the newegg is $149 and the cheapest 9600gt is $179. However right now the 9600gt is much closer to performance of the 3870 and sometimes better especially since its got much memory available. I would spend the extra $30 for the 9600gt.
 
I have a like new ATI x1950xtx 512mb pci-e card for $120 shipped. This card was $450 like a little over a year ago. Will be a big boost compared to a 6600gt.
 
Heh. I can see it will just come down to a choice between the two. Either way I don't think I can go wrong. I will also be getting that second gig of RAM.

This seems to be a pretty cost effective way of getting the most out of my investment on this machine and should keep me from jumping too soon at a new one.

Thanks again for the info, folks!
 
9600GT or 3870 for pcie - you can't go wrong with either and they're just a few dollars apart. It just depends if you want nVidia or ATI.

Don't let anyone tell you that either card is too powerful for your resolution - it's always better to have a bit too much then not enough. Either card will last you until you're ready to do a full upgrade of your system, just remember that tomorrow's games will want more power than today's, and you still won't be able to run Crysis at maximum settings.
 
The P4 is single core but multithreaded, it should be okay to go all the way for an 8800GT, they are only $10-20 more than 8800GS/9600GT prices. NCIXUS.com has them for $180
 
I would say:

1. X1950 Pro - If you can find this cheap. I saw somewhere was selling it for only $109. But, dont't remember where.
2. 256MB HD3850 is a good option for $150
3. Geforce 9600GT for $180 is also a good option.
 
I disagree with the people in this thread telling you to go for the lower bracket cards. If a 9600GT is $180 you might as well buy the Galaxy 8800GT with the Zalman cooler for $189!

And if you really want to keep playing Oblivion, the 8800GT will make it run smooth as butter on max settings with 2GBs of custom textures from Qarl's texture pack, and loaded with as many mods and full viewing distance addons as you want. An 8800GT will make that P4 feel like a new computer.
 
Can you fill out your sig? It'd be useful to know which exact p4 you're using. ddr1 or 2? Since you're pcie, I'm inclined to believe ddr2, but..

socket 775? 478? Were there any 478's with pcie even?

For sure, the 6600gt is a little long in the tooth, but so are the other components. And for the price to upgrade those to new-era parts, it'd be totally worth it to upgrade that. d9gmh is still relatively cheap (won't stay that way for long!) so it might be a good idea to pick up 2x1gb of that. And cpu, if you're on 775 platform already, go for a e2000 series cpu. Would bring you a world's improvement over the p4 3.2.
 
Sorry about that. My system is so low end I thought it would look dorky to add it to my sig. It's in there now.

I have 4 256 meg chips so I will have to toss all those to go up to two gigs. I need to check to see the maximum chip size for each slot before I buy anything.

I didn't know I could upgrade the CPU so easily. I did some benchmarking in Sandra and it seems that all the Core 2 Duo chips use less power while being at least 3 times faster. So will anything that fits socket 775 work, or will I face limitations from the Dell motherboard?

It's ok if I can't upgrade the CPU. I think I'll get plenty of improvement even from the ATI card, let alone the beefier Nvidia ones.

EDIT: Hmmm. My signature won't display. Ah well, here's the info: Dell 4700 P4 3.2 Prescott 775 - FSB 800 - 1gig DDR2 -NV 6600GT
 
rbanzai said:
Sorry about that. My system is so low end I thought it would look dorky to add it to my sig. It's in there now.

I have 4 256 meg chips so I will have to toss all those to go up to two gigs. I need to check to see the maximum chip size for each slot before I buy anything.

I didn't know I could upgrade the CPU so easily. I did some benchmarking in Sandra and it seems that all the Core 2 Duo chips use less power while being at least 3 times faster. So will anything that fits socket 775 work, or will I face limitations from the Dell motherboard?

It's ok if I can't upgrade the CPU. I think I'll get plenty of improvement even from the ATI card, let alone the beefier Nvidia ones.

EDIT: Hmmm. My signature won't display. Ah well, here's the info: Dell 4700 P4 3.2 Prescott 775 - FSB 800 - 1gig DDR2 -NV 6600GT
Click to expand...

There's a BIOS update that gives support for 'newer processors'. I'd expect that the older processors with 800Mhz FSB should work. As far as the memory goes, you won't have a problem with 1GB DIMMs - the system supports up to 4GB of memory. 2GB (2x1GB) of DDR2 533 memory is really cheap these days - that would bring you up to the 3GB that XP32 supports. For now I'd put in two of the 256MB modules (if they are DDR2), that will help a bit, you can't put in all four because you have a total of 4 memory slots, and two are already populated.
 
hmm you have the 915g chipset, which I'm pretty sure doesn't support c2d's unfortunately
 
It's ok if I can't upgrade the CPU. I wasn't really thinking about that anyway. More along the lines of spending a couple hundred bucks to squeeze more life out of the current machine, and I think the extra gig of RAM and video card will do it.

I just opened the case to make sure there would be room for a bigger card. Dell cases can be kind of oddball. It looks like I can get a card nine inches long in the PCIe slot, and the slot next to it is empty if I get one of those double slot types. I replaced the Dell PSU with a 430W model from Thermaltake last year so I should have enough juice, and it has the 6 pin PCI connector on it. I need to check the measurements on the cards I'm thinking of in case that rules any of them out and then do some cost comparisons from there. Even if I just lowball it and get the cheapest one of these I can find it will still be a big improvement over the 6600GT.
 
My friend upgraded from a p4 2.8ghz prescott to a c2d e6400, but kept the same x1650 for a few days. FPS in cs:s more than doubled.
 
rbanzai said:
It's ok if I can't upgrade the CPU. I wasn't really thinking about that anyway. More along the lines of spending a couple hundred bucks to squeeze more life out of the current machine, and I think the extra gig of RAM and video card will do it.

I just opened the case to make sure there would be room for a bigger card. Dell cases can be kind of oddball. It looks like I can get a card nine inches long in the PCIe slot, and the slot next to it is empty if I get one of those double slot types. I replaced the Dell PSU with a 430W model from Thermaltake last year so I should have enough juice, and it has the 6 pin PCI connector on it. I need to check the measurements on the cards I'm thinking of in case that rules any of them out and then do some cost comparisons from there. Even if I just lowball it and get the cheapest one of these I can find it will still be a big improvement over the 6600GT.
Click to expand...


You can Significantly upgrade your System for Cheap;

Here is an example for $200; (new egg)

Qty. Product Description Savings Total Price

Crucial 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Dual Channel Kit
Item #: N82E16820146526
$41.99

Foxconn 945P7AA-8KS2 LGA 775 Intel 945P ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Item #: N82E16813186070
$29.99

Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 Allendale 2.2GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80557E4500 - Retail
Item #: N82E16819115031
$124.99


Subtotal: $196.97

Add a $180 9600GT or 8800GT and you are Golden for right under $400.

Price that Against adding the Video Card and Ram for your system..
 
I've been eyeing that 4500 Allendale as an upgrade from my 4400+ Athlon64x2....

The price/performance is hard to ignore!!
 
Wow, that's crazy! I love how the new chips use like 30W less power than my old P4.

I will definitely go for the RAM today, do my video card pricing as well. I'm unsure about the MB swap. This is a Dell and I wouldn't want to run up against a problem with the proprietary case or connectors.

But I'll agree that it would be an amazing bang for the buck.
 
rbanzai said:
Wow, that's crazy! I love how the new chips use like 30W less power than my old P4.

I will definitely go for the RAM today, do my video card pricing as well. I'm unsure about the MB swap. This is a Dell and I wouldn't want to run up against a problem with the proprietary case or connectors.

But I'll agree that it would be an amazing bang for the buck.
Click to expand...


Shouldnt be much of a problem, If you could post up the Model number or a pic of the inside of the case, we could probably help you on the MB decision.
 
It's the Dell Dimension 4700 from my sig. It's the kind with the 800 FSB, not the slower earlier model.

Checking video card prices at Newegg (my favorite for buying equipment) there is only a $10 difference between the cheapest 3850 and the new 9600GT, one from EVGA and one from BFG. I think EVGA has an upgrade program so perhaps I will go with that one anticipating when I go to a new system. I don't really want to stretch much further than that to go up to the 8800GT. Trying to fight cost creep! :) And I don't want to buy too much of a boomer video card if I don't go for the MB/CPU upgrade.

This appears to be the perfect time to breathe new life into this machine.
 
rbanzai said:
It's the Dell Dimension 4700 from my sig. It's the kind with the 800 FSB, not the slower earlier model.

Checking video card prices at Newegg (my favorite for buying equipment) there is only a $10 difference between the cheapest 3850 and the new 9600GT, one from EVGA and one from BFG. I think EVGA has an upgrade program so perhaps I will go with that one anticipating when I go to a new system. I don't really want to stretch much further than that to go up to the 8800GT. Trying to fight cost creep! :) And I don't want to buy too much of a boomer video card if I don't go for the MB/CPU upgrade.

This appears to be the perfect time to breathe new life into this machine.
Click to expand...

Does your MB Look like this?;

M3918-1.jpg


If So, any MicroATX Motherboard (Like the Foxcon below) will work out for you.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186112
 
So I installed my 2 gigs and the 9600GT and my 3dMark06 went from around 1700 to 5000. :D

I'm looking forward to testing it with some of my games now. Thanks again for all the info.
 
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