Can Your Old Athlon 64 Still Game?

[dokk2]

Great article,even tho I am beyond that level cpu,,gpu,etc it is always interesting to see how the other person lives and ,the opportunity to learn is priceless..
Ahemm,,for those of you who are thinking of buying Far Cry 2 ,,I suggest that you check out the Ubisoft forums ,,BEFORE,,you spend your hard earned $$$,otherwise you are in for a big surprise,don't say you weren't warned,I was lucky,I have a buddy who tests for tech reasons so I got to play with it on his system,they are not getting no $50.00 out of me for that ,and I have been playing FPS games since the original Wolfenstien
what a dissapointment..

 

[peteroy]

I still use a Pentium 4 2.8Ghz 1MB Hyperthreading Socket 478 with 2GB and 6800GT AGP.

I want to buy Core i7 when it comes out.

 

[Morphuess]

Good article. I found some great relevance, as just a week ago I upgraded my AM2 5600+ system from a x1950 to a 4850. It's great to know that my CPU won't be holding me back for some time. My only complaint (a minor one) is that a lot of the gaming benchmarks are for some pretty old games, some more than 2 years old. It would have been nice to see benchmarks for a few more new games other COD4 and the obligatory Crysis.

 

[-Fran-]

Thanks for the article TH!

It really supports my home-brew benchies i posted on the forums a while ago comparing my "aging" X1800XL and the 4850 when it first appeared and a friend of mine got it (then myself). My Athlon64 X2 4400+ @2.4GHz, 2GB (DDR400 4x512MB CAS2) can stand having the 4850 with no major penalties, except in Crysis, wich is a poorly CPU optimized game. Now i've been gaming on Vista and i've seen even more FPS increases in "old" games (DX8.x) so you could also do a Vista SP1 vs XP SP3 games match to see if there's any difference (i say i have smoother gameplay on Vista).

Thanks again for the article =)

Esop!

 

[Candew]

I have recently upgraded the CPU on my Asus A8N-E from the X2 3800+ to an Opteron 180 (2.0 GHz to 2.4 GHz; 512 to 2Mb cache). I am using an 8800 GTS. As I only have a 4:3 19 inch monitor, with the resolutions I game at, this gives me all the bells and whistles I need (for now).

 

[michaelahess]

I was running 3 athlon 64 3700+ machines all with 2GB ram and x1800xtx cards for the last 3 years.They finally gave in with the new Stalker and farcry2.

I just replaced my primary rig with a phenom qc 9950 black with 4GB DDR2 and a 4850. What a change! I was going to get the 4870 but just couldn't get over the price, I must say I'm not dissapointed.

I can run all the new games on my 22" monitor at 1680x1050 with everything maxed and no slowdowns. And by the time this rig slows down, a new gen of video cards will be out and I can upgrade cheaper than it woulda cost for the 4870.

Finally a "middle of the road" pc can handle any current game maxed, it only took 15 years for hardware to catch up to games!

 

[bounty]

btw I love that you can sort the CPU charts by price range, say 100-200 dollar range, then look at Dual v Tri v Quad. It will be interesting to see the E7200 v.s. X4 9600 Black in 3 years. Will the extra cores be a factor by the time we have DX11 games?

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

I had an old 185 Opteron on 939 clocked up to 3 GHz. For whatever reason the 939 processors are slightly faster clock for clock than the AM2 procs. The 2GBs of value select ram clocked up to 460mhz @ 3 3 3 8 scored 5.9 in vista. I stupidly switched to a 3 Ghz core 2 duo thinking it would make a dif. in the only game that ran slow, crysis. I clocked it up to 3.5 GHz.. didn't make a dif... then I went quad... still didn't make a dif... That 939 system is beating most all dual core AM2 systems clocked under 3.2 Ghz. Only downside to the whole thing is the 185 cost $300 at the time... but it's kept that old comp still ranking as highend for quite some time now.

 

[shoota]

Nice article Paul. Good to see something different around here

 

[Guest]

Some of you seem kinda spoiled. I'm still using a socket-A Athlon 3000+ (2.16GHz) 333fsb with 2x512 ram (and that's not dual channel) and a slightly O/C'd 7800GS (AGP! *GASP*). I run Crysis at 1024x768 at the lowest settings. Yes, it's choppy at times, but I survive. My last vid card was the infamous Radeon 9700pro that just wasn't hacking it in HL2/EP1 and 2. Besides the HL2 games I also play BF2 and CS:Source on a semi-regular basis. I will probably upgrade around tax rebate time next year. I'm eyeballing a 775 platform with perhaps the E8500 Wolfdale, 2GB (single stick) 1066 and a GTX260. What do you think? If I'm feeling rich I'll also buy the WD velociraptor 300GB, but it's hard to justify.

 

[anartik]

I guess it depends on your budget and gaming expectations... I tried similar routes and ended up just building a new Intel system that took me from the 8000 - 14000 range in 3dMark. My old system was a socket 939 A8N32SLI mobo with Athlon 4400X2 (1mb x 2 L2) OC'd to 2.4, 2gb's of Corsair 2 CAS DDR and a Radeon 1900XTX 512mb. I got a couple good years out of it and I played pretty much everything in FPS like Battlefield, Quakewars, Crysis, Farcry, COD4 etc at medium-high settings at 1600x1200. I put in a 8800GTX and it did not buy much (~8000->9000 3dmark). With Rampage Formula X48, 4GB DDR2 1066, E8500 at 4.3 and the same OC'd 8800GTX video card it is like flying vs. walking (and now at 1920). IMO trying to beef up an old single core or even dual core 939 system is a waste of time and money for gaming. I just passed on the old system to my wife where it is more than adequate for her needs. Even an ultra low budget dual core Intel system would be worth the investment. Not including other stuff I spent money on the "upgrade" was ~$600 for CPU/Mem/Mobo and got a fairly high end upgrade (not DDR3). LGA775 processors will be around quite a while yet and prices will continue to fall making for some cheap future upgrades in quad or dual. And of course dirt cheap DDR2 still has a lot of life left in it.

 

[zodiacfml]

hmmm, now i know the reason why my x2 5000 BE @ 3.1 Ghz can run games using integrated graphics. although super low resolution and quality and DX9.
i finished devil may cry 4 and Spore with it.
saving for a 9800 GT or possibly the newest HD 4830.

 

[natev]

I have Athlon 64 FX-60 @ 2.8 Ghz, 2 Gigs DDR 400(PC 3200) 2.5-3-3-6 1T, and 1 320MB XFX 8800GTS. 3dMark06 score 10K CPU 2220.

I mainly play Counter-Strike: Source, and it runs smoothly on high settings. I play Crysis and C&C 3 once in a while. Crysis runs just fine on medium settings.

I see no need to waste money on an upgrade that would show minimal performance gains on a 4 year old game. Additionally, since Intel is coming out with new socket, if you decided to build a 775 system, you are SOL on upgrading if they phase out the 775 socket.

In my opinion, wait for core i7 to build a new system, if you so happen to be a 754 or 939 user.

 

[Master Exon]

Yeah I noticed when comparing my Athlon X2 at 3.0Ghz to my C2D at 3.2Ghz that window's calculator can add 2+2 about 44% faster.

 

[coldmast]

This is a great real world article, can your junk still game?
It would be nice to have a table set up with similar dollar cost upgrades
in percent gain terms

more ram
faster ram
better processor
better video card
P/S requirements

 

[darkrydr3]

AMD 64 3200+ Winnie built from 5 years ago Lol did anyone buy a winchester back in the day? Of course I upgraded a few things... like from my 6600GT to a 8800GTS 512. Still pretty pwnage in most games

 

[PDubs007]

Great article. I have an AMD 4400+ machine with DDR400 and I was wondering if I had to put it down or if I could squeeze a little more out of it. After reading this article I am going to go ahead and buy that 4580 I've had my eye on.

 

[rickzor]

can i say that my athlon 64 3500 clocked at 2.50ghz is a hell of a fast SINGLE CORE cpu?

 

[JonnyDough]

It would be interesting to explore this further and include 16:10 and 16:9 aspect ratios as well.

Please do. And make SURE I can find it.

I've been waiting patiently on better hardware to play this game @ 1680X1050 on full settings with AA/AF for QUITE some time now.

Current systems:

Opteron 185 @stock (2.6ghz)
2GB (or 4 w/XP Pro x64) DDR PC-3200 Corsair ram @ 3-3-3-8
EVGA 8800GTS 640mb superclocked

My other system is a 3600+ X2 @ 2ghz with an X1650XT and 2GB of similar ram (transferable to the stronger system should an application require) and I would like to know what top multi-player games it can well for LAN parties.

 

[Guest]

Just to add my 2 cents, I have an Athlon 64 3700, an Nvidia 8800gtx, 2G of ddr800 ram, and i get the following scores:
3d mark 2000:
18035

3d mark 2001se:
22368

3d mark 2005:
9818

 

[ravenware]

Hey what no-balled tool gave me a neg?

 

[randomizer]

[citation][nom]ravenware[/nom]Hey what no-balled tool gave me a neg?[/citation]
Does it matter? As long as you don't get enough to hide the comment ratings mean nothing.

 

[Master Exon]

[citation][nom]ravenware[/nom]Hey what no-balled tool gave me a neg?[/citation]
Don't worry bro, I 1-up'd you.

 

[rocky1234]

All I got to say is very good article it gives those with older CPU's AMD wise anyway a good idea of what to expect from their single & dual core CPU's. I just sold a Athlon 3800+ x2 OC'd to 3Ghz with kick butt cooler to a friend with a ATI 1950XTX 512MB 2GB DDR & he loves the machine he pretty much plays everything on it but he is gonna need a ATI 4850 at least soon to super charge the graphics a but. So anywys from this article I can tell him pretty much what I already knew is that he can go out & buy a better GPU & get at least another year out of that system before it see the dust bunnies in the closet.

 

[falchard]

Is that an AM2 motherboard that can go into an AGP slot? I have no idea how it works but I want one.