Can Your Old Athlon 64 Still Game?

[randomizer]

[citation][nom]falchard[/nom]Is that an AM2 motherboard that can go into an AGP slot? I have no idea how it works but I want one.[/citation]
No, it's a daughter board which contains the CPU socket and memory slots which plugs into a proprietary slot on the motherboard.

 

[rickzor]

Its for the asrok 939dual-vsta. Its my pcs board, you can make a uprade from a ddr1 and sk939 board to a ddr2 and am2 system without needing to format or replace the board. Although its quite expensive imo...

 

[pauldh]

Look around, the Asrock AM2 upgrade card can be found for about $30 in the USA. DDR2 is dirt cheap, and the AM2 dual-cores are easy to find and very cheap compared to a 939. IMO it's an easy, stable, and fairly inexpensive upgrade route for those with a compatible Asrock mobo and single core A64.

 

[rickzor]

maybe not europe.

 

[caamsa]

Unfortunately you can no longer get the 939 dual vsta or sata boards unless you can find one on ebay. I have two of them. One uses the upgrade board and it works great. I paid $30.00 for the upgrade board. I got the first board Dual sata in 11/05 for $68.00 at new egg with a single core venice 2.0 GHz processor. I got the next board dual vsta in 10/06 for $68.00 and the boards disappeared shorty after that (they stopped selling them) After approximately 3 years they are still going strong and will probably be good for another year. Both now running dual cores one with an AM2 4600+ the other with a 939 X2 4200+. I enjoyed reading this article. I enjoy getting as much mileage out of my stuff as possible. With the global economy heading into a recession this is a great article, good timing. ;-)

 

[pauldh]

rickzor, Yes, Unfortunately pricing/availabilty may be very different in other locations. Even in the USA, there are fewer and fewer places to buy the upgrade card.

caamsa, thanks for the article feedback and comments about your Asrock systems. You sure picked the right mobos for getting that desired mileage.

 

[johnbilicki]

I'm running an Opteron 185 (dual-core 2.6/1MB) with an 8800GT. With 4X AA and everything except shadows maxed (shadows set to medium) I easily get 40-55FPS outdoors in Oblivion if I OC the CPU to 2.8GHz or so. Overclocking FPS gains are more from overclocking my CPU then my video card. My 8800GT is clocked at 670/970 (1940 effective memory) and my system runs stable. I've been holding out trying to skip the DDR2 generation and go figure it ends up being super cheap compared to my 939 when I originally purchased the parts. I'm considering Socket B however if I see reasonable gains if I upgrade to socket AM3 then I'll stick with AMD. I don't really feel like spending money on early iterations of DDR3 though to find out it's not the max speed that AM3 will take. Plus more then two third of DDR3 available on Newegg will apparently burn out socket B CPU's so I probably won't upgrade until late winter 2009.

 

[Guest]

I have a Opteron 170 @ 2.4 & 480 FSB DDR500 8800gt OC. I can run any new game pretty well on a 22" monitor. I can use 2x-4xAA in most games. I run DX10 on everything with Vista x64.

I seem to me that most of these games were developed years ago, and do not fully leverage multi-core / multi-gpu platforms. Also they seem to not take advantage of available RAM. It would be nice if we could allocate or pre-allocate big chunks of RAM for a specific game. (kinda like VMware) Additionally I think DX10 is an afterthought on most current releases.

Just my experience and opinions....
Cheers,
Pedro

 

[powerbaselx]

[citation][nom]NoIncentive[/nom]I'm still using a P4 3.0 @ 3.4 with 1 GB DDR 400 and an nVidia 6800GT...I'm building a new computer next week.[/citation]
I have a P4 530 @3.5GHz with 1 GB DDR400 CL2 and a nVidia 7950GT 512MB.
I'm still thinking if i upgrade or not...

 

[DJ4U]

Great article, thank´s a lot. I´m just wondering about upgrading my GPU to HD 4830 (my CPU is Athlon X2 3800+, 4GB RAM) so it´s like that 4200+ considering your slow memory timing(my is effective 800 MHz, but 4-4-4-8 timing). It would be good to add benchmark of Crysis with physics set to low as users with slower CPUs would normally do.

 

[xetura]

This article is useless without comparisons to newer processors.
I went from an x2 to a q6600 @3.6ghz and the difference is night and day. I was able to go from the lowest settings in Vanguard, to almost the highest settings. And this was with the same video card.
If there were examples of Phenom's and core2duos, both stock and oc'd, it would have been a much more interesting article.

 

[Guest]

Great artical for people with single cores and low end cpu's but it would have been nice to chuck in some conroes or maybe do a part 2. so we can see how they comepare if you have say and am2 is it worth upgrading to a conroe?

 

[Gryphyn]

I've been running a Socket 939 Opteron 170 OC'd to 2.7 Ghz (rock solid stable, stock voltage) on an Asus A8n-E motherboard. 2 Gigs of Corsair DDR400 Ram at 450 Mhz, (if memory serves). EVGA 8800 GTS 640 Superclocked, and some Segate Barracuda 250 gig hard drives in Raid 0. Still a great computer after a couple of years, and should last me at least another year before I get the itch to upgrade.

 

[BACKYARDKUSTOMZ]

I'm actually running the socket 939 4000+ cpu with a Nvidia 6600gt 1 gig of ddr 400 ram asus deluxe motherboard. I will be upgrading within the next few weeks haha.

 

[Guest]

I own a FX57 and i must say my system is feeling old . Just got a blu ray writer , and got Casino Royale on bd and with powerdvd 8 ultra i don't get a smooth play this was very annoying . For me to upgrade it means that with CPU i must change the rams and the mobo lots of bucks

 

[Guest]

I thought this was a pretty good article because I can totally see where its' coming from. I have a 939 4400+@2.6ghz and I saw a decent fps increase going from a X1950XT 256mb to an 8800gt 512mb but my system is definitely showing its' age. I don't really see any reason to upgrade since the only new game I play is CoD4; bf2 and cs:s maxed out really take minimal power at this point. Seeing the numbers on the 5600+ make me want to try overclocking a little more, my DFI Lanparty NF4 is a great board for it.

 

[mapesdhs]

Given the article is supposed to be about whether or not older
Athlons are limiting for newer games, I find it strange the
review used a gfx card that is not exactly in the upper end of
modern performance, or even midrange for that matter. They should
have used a decent 8800GT, not an 8800GS.

My original system was AGP-based, fitted with an X1950Pro 512MB
and 6000+. I obtained much higher frame rates than the article
shows for the 8800GS at 1600x1200 no AA and 16X AF. Even with
high detail and 6x AA, the frame rate was still very decent,
between 30 and 90fps. I believe this is because of the good
memory I had and a decent CPU capable of feeding the gfx card
at suitable speed. I've not checked for a while, but my system
used to be #6 on FutureMark for 3DMark06 for a setup with
an Athlon64 X2 and X1950 AGP (the only systems faster than mine
were those with the newer 6400+ and/or factory overclocked
X1950s that didn't exist when I bought mine).

So, why didn't the article also test with a 6000+ 3GHz and
the faster Black Edition aswell? Especially given how much
cheaper these CPUs have become in the last year, nearly
60% less now. Speaking to other PC users, why do people in
the real world so often observe better results than are
shown in online articles?


Back in May/08 I upgraded with new mbd & gfx (for my birthday),
but I kept the 6000+ CPU, RAM disks, PSU, etc. I switched to
an 8800GT 512MB (Gigabyte, Zalman fan, 700MHz core) and ASUS
M2N32 WS Pro mbd (I wanted proper PCIX and PCIe for SCSI RAID).
See:

http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/ASUS_M2N32-WS-Pro.jpg
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/Gigabyte8800GT-Zalman.jpg

Baring in mind I still have the same 6000+ CPU and RAM, with
the new card at high detail 1600x1200 and 16X AF with no AA,
results range from 48 to 169fps, with 4X AA they are 47 to 153
fps (not much of a change for minimum fps) and with 8X AA they
are 39 to 107fps! These make the article's 5600+/8800GS results
look positively snail-paced.

Even more amazing, at 2048 x 1536 res, max detail, no AA and
16X AF, I get 51 to 152fps! With 4X AA it's 33 to 109fps, with
8X AA it's 25 to 77fps (still playable!!). In some cases results
are similar no matter what the AA, ie. a CPU bottleneck, though
in practice it doesn't matter because the frame rate is so high
anyway. Just shows that for newer games a newer quad-core CPU
should help, but I was very surprised at how fast the system was.
For reference, 3DMark06 increased from 5583 for the X1950Pro to
11762 for the 8800GT (SM2/3 results are 5457 and 5704, better
than many other 8800GTs I've examined on FutureMark, but the
overall score is lower because other systems have quad-core CPUs
of course).

I have observed the same speed increase for Stalker. In both
cases, I now run the games at 2048 x 1536, max detail, no AA,
16X AF, which is much better than I'd been expecting. Note that
Oblivion doesn't tend to respond well to oc'd systems, but for
Stalker I run the CPU oc'd to 3.225GHz and the gfx oc'd to
790/1790/980, just for the hell of it, though in practice the
frame rates are so high I don't notice much of a difference.
Also, for Oblivion I run without AA as I find just having a high
2K resolution looks fine.

In other words, to be a proper test, the article should have
used a better gfx card (my 8800GT was not expensive, only 128 UKP)
and should have run the same tests with the upper-end Athlon64
X2 CPUs aswell. Indeed, why not test with a GTX280 and 4870x2
to see where the _real_ bottlenecks lie? I keep reading how many
games are not written to take proper advantage of multi-core
CPUs - this would be a good way to test the issue. Go on Paul,
let's see how these results change with really fast cards! 8)

If any of you have an AGP mbd with a good AM2 CPU, I hope my
results will be useful. It _is_ possible to switch to a PCIe
board, keep your CPU and RAM, get a better gfx card and obtain
really good frame rates for modern games. I could even go SLI
if I wanted to (mbd has two PCIe wich both run at x16 for SLI)
though atm I'm using one of the slots for a PCIe U320 SCSI card
(system disk is a 147GB 15K U320).

Here is the data for my original system (when I upgraded systems,
keeping the X1950 AGP I already had from an older Dell 650) and
for my current system with the same CPU/RAM/disk but newer
mbd/gfx (URLs for the screenshots are included):

http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/mysystemsummary.txt
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/mysystemsummary2.txt


The first page shows how a better _system_ allowed the same
gfx board to run much, much faster because of the better RAM
(also included are results for my brother's Athlon64 3400+
at 2.64GHz also using an X1950Pro AGP). The second page shows
how a nice AM2 CPU is still a decent solution when paired with
a good gfx card.

Having said all that, besides gaming I use my system for video
encoding, so my next system will likely be a QX9650 or somesuch,
or a Nehalem if the prices aren't crazy and the oc'ing works ok.

Ian.

 

[evolucion888]

Is quite strange that the Athlon 64 4000+ scores almost the same as my Pentium M which scores 1,164 in the CPU score and yet, my final score is much higher, I score 7,194 in 3DMark06. I compared my brother's in law PC with a Pentium Dual Core E2200 @ 2.20GHz with a Radeon HD 3870, 2GB DDR2 800MHz and an Intel G35 chipset against my PC which has a Pentium M 750 oced to 2.70GHz and a Radeon HD 3850 ICEQ3 oced to 775MHz core and 2GHz RAM, 3GB of RAM DDR 400 @ 386MHz using the Asus CT-479 adapter to fit in my Asus P4P800-E Deluxe which uses the Intel i865PE chipset and this is are the results:

----------------MyPC---------------His PC----------MySamePC with P4EE
3DMark06-------7102---------------8666------------4948
GT1------------29.064-------------30.487-----------20.015
GT2------------29.896-------------32.918-----------19.688
HDR1-----------42.521-------------43.022-----------37.917
HDR2-----------39.331-------------44.107-----------27.218
CPU1------------0.367 -------------0.591------------0.224
CPU2------------0.587 -------------0.947------------0.387

Vantage--------P3172--------------P3965

GPU1-----------11.34--------------11.15
GPU2-----------12.94--------------12.92
CPU1 ----------231.68-------------478.12
CPU2-----------3.14----------------5.28
FT1------------352.66-------------346.54
FT2 ------------2.92---------------3.02
FT3 ------------9.21---------------9.00
FT4------------12.95--------------12.05
FT5------------16.06--------------15.39
FT6------------24.47--------------24.15

Not all single core CPU's are created equal. With my single core CPU it barely bottlenecked my card in GPU tests, the only difference was in CPU tests, considering that my CPU has a weak FPU, has a 792MHz FSB, but a combination of 2-3-3-5 timings with PAT enabled, 8T idle timer and 15.6us Refresh lowers the latency considerably along with my GPU overclocking proves that still having plenty of power for current games. Funny that the Athlon 64 4000+ barely played COD 4 with everything on high, and I played that game with my same config but with an old X1950XT AGP with 4x FSAA and everything maxed and was completely playable, it averaged the 40's and rarely dipped below the 30's.

 

[kiss4luna]

well, then I think I should get away of my X2 3800+ and 1950Pro. I did concidered upgradding my pc this year early, now I decide to jump onto a new platform --- E8400 with 4850 would be nice for me.

 

[Guest]

Older systems owner should be aware that their PSU can handle the newer GPU. I recommend at the very least a 450W PSU.

 

[justaguy]

The article does a good job of showing what I actually thought-Unless games are really benefitting from multi-CPU setups (like Crysis and the like) you can still make it with a fast single core.

Ironically, it's especially true if you enjoy higher quality settings! Once you start cranking up AA/AF and enable HDR, you're more and more GPU limited and the slower CPU has a lesser effect.

This validates my recent choice to upgrade my 2600XT to a 9600GT (for $74 AR) and keep my A8N-SLI32 and Opty 144 @ 3.0 for the time being. I'm also limited to 12x10 due to my monitor-so even though my current system is aging, it's still viable for all but the newest, most intense games.

I'll be saving my $ for an i7 rig, a 22" monitor and another 9600GT as an upgrade path. That was the best part about the 9600GT is that it's a great upgrade to match my current system and it doesn't become obsolete when I upgrade, it just becomes SLI'd.

 

[amdgamer666]

Great article. These results are exactly what i am seeing with my setup and with good reason: I have a 3700+ san diego and a 4850. I know I need to upgrade my cpu, but I haven't felt the need to because I can play almost everything maxed out as it is. I knew when I purchased the 4850 that it wasn't reaching its full potential so it would have been nice to see an article like this beforehand but all is well.

 

[silicondoc]

What a bunch of spoiled MHZ'ers. ;-0) Wow, I guess the king's men can't have enough of the their luxurious gaming systems.
Most people haven't a clue on any of the hardware in their system, and you'd be surprised how long the youth will wait for a single game to load up...
If they can't play a game, they just go get a wally special - and expect it to do the job ( those never have a "decent" videocard in them ) - and it does do the job better than the pentium3 they were running.
I know, it's an enthusiast site - so I do agree for the most part with the article - but there are a lot of gamers on very much lesser systems that make do - and if they aren't a geek, when they buy a new one it is a very much lesser system still.
I haven't seen a single 4850 in a general retail computer box. Not a single one. ( Yes it would be nice and yes they should be in there for pete sakes - instead they lose sales to gaming consoles ).
Mommy and Daddy (both gamers at times nowadays - haa ) would rather buy 1 computer - than 1 computer and a gaming console.

 

[spearhead]

Why to call the athlon 64 old? its not old yes the single core might be near the end of its selling era, but the Athlon x2 series is still here to be sold to the masses with newer models to show up like the athlon x2 6000+ brisbane version or the phenom based Kuma athlon x2 6500+ with the unlocked multiplier which easily clocks to 3,4ghz. with its low cost and good preformance pricewise its a perfect choice for the mainstream market. perfect for people who want to build a bang for the buck pc pricewise and have little money to spend. the CPU has little influence on the gaming preformance. its better to go for a radeon 4850 or 4870 and athlon x2 combination then to cut on the video card and to go with a core 2 duo with an airplane engine stock cooler which blows off your ears. also athlon x2's are dirt cheap. you have one for about 30 euros already here in the netherlands and with a decend am2+ motherboard you have enough upgradability for the near future once the denebs become affordable. it are perfect cpu's for gaming!

 

[mapesdhs]

spearhead; it's definitely true that one does not need an
expensive mbd to get good performance. The results I obtained
with a 6000+ and X1950Pro AGP were better than numerous review
sites obtained with a PCIe-based X1950 and way more expensive
mbds. The mbd I used was an Asrock AM2NF3-VSTA (NForce3, AM2,
DDR2/800, 8X AGP, 5 x PCI slots), which cost a mere 33.50 UKP
(about $66 back then). See my previous post for full details,
but here's the 3DMarok06 ref:

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=1771835

So yes, a decent Athlon64 X2 with a modern gfx card can run
modern games very nicely. Very few games take proper advantage
of a quad-core. I really would like to see results for a 6000+
and 6400+ with 4870x2, 4850 SLI, 8800GT SLI, GTX280 SLI.

Ian.