Gaming With AGP Graphics: Overclock That CPU!

[Pei-chen]

[citation][nom]apache_lives[/nom].... Heres a better idea - forget "future proof" and forget "upgrading an old machine" (within reason) - my pc's usually survive 1 overhaul and 1 upgrade package then there scrapped etc - MUCH better lifespan

example: my rig started as a E6600 @ 3.2 + 2gb + 7900GT, and in one big batch i jumped to a Q6600, 8gb and 8800GT - final upgrade for it before i get a new rig...[/citation]
Totally agree. I moved from E6400 + 2/4GB + 7950GT to Q6600 + 8GB + 4850 1GB after two years. I am going to keep the new setup for another two years and get new board, CPU, RAM and graphic card.

Intel’s tick-tock works great for me cause I can keep the board and RAM for 4 years.

 

[dingumf]

[citation][nom]apache_lives[/nom]Let me get this right, so you buy a half assed video card for some ancient machine and because, then you need a PSU so you buy one, then you need more ram, then your crappy motherboard dies so you end up with a pile of parts you spent dead money - waste of time.Heres a better idea - forget "future proof" and forget "upgrading an old machine" (within reason) - my pc's usually survive 1 overhaul and 1 upgrade package then there scrapped etc - MUCH better lifespanexample: my rig started as a E6600 @ 3.2 + 2gb + 7900GT, and in one big batch i jumped to a Q6600, 8gb and 8800GT - final upgrade for it before i get a new rig.And as for AGP vs PCIE - if i remember correctly, atleast with the Nvidia 6600GT the AGP variants were actually quicker then the PCIE variants and had to be underclocked to line up performance - AGP (8x) being "slow" compared to PCIE (1.0) is a myth.[/citation]

Basically just get a new rig or don't bother upgrading an AGP rig

 

[xkche]

The MSI K9MM-V is a AM2 Socket and AGP slot, maybe can try on this to see the performance of the AGP HD4670 and a CPU more powerfull...

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]amnotanoobie[/nom]I think this could have been more interesting if HD movie playback was included. Some of these AGP systems might have really old cards, GF4 MX440, GF5 5600, ATi 9800, ATi X1600, etc.[/citation]

We looked at CPU utilization during HD playback way back using the 3850, X1900, and a single core Athlon 64 3400+:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ati-agp-3850-agp,1939-6.html

The short answer is that the UVD feature on the Radeon 2000 series and higher will make it playable on an old single-core CPU, while cards without acceleration can't handle HD playback.

With a dual-core CPU and a card that handles HD acceleration, it will be much smoother.

As for DVD playback, even a single-core CPU without an accelerated video card can handle that.

 

[marcos669]

[citation][nom]xkche[/nom]The MSI K9MM-V is a AM2 Socket and AGP slot, maybe can try on this to see the performance of the AGP HD4670 and a CPU more powerfull...[/citation]

There also the Asrock AliveDual-esata2(i have this one) and the Asrock
AM2NF3-VSTA. So there are many good motherboards that supports AGP cards, and Athlon X2 5xxx and 7xxx processors.

Of course is no the same as have a Phenom II 955 and a Ati 4890, but all modern games runs well in high Quality.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]apache_lives[/nom]Let me get this right, so you buy a half assed video card for some ancient machine and because, then you need a PSU so you buy one, then you need more ram, then your crappy motherboard dies so you end up with a pile of parts you spent dead money - waste of time. Heres a better idea - forget "future proof" and forget "upgrading an old machine" (within reason) [/citation]

There are two factors you're missing:

1. It's nice to have a secondary gaming machine. I talk about that in the article, $150 is a cheap expense for ressurecting a secondary machine into something playable. A PSU isn't necessary -- as I've demonstrated in the power benches, a new 4650 uses the same power as an old X700.

2. Some people might not have the same budget as you, Apache. For those folks, a $150 upgrade for a couple more years of service might be a viable option.

 

[dark_lord69]

Funny.. that is the exact CPU I currently have.
But I am using a PCIe x1950XT ATi card.
Which gets pretty good frame rates.
I just finished Bioshock (with maxed settings at 1280X1024) and didn't have any frame rate issues. I KNOW.. it's an older game..

But the next game I will be playing will be left 4 dead. I will check to see how my frame rates compare to this article.

 

[philosofool]

I think this article is more of an academic exercise than a serious choice for upgrading a machine.

If you want to spend $150 to improve an existing machine, a smarter way to do it to upgrade to an inexpensive AM2+ board ($55), an inexpensive AM3 dual core (2.8GHz Regor, 2x1MB L2 = $63 @ newegg), and an HD 3850 (PCIe) ($50). That's $18 more than the suggested upgrade here and will provide much better performance. These numbers are a handy guide to the performance difference (though they're slightly different procs than I'm talking about): Regor pwns Brisbane

Moreover, for those on a budget (obviously, that's you if you're making the choices listed here) who might be able to scrounge up more money in the future, there's the option to upgrade CPU or graphics card onto this board, whereas you won't have that option on an AGP board. You not only get performance, but an upgrade path for the next time you have $100.

However, I have to mention that building around the idea that you will upgrade in a year is probably a bad idea. It means spending $50 or so on something you're going to spend $100 to replace, which means spending a total of $150; you do better to suck it up (if you can) and spend $100 now.

 

[bounty]

100$ on crappy video when you're still CPU bound is pretty lame. New CPU will help with everything. Spend 150 to 200 on new AMD system and you'll blow away this 100$ AGP upgrade in every way.

You can use the extra 50$ you saved from not buying Crysis since you can't play it on the AGP system anyways. Or go recycle some cans or something.

 

[Guest]

The 4670 is a great card all by itself. Unparalleled 3 years ago!
I wished more cards would be available with GDDR5, and preferably sub 50nm design, so that we won't need a power connector.

I hope ATI and NVidia will always aim to have these cards available. Cards that require only little power, but can do some gaming when necessary.
For the line of work I do, I play perhaps less than 5% of the time. To see a card like the 4670 dissapear would be sad.. It is really the heaviest card I would put in my system for the coming 3 years!

 

[Guest]

This is a nice article, mainly because not everyone have access to newer technology. I think a lot of people forget this. I have a lot of friends all over the world, and 300$ sometimes is way too much money, so being able to squeeze as much power from an aging platform is a good thing, and I think AMD realizes this because they still released AGP cards.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]philosofool[/nom]I think this article is more of an academic exercise than a serious choice for upgrading a machine. [/citation]

I'll disagree based on the fact that the machine I performed this academic exercise on is now supplying excellent real-world Left4Dead duty at LAN parties.

Remember also that the CPU expense isn't a necessity - I wanted to demonstrate something with more overclocking headroom, but the user's existing CPU could be overclocked.

I do see your point though, but remember - new board means new RAM, too.

Also, where are you getting that PCIe 3850? Cheapest I can find is $62

$82 Athlon II
$62 Radeon 3850
$53 GIGABYTE GA-M61PME-S2P (cheapest AM2+ board I could find)
$25 2GGB of DDR2
---
We're at $222. An AGP 3850 will cost about $95, and if you think your CPU isn't overclockable enough a replacement is $40 used. I dunno, the AGP upgrade it still seems viable as a secondary machine ressurection to me.

 

[B-Unit]

[citation][nom]philosofool[/nom]... If you want to spend $150 to improve an existing machine, a smarter way to do it to upgrade to an inexpensive AM2+ board ($55), an inexpensive AM3 dual core (2.8GHz Regor, 2x1MB L2 = $63 @ newegg), and an HD 3850 (PCIe) ($50). That's $18 more than the suggested upgrade here and will provide much better performance. ...[/citation]
Umm, I dont see any RAM there. Nice try tho.

 

[rsmith13]

You can buy a "reconditioned" ASRock AM2 board for much less than that AM2 Upgrade board. I would have gone with a reconditioned (with warranty) ASRock AliveNF6P-VSTA for $33 (with shipping) from 3btec which is aprx $20 less than what a search for the Upgrade board shows. Same memory, same cpu. A PCI-E video card would save even more. (I've seen GF 9600GSO (G92) open boxes at newegg for $40 within the past few weeks.) and end up with a motherboard that will be upgradeable for years to come.

 

[bounty]

You can't play crysis on that system period, so you have 50$ floating around and one person at your "LAN party" crying. Also I don't think you can play Fallout 3 on that box either. (+50$) I think your simulated 3800 overclock was overly optomistic for an aging 3800 on stock air. "We looked around locally and found a used AM2-based Athlon 64 X2 4200+ for $45. For sure, we could have worked with our existing Athlon X2 3800+, but we wanted something with a higher clock multiplier so that we ".... could cheat. I see no reason to not actually just OC the 3800. If you're worried about "stressing" it, then it can't do the speed you're claiming it can. That motherboard is a screwball anyways. Most of us can't slap a higher binned AM2 into our socket 939 boards. AGP is dead.

 

[bounty]

Sorry, that sounded a little more harsh than I intended, I just hate seeing kids waste thier allowance.

 

[anamaniac]

[citation][nom]megamanx00[/nom]Yeah, playing Crysis on low aint too fun . Still a 3850 with a 2.6GHz X2 is enough for mostly medium details at like 1024x768 or 1280x1024. Anyway yeah getting anything more than a 2600XT for an old AGP system requires an overclocked dual core. Would have been nice to see some numbers from an overclocked dual core P4, since there are a few of those on AGP out there, but I'm sure the results would have been pretty pretty sad ^_^.[/citation]

Yes, the results of a Pentium D are sad... very sad. (Pentium D 2.8GHz and 4670 512mb PCIe.)

 

[rambo117]

i wanna see an AGP 4670 review!!!!

 

[marcos669]

[citation][nom]rambo117[/nom]i wanna see an AGP 4670 review!!!![/citation]

In fact it would be great a review comparing the 3850 an the 4670 AGP with an thlon x2 5xxx or 7xxx processor, it would be very interesting.

 

[cleeve]

You can't play crysis on that system period, so you have 50$ floating around and one person at your "LAN party" crying.

Who plays Crysis at a LAN party?

The 3850 was totally playable on Cryris anyhoo. And the $70 difference quickly turns into $130 if the CPU is good enough to be overclocked...

Depends on what you got when you start out, but I disagree that AGP is dead. It's dying, but not quite there yet.

 

[bounty]

hmmm undead at best...

 

[djbrad007]

For a better cpu bottleneck test, check the 4coredual-sata2 from asrock.

It can accept Q6600/Q6700 with AGP 8x and allows a little bit of overclock.

Regards,

Brad

 

[saint19]

Brilliant, but...where are the nVidia AGP? I used one and was really good....

 

[cleeve]

Brilliant, but...where are the nVidia AGP? I used one and was really good....

The last Nvidia AGP was the 7900 GS -- not even as fast as the 4650, about as fast as the old X1900 PRO.

And those were hard to find. After that, they abandoned the bus.

 

[cleeve]

For a better cpu bottleneck test, check the 4coredual-sata2 from asrock.
It can accept Q6600/Q6700 with AGP 8x and allows a little bit of overclock.
Regards,
Brad

Thanks Brad. However, The goal wasn't to test the limits of AGP, I'm more interested in seeing how AGP can realistically serve folks with older systems.