Gaming With AGP Graphics: Overclock That CPU!

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I have a sister motherboard the 939SLI32-eSATA2. Mine has a few differences but is still the same motherboard at heart. (IE same chipset.) One of the cost the article did not mention was the cost of the Daughterboard. That would be an additional $35-$50 depending where you got it. It has been shown on different articles from different places that the daughterboard does not bottleneck the system anymore than the processor itself does. Yes this particular motherboard has a PCIe 16x slot available. Yes it can be run with either the 939 or the am2 cpu.
I think this was more used as a example of a older generation bus still being used. This way this motherboard is seen as being very upgradeable. Especially since AMD did the whole Socket A, to the socket 754 to the socket 940 to the socket 939 and then going with the Socket AM2 (940). This was just an easier board to show AGP with an overclocked processor vs the faster processor with PCIe at stock. Personally I would have like to seen some of the numbers of the OC/ed CPU with the PCIe cards myself.

It was a very interesting article and it would be an option with some motherboards that you can overclock fairly easily that do not have PCIe slots on them. It however did not take into consideration the cost of the daughterboard, the upgraded DDR2 from DDR on this specific motherboard.
 
I am still wondering why didn't they include the AGP 4670 in the article could this be because its performance is equivalent to the 3850 in their hierarchy chart? or is there another reason
 
Thanks Toms for this great article. It kicked me in the but to finally overclock my system. I have a little known motherboard. The Asus A8V E SE. Socket 939, DDR1, PCI express. I took my Athlon64 3600+ dual core from 2.0 ghz to 2.6. My 2 gigs of G Skill memory is at 433mhz at 1t with tight timings and the HT bus is at 1040. All with complete stability. Matched with a 8800gt it made a massive jump in framerates. Rock on Toms!
 
[citation][nom]youssef 2010[/nom]I am still wondering why didn't they include the AGP 4670 in the article could this be because its performance is equivalent to the 3850 in their hierarchy chart? or is there another reason[/citation]

I mentioned this in the article. The AGP 4670 wasn't available when we wrote the article. Having said that, performance should be very similar to the 3850.
 
Don,

Thanks for the part deux. I was concerned with your test results based on your choice of opting to use a daughter card on the CPU. As the daughter card was known limit data through put. aka the old chocolate bar style Intel PIII CPU's. I feel a real world test would be performed with a little more exotic cooling, OC FSB w/higher rated ram, and more aggressive OC on the CPU. Example, P4 2.4 OC'd @3.8, Ram FSB OC'd @ 260mhz quad pump=1040mhz, and a modest cooler. Running my pc with similar settings 24/7 rarely tops 41c. The majority of your readers are gamers and our old retired gaming rigs have these basic's. The Radeon 3850 also has some room for safe OC as well. I think people looking to see if there old retired gaming rigs with this new flavor of AGP cards might be viable to plugging in that ole Cat5 cable again.
Maybe a Part 3 with radeon 4670 and 3870 cards w/real world old time gaming rigs. I know this might appear to be project in futility. I feel your readers would like to see how far you can go with in reason (Nothing Radical) with these AGP cards. I think it's in everyone’s nature to see these cards pushed, if anything to satisfy a curiosity. As PC builders it's what we do! I think it would be cool to push these retro cards for fun. Besides what else do you got to do, it's not like your working or anything :)
 
[citation][nom]ItaniumX69[/nom]Don, Thanks for the part deux. I was concerned with your test results based on your choice of opting to use a daughter card on the CPU. I feel a real world test would be performed with a little more exotic cooling, OC FSB w/higher rated ram, and more aggressive OC on the CPU.[/citation]

Hmmm. I don't know how many people out there are into exotic cooling, and therefore I'm not sure if it'd be a "real-world" test, maybe it'd be more of a "fringe overclocker" test. Not a bad thing, but it limits the usefulness.

I might see if I can scrounge up a 4670 AGP sample just for the ugly fun of seeing if it can take out the AGP 3850 so we can declare a clear winner. To do that, I might get one of those weird ASRock boards that could handle a Phenom & AGP or something like that. We'll see if anyone wants to put up the old hardware, I'm not sure anyone would be interested. But I'll keep my eye out. 😉
 
Upgrade cost, what is better... aside.

It is nice to see companies still releasing new cards for older hardware. There are situations out there, for many reasons, why sometimes you can't just replace an old box. Just about two years back, I had to try to find a motherboard with ISA slots, just because there was NO option as the device that we had a controller card for was ISA. The card itself originally was around 20,000 bucks new.

Basically, I'm just saying is it is cool if companies will make a product for an older interface and support it. There are situations, where you just can't replace that old box.
 
@Cleeve
Sorry man, but you are simply faking. I'm familiar with PCs and as I said I'd erase that article ASAP. I made some benches to compare.
I Have Athlon II X2 and tested it @1.90 Ghz and @3.45 Ghz to show you how it scales it Far Cry 2 @1280/1024 low.
My other specs:
GA-MA790X-UD4
2 * 1024 MB ADATA Vitesta DDR2 DC
Gigabyte 8800 GTS512

1. CPU @1.90 Ghz - Average Framerate: 53,85

2. Athlon II X2 @3.45 Ghz - Average Framerate: 86,29

Everything the same except the CPU frequency man. Let's compare it to your bench. So man, pls, stop faking. There's let's say some 15% boost going from X2 2.0 to X2 2.6 but you sound simply insane with that 300%, OK?
Cheers,
St. Stanev

 
Don, Thanks for the post/response. Hopefully you will be able to scrounge up 4670 AGP and do a 4670 Vs 3850 test PCIe/AGP. If the 4670 comes out victorious can you compare it against 3870 Radeon? I also wanted to retort my exotic statement w/refrence to coolers. I was refering to CPU cooler other than stock. Most of us rig building/gamers junk the factory cpu/fan coolers and purchase a decent copper/fan cpu cooler solution. Hence allowing for moddest OC on CPU/RAM/.

I use CPU-Z Clock gen to OC. I us a Northwood P4 cuz everyone knows it just a detuned Prescott P4. Since the Northwood FSB 533mhz retail going to 800mhz fsb (Prescott) is actully still factory, resulting in a bump 2.4ghz to 3.6ghz no Volt adj or Temp issues. Obviously, since I am moving the FSB 133/533 to 200/800 my RAM jumps from 166mhz to 250mhz wich once again a none issue with PC3200 Ram. I actually could have used PC2100 Ram (266mhz) and be well w/in limits, but I run my fsb @ 220/880mhz= cpu 4ghz, ram 275/1100mhz. Just 20mhz over stock with still no V adj or Temp issues. MoBo is a ASUS P4V800M (Old School) w/Copper/Fan after market cpu cooler. I am using a Radeon 3650 agp should have bought 3850 I know now!
In conclusion, I just don't have the cash to build a new gaming rig atm
and just need to squeeze another year or two on this rig, so if you could scroung up those 4670's and 3870's AGP's would be awesome! So on part 3 let's do a little more OC'ing and no daughter cards. Thanks in advance, great article as always. Looking forward Part 3 :)
PS. just downloaded the New Batman Arkham Asylume game demo and was able to run it, but choppy on the close ups combat. I think a new card will do the trick..Come on Part 3 :)
 
I think giving us these upgrade options even if they aren't as fruitful as a new system build is good idea. Some don't want the hassle of installing the OS again. But the technology is a dead end street. I'm also afraid of something dieing out and making the whole upgrade regretful. I had an Asus A8v deluxe AGP/And Gigabyte Nforce 3 250 and it was great until the motherboards died or got flaky. (upgraded them to 7800 gs/7600 gt AGP). A new system would be faster and more energy efficient. I learned from my mistakes with upgrading single cores and AGP. I've still got a Opteron 185,2 gigs ddr1,8800 gts 320 but on pci express system and still running great. But if that was AGP? Money that won't invest well into a future. That systems idle power draw is about 400 to 450 watts! My new system with 260 gtx and Core two duo e8500 is idle at 100 watts. But sometimes pinching pennies for a cheap upgrade is really just gonna pinch you back in the long run.
 
@ Obie327 "Qoute""Some don't want the hassle of installing the OS again." "But sometimes pinching pennies for a cheap upgrade is really just gonna pinch you back in the long run." Well stated Obie. I could not agree w/u more on the risk envolved when cutting conners. Let's face it Formating Large HD's, installing new OS, New Mobo, New Ram, and cpu, is bother with a larg price tag ($700-$1100) on decent gaming rig. It is a pro vs con situation and prospects of spending $100 bucks enabling to play current games(Without all the eye candy of course!) is worth it. In 2011 I am sure MS will get the bugs worked out on Win7 and Icore 7/Mobo/PSU/RAM/Vid Card will be down in price, that would make for good argument for a new gaming rig I am guessing at that time. Until then I'll keep an eye on Tom's and keep reading articles for the best bang for the buck.
 
I don't know about anyone else but upping my p4 Northwood (Normal fsb 133/533) which essentially is a de-tuned Prescott p4 w/fsb rating @ 200/800mhz. So moving my fsb from 133 MHz to 200 MHz is still factory because the Northwood being a detuned Prescott. I modestly moved my fsb from 133/533mhz to 260/890mhz(Mhz*4 due to quad pump fsb) resulting 2.4ghz up to 4ghz w/o any V adj, Multiplier adj, and no temp issue w/moderate after market copper/fan cpu heatsink, and did this by using CPU-Z Clock Gen software. My 3dmark 2006 score did double w/radeon 3650 agp. I am waiting on part 3 of this article to see w/proper over clocking including a OC on a Radeon 3850 or 4670 agp. I looked all over the web for a Radeon 3870 AGP and appear that the Radeon 3870 AGP is a ghost. I seen one on the web being displayed at computex 2009 from HIS, but none on the market that I could see. Web traffic has been pretty high as it appears there is still some old school gaming rigs in service and looking for some new pick me up technology. It’s not likely Don would be able to get his hands on one of these for comparison sake, but there is always wishful thinking :) Whadda say Don? Can you pull some Tom’s Hardware strings and give your readers a test drive on a good ole OC’d agp gaming rig w/a 3870 agp card? This brings back the memories of not needing Lamborghini to go fast, sure having one is fun but who can afford it? heh. I’d rather drop a V8 in a Ford Fiesta. (Just kidding!!) Once again good article and fun read. Looking forward to Part 3.
 
Holly crap! After reading all the comments on here 20% of the peeps get it and 80% are clueless. Course building a new rig would totally pwn a agp rig. That is not the point (atleast I think) of this article! Basically it is taking a rig that was built 5+yrs ago and making it viable today. Sure you could run dual core this, quad core that, and you would still be missing the point of this article. This was about dusting off some pos gaming box w/technology from 5+yrs ago and maybe w/some modern tweaking answer some questions. I would hope its common knowledge that nobody is going to actually build one of these (why would you?). It all falls under "race what you own" not trying to recreate the wheel here. Tom's got archives of this bs going back to 1995 and then some. I feel this article is geared for answering a more natural human curiosity of pushing the limits of a technology that has obvious limitations. I.E. I got a pos box, I put this in it, then tweak what I have, then turn up what own, and see where my box hit that all allusive wall. Kids this is not rocket science it's just that innate human need to do something because we can! It does not need to be right/wrong/or indifferent it just is! Don, now bring on a POS 5+yr old gaming rig, w/some moderate to aggressive OC'ing on the FSB of some Intel P4's/AMD Athlon 5xxx or 7xxx w/moderate heatsink solutions. Just the way we built them back then. Whew..meh two cents. Sorry in advance if I offended anyone. Lets do a good 3850 vs 4670 agp test! Keep up the good work Pabst.
 
P.S. Just one final thought. I am going to take my POS gaming rig and play Batman Arkham Asylum.

Asus P4V800-M Mobo
Sparkle 350w PSU
 
I was doing some research on the possibilities of bumping the fsb to help the agp bus and resolving cpu bottle neck issues. I was thinking has anyone ever bumped a P4 Northwood to 4Ghz? Turns out that yes TH has! http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/p4-northwood-prescott-comparison-4,809-4.html. I thought crap since Tom Pabst knows that I invented Intel’s P4 micro-architecture and played a vital role in present Intel offerings along w/team of very smart engineers. Tom can reflect back to when we had an heated debate when Intel drop the ball between Willamette and Northwood and AMD took the lead in micro-architecture technology. (Circa 1997) "I got the emails" Based on what my math comes up with, I find that results would be surprising and while not ground breaking. Based on that base data through put at the AGP/RAM/CPU bus * 50%-80% increase fsb would result in not equal but exponential performance increases. Your previous test proves that based on simple architecture difference (128kbit vs 256kbit) its kind of like carbon doped oxide vs copper. Moores law does work.
 
Cleeve,

Your results show a clear benefit to having a faster CPU, but given the
comments here about it not really being an issue if one spends plus or minus
$20 or so on all this, it would have been good to include data for a proper
Athlon64 X2 6000+, if only to see where the benefits of a faster CPU start to
top out. Would a 3GHz 6000+ give any significant boost over the 2.6GHz you
tested? I mention this because I bought a used 6000+ for just $60, and of
course the 6000+ can be oc'd aswell.

My gf incidentally has no idea... 😀


You wrote:
> I might see if I can scrounge up a 4670 AGP sample just for the ugly
> fun of seeing if it can take out the AGP 3850 so we can declare a
> clear winner. ...

If you do this, *please* include tests results for an X1950Pro AGP, preferably
with an ACCELERO X2 fitted since that allows them to be oc'd like crazy. It
would be great to see where the X1950Pro fits in compared to the 4650 and 3850.
The system I'm building for my gf won't have that much of a CPU bottleneck, but
will it be worth upgrading to a 3850 or 4670 later on? Atm I don't know. Note
that the 2GB DDR2/800 RAM I bought was only $37 new, which is quite amazing (the
kit was a Corsair XMS2 CM2X1024-6400C4, 4-4-4-12)


> ... To do that, I might get one of those weird ASRock boards that could
> handle a Phenom & AGP or something like that.

My old mbd (the one going into my gf's PC) is ideal, the AM2NF3-VSTA. It supports
all the way up to Phenom2 X4 3.2GHz. If only my PCIe ASUS board had quite the
same level of excellent CPU support.

And btw, on this mbd, the 6000+ oc'd to 3.15GHz. I'd originally planned to buy
a 7850 which is surprisingly cheap, but alas I knew the board's BIOS was too
old for this. It would have cost too much to obtain any old AM2 CPU to update
the BIOS and then buy the 7850 (amazing how much people charge for even a crappy
Sempron), so I just bought a 6000+.


> We'll see if anyone wants to put up the old hardware, I'm not sure
> anyone would be interested. But I'll keep my eye out.

I'd loan you mine if I wasn't already using it, but when I googled for this
model board a couple of weeks back I found industrial suppliers offering it for
as little as $20.


So, if you do proceed with testing a 4670, please also test an X1950Pro and the
whole lot with a 3GHz 6000+. Where does the X1950 fit it? Is spending just that
little bit extra on a 6000+ worth it? (3GHz even without bothering with an overclock!).

Other than that, thanks for the update!!

Ian.

 
Cleeve,

One other thing, how about some 3DMark numbers aswell?

My old X1950Pro AGP (641/783 core/RAM) with 6000+ 3.15GHz gave (plus some Cinebench 9.5 scores):

Code: 
3DMark2006:        5583
3DMark2005:       11094
3DMark2003:       17810
3DMark2001:       36087
C.B. 1/Render:      464
C.B. N/Render       853
C.B. Shading:       511
C.B. SW-L:         2178
C.B. HW-L:         4472

and the detailed 3DMark06 numbers are:

Code: 
3DMark06 Overall:                      5583
3DMark06 SM 2.0:                       2081
3DMark06 SM 3.0:                       2326
3DMark06 CPU:                          2415
Return to Proxycon (FPS):             16.11
Firefly Forest (FPS):                 18.57
Canyon Flight (FPS):                  22.16
Deep Freeze (FPS):                    24.36
Fill Rate Single (MTex/sec):        4931.52
Fill Rate Multi (MTex/sec):         7675.52
Pixel Shader (FPS):                  215.76
Vertex Shader Simple (MVerts/sec):   179.42
Vertex Shader Complex (MVerts/sec):   60.87
Shader Particles (SM 3.0):             N/A 
Perlin Noise (SM 3.0):                70.61

(here's hoping the formatting above works ok)

So, any chance you could run 3DMark06 on your various setups? A few more data points
for people to ponder...

Ian.

 
[citation][nom]mapesdhs[/nom]Cleeve,One other thing, how about some 3DMark numbers aswell?My old X1950Pro AGP (641/783 core/RAM) with 6000+ 3.15GHz gave (plus some Cinebench 9.5 scores):
Code :3DMark2006: 55833DMark2005: 110943DMark2003: 178103DMark2001: 36087C.B. 1/Render: 464C.B. N/Render 853C.B. Shading: 511C.B. SW-L: 2178C.B. HW-L: 4472and the detailed 3DMark06 numbers are:
Code :3DMark06 Overall: 55833DMark06 SM 2.0: 20813DMark06 SM 3.0: 23263DMark06 CPU: 2415Return to Proxycon (FPS): 16.11Firefly Forest (FPS): 18.57Canyon Flight (FPS): 22.16Deep Freeze (FPS): 24.36Fill Rate Single (MTex/sec): 4931.52Fill Rate Multi (MTex/sec): 7675.52Pixel Shader (FPS): 215.76Vertex Shader Simple (MVerts/sec): 179.42Vertex Shader Complex (MVerts/sec): 60.87Shader Particles (SM 3.0): N/A Perlin Noise (SM 3.0): 70.61(here's hoping the formatting above works ok)So, any chance you could run 3DMark06 on your various setups? A few more data pointsfor people to ponder...Ian.[/citation]

Pretty well for a 1950 pro

I have an Athlon 5200 with the Sapphire 3850 AGP and it scores 7700 in 3d mark 2006

 
[citation][nom]mapesdhs[/nom]Thanks marcos669! What are the individual test scores?I guess my attempt at formatting didn't work. What tag can one use to force amonospaced font?Ian.[/citation]

I don´t remember the individual scores i only saved the total score in a .txt file.

I also run the other 3d mark, but i can´t acess the data right know, i will put it later.

I don´t know what do you mean with "I guess my attempt at formatting didn't work. What tag can one use to force a
monospaced font?" becausa i´m spanish, and i don´t know all words, if you can explain me what do you mean, i will answer.
 
Monospaced font means displaying text so that every character has the same width,
thus tables of text/data look neat and readable. I thought the 'code' tag was the
right one to use (works on other forums) but apparently not. Pity one can't edit
posts.

Ian.

 
[citation][nom]mapesdhs[/nom]Monospaced font means displaying text so that every character has the same width,thus tables of text/data look neat and readable. I thought the 'code' tag was theright one to use (works on other forums) but apparently not. Pity one can't editposts.Ian.[/citation]

Oks, thanks for the explanation

I can know acess mi data about 3d mark and here are the results for my athlon 5200(brisbane)+Sapphire 3850+ 2Gb ddr2-800:

3d mark 2006 : 7699

3d mark 2005: 13208

3d mark 2003: 20638

3dmark 2001: 28968
 
This article was very timely for me. I was seriously considering building a new rig to replace my Abit NF7-S, Athlon XP-M 2400+ (oc'd to 2.2GHz), 2 GB DDR RAM, Radeon 9500/9700 box because I was having serious lag and getting regularly smoked playing L4D Versus. After reading these 2 articles, I tried upgrading my video with the XFX Radeon HD 4650 1GB DDR2 AGP card. WOW! My 3DMark03 benchmark scores went from 5,600 to 13,000 (+130%) and I upped my L4D video setting from low to high and started dishing out some payback! I got the XFX 4650 AGP card for only $62 delivered. My new build was going to run me at least $400 for an entry level/budget gaming machine. Thanks for GREAT review!
 
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