Geforce4 - is it dead?

jlpicard1413 · May 28, 2004

I realise that this is no longer the forefront of computer technology, but I have an aging system and at the moment have no way of upgrading (no £s) ... I have an Athlon 1.33GHz with a Geforce4 Ti4800SE graphics card and if I wind up the CPU and the graphics card (it is a Gainward Golden Sample card)I can get over 10000 on 3DMark2001SE - which I think is pretty good (I won't say what the 3DMark2003 score is - well it's about 1500!). I can run most games OK in 800x600, including Far Cry adn Colin McRae Rally 4 - yes I know that Geforce FX is now at 6800 and records enormous scores in even 3DMArk2003, and that is on a 3.2GHz CPU.
Anyway my question; if I could scrape together enough money (£s remember!)and I upgraded my system to say an AMD 3000+ but kept my current Geforce4 Ti4800SE, would it be worth it or would I really notice a lot of difference if I got say a Geforce FX 5700, or 5800 ... ?

entium · May 28, 2004

lol thats a tough one, you can get a AMD athlon 3000+ with motherboard for around 160 bucks at Tigerdirect. And you probably should upgrade the card too but its not need yet since you can run all the games reasonable well at low res. The cpu will help out more with physics and ai which the new games have a butt load of.

Crashman · May 28, 2004

I'd upgrade the CPU first, your old card isn't nearly as outdated as your CPU.

Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!
Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!

tombance · May 28, 2004

You can get a cheap nForce 2 mobo with a cheap Athlon XP (around 2000+) for about £100. add on top of that around £60 for 512MB of PC3200 memory (for overclocking ofcourse) and you'll end up with a good system that should overclock to about 2.1Ghz with stock cooling.

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7454540" target="_new">Yay, I Finally broke the 12k barrier!!</A>

PREST0 · May 28, 2004

I have a g4ti4400 with a 2.66ghz p4 2x256mb ddr333 and while the card seriously limits the 3dmark03 score due to its dx8.1 limitation in real world use I find it quite powerful. Battlefield, call of duty, ut2k3, black hawk down, and many others all run flawlessly at 1024 with detail set high. I also get 12098 in 3dmark2001se[330] and thats pretty much stock speed(285/570). I love my gf4, I would think a cpu/mobo upgrade would serve your card quite well.

jlpicard1413 · May 28, 2004

Hi Presto ... that's the sort of help I like! As I said my Ti4800SE is a Gainward Golden Sample currently running in "enhanced mode" at 280/570, but although this is it's max guaranteed speed it can be wound all the way up to 320/700, and I have run it at that ... but only for a 3DMark2001 test, and it worked fine and that was when I got a score of 10000 with my lowly 1.33 Thunderbird ... admittedly I was running the FSB at 144 as well!! ... glad to hear you still like your Ti4400 ... mine being a 4800SE probably makes it nearer to yours anyway.
When I do upgrade I will go for CPU, motherboard and memory at first anyway ...... I was wondering whether to keep my DDR 2100, but I think I'll have to upgrade that as well!

Next question is, do I upgrade to XP 3200+ or AMD 64? ... or P4? ... I haven't had a Pentium CPU since I had a Pentium 200MMX .....(?)
Thanks
JLP

jlpicard1413 · May 28, 2004

Hi, thanks for the advice.... do you think I should go XP or wait for 64s to come down in price .... I read somewhere that an AMD 4400+ is in the pipleine ...running at 2.7GHz ... should I wait?
JLP

entium · May 28, 2004

windows 64 probably won't be out anytime soon :/. I even think MS delayed it?

Check if there is a big price difference between the athlon's and amd 64's. If there isn't much of a different 64 is the better way to go

cleeve · May 28, 2004

It depends how long you can wait.

You're CPU is so slow it's really limiting you, but if you can afford to wait, a socket 939 mobo & new Athlon64 is very forward-looking.

But if you don't have alot of cash and want something faster right now, getting a new Nforce2 mobo and a cheap Athlon 2400+ that you can overclock still leaves you a bit of headroom for upgrading to a 3200+ someday. Not much headroom though.

The bottom line: if you have the time and cash to upgrade to a socket 939 system when they come out in the next while, do it. If you don't havew the cash for that kind of upgrade anyway, go cheap Nforce2 and 2400+.

IMHO.

________________
Radeon 9700 PRO (o/c 329/337)
AthlonXP ~2750+ (2400+ @ 2208 Mhz)
3dMark03: 4,876

Crashman · May 28, 2004

You might be looking at a long wait...and your system is fairly slow by today's standards. In your position, I'd probably pick up that cheap 748 chipset board for $35 at Compgeeks and a XP Mobile 2400+. Those are unlocked, so you could overclock it using your old slow RAM. That $100 upgrade should keep you OK for around 1 year.

Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!
Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!

jlpicard1413 · May 30, 2004

The 939 mobo may well be worth the wait ... until games grind to a complete halt ... which they haven't done yet! ...... even on my aging 1.33 ..... I may well wait. I amte of mine has just upgraded to a 2800+ with FX 5900 graphics .... but I think I'll wait!
JLP
JLP

robduval · Jul 8, 2004

I have a GeForce Ti4200 (128mb), and can run any modern game at 1024x768 and medium detail with minimal problems...what's my secret you ask? For one thing I use an AMD Athlon XP 2400+ and have 1 GB of RAM. The RAM really helps, and these days, since your card is decent, it is most important to upgrade your CPU and RAM. Definitely get the Athlon 64, I build PCs for a living and let me tell you those things are amazing. Don't go Intel they cost way too much...but if you are on a budget get a higher end Athlon XP, my 2400+ is nice but you might want to go a little bit higher. But definitely keep in mind that 1 GB of memory makes the system...it allows the CPU to shine and takes stress off the video card. You will eventually want to upgrade to a DX9 compatible video card though (I'm not sure if yours is, but mine is only 8.1), because most new games support more advanced technology. Good luck!

TheGreatGrapeApe · Jul 8, 2004

GF4ti is DX8(.0) :evil:

But no game yet should make a GF4ti unplayable, you just miss out on some of the bling.

- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp (or internet account) ! - RED GREEN GA to SK :evil:

robduval · Jul 9, 2004

Actually, I'm not sure about that because in the Tom's Hardware guide that reviews all the graphics chipsets from 2003, it lists the GeForce Ti 4200 as 8.1...not a big deal but I'm pretty sure that's what it said.

TheGreatGrapeApe · Jul 9, 2004

Yep pretty sure about it. Definitely a TYPO on LARS/Borsti's part when making the list. When the R9000 came out he published <A HREF="http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/200207181/index.html" target="_new">a more descriptive/accurate list</A> (the VGA charts are more about the benchies than the specs).

GF4ti lacks support for PS1.4 and thus is only DX8.0. The R8500/9000 series(s) are DX8.1. The GF4ti still is faster in most situations, but occasionally you will get some additional effects/speed with a DX8.1+ card.

<A HREF="http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NTUy" target="_new">Here's [H]'s comparison of DX8 vs 8.1 vs 9 with the respective 'best cards in class'.</A> They look at performance and IQ.

I know it's not a big deal, that's why I put the smiley beside the statement.

- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp (or internet account) ! - RED GREEN GA to SK :evil:

robduval · Jul 9, 2004

Wow thanks for the followup, I didn't know about PS 1.4...I've seen you around the boards before and you're a real helpful guy.

davemar14 · Jul 11, 2004

My friend has a Athlon 64 3200+ and 9800 Pro. That setup is somewhat expensive, but will provide good performance for the next 2+ years.

sweatlaserxp · Jul 11, 2004

You're basically looking at building a new computer, with the exception of your PSU and hard drive, which you may need to replace as well; an Athlon 64 and high-end graphics card will require at least a high-quality 350W PSU, and because of initial loading times in some games a fast SATA hard drive is a good investment, or even two for a RAID 0 array (keep an eye out for new SATA drives that have "NCQ", or native command queueing- if they aren't out yet, then they will be out soon and they are faster than the current offerings).

Right now 1 Gb of RAM is solid, although I've heard rumors, perhaps unfounded, that certain upcoming games like Doom 3 require well beyond 1 Gb in order run at the highest quality settings; don't believe it until you see it however, 1 Gb is a LOT of memory. Considering how expensive DDR RAM is becoming, I would recommend staying away from the "high-performance low-latency" modules; I'm looking at prices on zipzoomfly right now and there is a $160 dollar difference between the normal brand-name memory and low-latency memory. I own Corsair XMS myself, but I bought it last year when it was dirt-cheap. Unless you're overclocking your memory, it's just not worth it anymore, those modules are too expensive. Is an increase of 1 or 2 FPS worth $160? Think about what $160 means in terms of choosing a graphics card...

Geforce4 - is it dead?

Distinguished

Distinguished

Polypheme

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Illustrious

Polypheme

Distinguished

Distinguished

Champion

Distinguished

Champion

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Share this page