Single Core CPU Question

[AKM880]

Hello.

Just wondering how this system will perform for these games : CS:S, CoD4, GRiD, DiRT, maybe ARMA2. At 1280x1024, maybe around Med/High?

P4 Socket 478 @ 2.41GHz ~ From 2GHz
1.5GB DDR2 533MHz RAM
ASUS 9600GSO 384MB
Biostar P4M900-M4
===Other Components===
CoolerMaster 460w PSU (Came with case )
80GB IDE HDD
CoolerMaster Elite 335

 

[masterjaw]

Quite an old system you got there. IMO, you could still play a decent fps in low settings.

 

[chunkymonster]

Playing those games on that system at a lowers resolution may yield better frame rates, you might also want to try playing at 1024x768 rather than 1280x1024.

 

[obsidian86]

yeah thats pretty much minimum spec

 

[wathman]

Might be worthwhile to upgrade to 4GB of DDR2, for the low clocked stuff this board will take, it should be nearly free with rebates I would think.

 

[soundefx]

I think your system would play the games but not with everything turned up.

It depends on your OS and your RAM is lacking becasue it is not even in dual channel mode.

As stated by wathman, if you have some money to sapre, buy some cheap dual channel RAM, 2x1G or even better 2x2G RAM for your board, but don't spent more than $35 - $55 on that system.

 

[shubham1401]

Don't buy any more ram.Your pc won't be using that much on that games (If you have got XP with it)
The bottleneck is the CPU.
I would say overclock it a bit more furthur.

 

[wathman]

games under XP should be able allocate up to 2GB of RAM, won't make a huge impact over the 1.5GB he already has, but it will help a little. I just recommended to max it out because it's so cheap to upgrade DDR2 RAM

 

[stevensl2]

Maybe it's time to invest in a new motherboard and CPU ^-^

The core i5's starts at 199 and the core i3 probably even lower.

 

[wathman]

Some people like to run things until they die... my dad is like that. If he wants to start with a fresh build, I'd say that's a good idea too.

 

[AKM880]

Board doesn't support dual channel memory. The 2.4GHz is the furthest it'll go because of no voltage control.

So I could probably play these at 1280x1024 Medium, but no AA or anything.

 

[KyleSTL]

A 2.0Ghz P4 means Northwood or Willamette with no hyperthreading, and no SSE3. That right there tells me those games won't fly on that machine. My aged P4 machine plays NFS: Prostreet at the lowest settings for all visuals and 1024 with barely playable frame rates (the newest game I play, simply because I need a new system to play anything newer). I know your GPU kills mine, but I think that your CPU is going to kill any playability with newer games (just an opinion)

 

[AKM880]

Thanks Kyle

 

[AKM880]

Anyways would it help if I got a 2.4GHz P4 and overclocked it to around 2.7GHz?

 

[apache_lives]

no ammount of clock speed for that Northwood would help you - its too old for any serious gaming

hell even my old P4 3400's with an 8600GTS struggles with COD5 - i dont deem it playable when its not enjoyable

 

[AKM880]

So I shouldn't get the 9600GSO? Would it get cheaper when the DX11 cards come out?

 

[KyleSTL]

Any system centered around that P4 (or any P4, for that matter) will be unusable for those games.

 

[AKM880]

Is guess your right, I'm think about it. Thanks all!

 

[AKM880]

So, I decided to get the 3.0E-GHz P4 with HT

It should help shouldn't it? It should have "virtually" 1 core more. So a virtual dual core?

I guess I don't need the power of a full Core 2 Duo system yet. But for $80 I thnk its worth it.

 

[bgd73]

I remember that speed. I even had 2.4ghz and 533. loooong time runner, and still so I presume. It could possibly run forever.
I liked it enough to also go prescott, HT 3.4ghz, 3gb ram, dual channel memory..and two drives twinned. Classic and still new... even the agp still goes where I want with the ati 2600 pro. (I simply encode my own mpeg2)..the prescott is now at 22000 hours, and I am here with it. they are a good machine even today, right now.


EDIT: I do not know if you were informed, but windows xp basic or vista basic is a pile of crap with the prescott. it treats it like a little cpu. I installed vista premium full clean install and met a whole new world. The ram use is quibble talk, just get more.
wn2k pro is also a great one.

 

[AKM880]

^ Did you ever game on the 2.4GHz P4?