I have no idea when the product will be released.
All I know is that Nvidia’s parking lot in Santa Clara always has cars in it and the lights are always on.
I mean, it’s not like I have a 486 66 or anything, I mean I would think that most games should run pretty well with a 1.7 ghz processor
well it generally depends on all your system specs. RAM can influence the direct performance of games, especially ones that have an extensive physics or AI system. Video cards influence how many graphics instructions are processed by the CPU, and what sort of effects you can enable (i.e. a newer card will be able to employ newer effects, and will offload many graphics instructions from the CPU). Likewise the sound card processes all the sound instructions and whatnot. The CPU I’m not totally sure of, but I think it’s basically how fast the instructions are sent to wherever they’re supposed to, be it the video card, RAM, sound card, etc.
So technically speaking, a 1.7GHz GF2 w/ 128MB RAM will run newer games worse than a 1.2GHz GF3 w/ 256MB RAM.
RAM speed can also effect the general performance.
Worst to best: - SDRAM, DDR RAM (for AthlonXP’s), RD RAM (for P4’s)
I’m running 512 ddr on a pentium
9700 Pro to 9800 Pro is probably not worth it. From anything else, I think that it is…assuming you are the type to spend $400 on a vid card in the first place, many people arent.
I went from a ti4600 to a 9800Pro and there are noticeable improvements. The image quality is a little better when comparing the cards, and AA is much, much, much less of a performance hit on the 9800.
I dont know if the 256mb part will be worth another $100. I dont really think it will unless you are running AA heavy or 1600x1200. As for the new nVidia part…who knows. I havent seen any specs or performance claims.
FWIW, I have an XP 2700+ and 1 gig of DDR333 RAM running on an MSI KT3 Ultra (need a new mobo). Its running XP Pro, and the CPU and RAM are not overclocked. I have the FSB set to 166, which is overclocked for the board, but not the RAM or the CPU. The 9800 seems very overclockable, but the gains are minimal.
olaf
I guess I’m just a big nvidia fan, much the same as when I was a 3DFX fan. I may try a Radeon, but I’m not sure. And yes, I’m thinking of putting 400 bucks on a video card.
Just get the Radeon. No point in waiting for another 2-3 months to see if nVidia fucked up again, or not. Their product line is kinda a train wreck at the moment, and I don’t really think blind faith is something anyone should have in them. You could be holding out for a Voodoo 5 6000, after all, without even realising it.
There isn’t much danger in holding out for the NV35. If you can wait for June and you like nVidia, that would be the way to go. Either that or get a R9800. However, ATI still can’t get past the fix-a-bug/add-a-bug on their high end driver releases.
If you aren’t emotionally attached to AA or AF, there’s really no reason to go for anything higher than the Ti 4600, or a Ti 4200 that overclocks to Ti 4600 levels. The dirty little secret of this generation of video cards is that they HAVE to benchmark with 4x AA and 4x AF to show any noticeable performance differences at anything but 1600x1200.
And DirectX9 games? Please. I’m still waiting for significant DX8 titles to arrive. Remember that Half-Life 2 runs on DX6 class hardware minimum.
“There isn’t much danger in holding out for the NV35.”
I’m sure there were people saying that about the FX. Don’t get that 9700Pro untill you see what the FX does. So I don’t know why people are now going well just wait for the NV35. Do people really think it will be a significant improvement over say a 9800Pro? I mean were people will actually notice it? I doubt it. If you have $400 to blow I don’t think at all your wasting money if you got a 9800Pro instead of waiting for a NV35.
“Remember that Half-Life 2 runs on DX6 class hardware minimum.”
Yea and on those machines won’t look at all like the screenshots being shown. Also in my experience many times the minimum means the game will load and start a level…after that well you on your own.
Also in my experience many times the minimum means the game will load and start a level…after that well you on your own.
I guess you didn’t read the LAN thread where I was remarking how well Battlefield 1942 and Vietcong (and Black Hawk Down, while I’m at it) ran on a friend’s machine with a 32mb AGP TNT2 M64 with a P4 1.4ghz. I’m serious. I expected a hideous looking, totally unplayable slideshow. What we actually got was playable framerates and decent graphics.
Which was more than you deserved.
Haha.
Sorry.
-Vede
Yeah, and as you say, you have to take a lot of factors into account, not the least of which is the particular game engine (which are often themselves signficantly CPU-intensive rather than GPU-intensive or vice-versa).
It’s not quite up to date any more (it’s from 2002 with the highest card being Geforce4s/Radeon 8500s), but Anandtech did an interesting CPU-scaling testing with UT2003. It’s on a single platform and locked by game resolution (800x600) and apparently without any AF or AA, but it does show scaling over an Athlon 800-1733 mhz with most of the video cards available at the time. It serves as an interesting, if rather rough, gauge for trying to figure out if what’s most beneficial, if anyone is contemplating a video card vs cpu upgrade:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1650&p=1
If anyone has a more recent or comprehensive CPU scaling shootouts with different GPUS from a hardware site, I’d love to see them. They seem pretty rare, probably because they must take a hell of a lot of work.
Call me an Nvidia fanboy (or a former 3dfx fanboy) but I havea new allinwonder 9700 pro… and while VERY good, it somehow doesnt compare to when I got a TI 4600. I really like the colors with that Geforce card… plus Geforce drivers/utilities come with that vibrancy thing… which I liked ALOT. Does ATI have this for the radeons? I haven’t seen any.
Yeah I hardly turn on AA though Anisotropic I do like at leat around 2x or 4x (on 1280/960 or 1280/1024).
etc
For the record, Vederman, you are dangerously close to being a parody of yourself. Like Brian Koontz, but with hardware.
Why spend $400 anyways? This will get you a 9700 with 128 RAM for just over $200 and you can send me the difference.
I’ll mail you a drawing of an emoticon, is that close enough?
Wow. That’s a good price for a 9700 Pro.