veheATI

Hello guys,

My present rig is 3800+/2Gb/7900GS...
was running nice on CO4 but I wanted more...
(everything on yes except specular map 2xAA texture: high / fps range from 30 to 91)

so i have a HD3870 on the way (glad to be back on ATI side btw )
but then i realized maybe i didnt think enough...

the 3800+ may bottleneck the whole system?
what do you think?

I was expecting to push my min FPS from 30 to 60+ fps...will it be possible?
maybe overclock?

thx

kris23

i really cant recommend the 3870 at all.....

as a not so proud owner of a 3870, even at 900 core and 2800 mem, im not impressed....

and yea, the 3800 will limit it. is that an A64 or X2? both are bottlenecks
but the X2 is better...

lastly, welcome to DH!!

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ChaosMinionX

What arent you impressed about with the 3870 kris?

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veheATI

ah ah too late...
I'm not a hardcore gamer...I think it should handle what I throw at it (no intention to play crysis here)

A64...ok that's what I was afraid of...
is there anyway to quantify how it would hold me back?...
I'm on the 939 socket, so it's a bit the pain in the ass to upgrade...
X2 939 are becoming rare and expensive....




thanks!

[hobo]eclipse

your cpu will definatly bottleneck you, as my sig if phibing a bit, i have a 3870 with my dual core 3800 @ 2.8GHz and i can feel a CPU bootleneck real fast, on the other hand you can load up on the AA and AF, my 3870 performs atleast the same if not better w' 8x AA and 8x AF forced in most games ive tried.

shouldve hooked up on newegg b4 christmas, got this x2 3800 for 55 bucks, hits 2.8 w voltage increase from 1.35 to 1.4

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kris23

ehh.... its just when i play a game like FEAR which is all the way from 05. i feel that it should run all max settings with all the AA and AF up.... at 1280x1024 a low res no one really uses anymore.... i know that looking at the benches of the 8800GTs and GTS's they can do that res much better than the 3870s..... and take a much smaller performance hit than the 3870.

well i probably wont ever be able to upgrade seriously for several years and this thing already being at its limit 3 years ago feels weird.....

ill be lucky if i ever get a 2nd 3870, an X2 is out of the question and the Q9000s will probably come out when im broke with no hope.....

i wanted to see if i could challenge myself and try and place a high score in Roadee's fastest Rig but failed and destroyed my motherboard in the process.... Newegg is sending me a new Maximus but...

theres no way i can compete with cards like the 8800 Ultra.......... no matter how high i end up getting to

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ChaosMinionX

ermmm how did you destroy a Maximus? Also..... FEARs performance sucks in Vista.... plain and simple. Dont benchmark that at all. And its really not hard beating a single 8800Ultra with a 3870/HD2900XT in 3dmark....

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kris23

ehh i guess.... but GTs are still better.... but i wanted stability.

and i dont really know how i destroyed the Maximus anyway..... i was trying to run the CPU at 3.67GHz or something with a 525FSB, and i think 1.73 or 1.69v to the NB..... this probably did it and yea.... but my NB sits happily at 40C full load.

high 2.3+ volts to memory with a 5:6 ratio.... the i hear a loud BZZZZZTT!!! from the tower. no visible damage but it just died and wouldnt boot....


P.S. BIOS 907 sucks! cant even get a 1:1 ratio out of anything higher than DDR2 900. there gone my great want of running my memory at an awesome DDR2 1111 @ 4-4-4-4.......

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ChaosMinionX

Maximus is really meant to have the best of the best parts put into it..... That RAM probably had the problem.. as of 0907 (which is the best BIOS to date with the most performance) Dominator 8888/6400C3 Series can get out of 1:1 into the 1250 range 5-5-5-15 with no problem at 2.3v.

If you set 2.3v+ in BIOS you should have posted or asked me first I could have told you Maximus overvolts DIMMs by ~.1v which would put you at 2.4v maybe more, maybe less. Your specific kit is only rated for 2.2v DDR2 1200 5-5-5-15... its no wonder you killed that RAM.

525mhz FSB is alot for X38... you should probably stay out of that range being that your on Air cooling, and set limits for yourself unless you have A) Expendable Income B) Know what your really doing and have a DMM (digital multimeter) to check voltages to make sure what you set is what your getting. Take it easy when first starting Overclocking, especially since you went to such an advanced motherboard, with a BIOS that makes some long time overclockers cry.

And finally.... 3.67ghz at 525mhz FSB isnt going to shatter any 3d06 or 05 records, though pcmark05 might score well with it Your FSB is too high, with multi set too low.... They rely just as much on actual CPU clocks, as it does FSB... happy medians get high scores, especially on Air cooling.

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Judas

HD3870 will be waiting for information from the CPU.... you cpu will definitely be the bottlekneck.. however at lower resolutions it won't be as noticeable.

The HD3870 works very very well with a Intel Core 2 Dou E6450..... course the more power you put to it, the better things typically run...

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kris23

ive been able to run the memory all the way to 1111mhz at CAS 4, but the X38 just cant take the FSB then so i try to put it at 1:1 and no matter how high the volts, or how high the timings.... it would never boot, not even at DDR2 1000 CAS 5-5-5-18....... sounds fishy to me....


i actually forgot how many GHz the CPU was putting out but it was 525x7

i also am not sure what i was doing that day.....

it was either that or my usual 24/7 clocks of 3.5GHz and DDR2 1200 with all volts to auto....... and thanks for the heads up on the volts issue. it was in the morning of a school day so this probably was it since i never keep anything above 500 FSB running for more than an hour.

the board always behaved strange, it would freeze up randomly even at stock which made me worry so i did all the testing i did, all other components passed but the freeze would occur after 10+ hours of orthos usually and sometimes just after i use the internet.

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ChaosMinionX

Like I said Maximus is a very hard board to Overclock Also your stability tests dont exactly work as well in Vista... there are things to disable so the test runs fine and uninterrupted.

But you could PM Me for that so we dont further sidetrack this thread.


My Apologies veheATI

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veheATI

No pb

do you guys know a reliable website where I can buy cheap X2's ( socket 939) and would ship international?
(i live in the netherlands)

[hobo]eclipse

sry bout the newegg comment above, i c now, i dont know of any sites but it may be to late to find any decent "cheapos"

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veheATI

Well the new card is up and running now...(after some pbs described in other thread)...
I would tend to agree with kris23....I'm dissapointed.
I dont understand how this card works, when I play COD4, on some maps, I can see the GPU usage is low (40-50%) while the fps are choppy like hell....ending up being worse than my 7900GS...
when the GPU is at its max, I get 10 or 20 fps better than the 7900GS...

some might say it's bacause the car is underpowered (18A the 12V rail), but there is no signs of that (no artefacts, no BSODs)....

[hobo]eclipse

the card is severely bottlenecked from the CPU/RAM, how is the ram setup? 2x1 gb?

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veheATI

yes...it's 2x1gb

I understand the car is bottlenecked, but then at worst it would perform like the 7900GS not lower, right?

kris23

yup

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[hobo]eclipse

what do you mean by "When the GPU is at is max"?

i would try a fresh windows install possibly, has it been a whie? when switching between the cards was the nvidia driver uninstalled and DC ran?

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veheATI

in riva tuner and catalyst you can see a number call GPU activity representing the load of the GPU...
yes i ran DC...
I passed from 8.2 to 7.12...the problem is gone....
the GPU is at its fullest on every map...
and I finally see why I paid 200 euros....but it's weird....

Liqourice

I can say this. My Athlon 64 X2 5200+ is definately bottlenecking my HD3870X2... so there's no doubt that your cpu will bottleneck that card.

I've OC'd a bit so I get nice performance out of it anyway but as soon as a nice and fast Phenom is out I'll get one so I can use all the raw power this Sapphire card has!

ChaosMinionX

Nice and Fast, and Phenom dont go in the same sentence unfortunately.....

Pick up an E8400/8500 and OC it to like 4ghz and you will see that 3870X2 shine....

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Liqourice

And how am I gonna fit that on my new AM2+ motherboard? :P

ChaosMinionX

Your not

Go get a P35 based board

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Neshi

veheATI, tweakers.net is your friend when you're looking for hardware.
I found a X2 4200, 939 socket, for 70 euros (8 euros shipping)
maybe that is something for you.

and you can always look on marktplaats.

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If one does not attach himself to people and desire, never shall his heart be broken. But then, does he ever truly live?

The only guarantee in life is failure, to achieve success you have to take risks.

veheATI

thanks for the tip neshi...
I picked up an Opteron 175 on some dutch website that still had it...
I saw some 4200+ too, but i thought the opteron will be better on stock speed and bonus, they overclock very nice...

Neshi

well, good to see you made up your mind and actually found one. you were right about 939's being rare... almost everything is AM2 these days.
hope you enjoy the new hardware and get some better performance from both the cpu as the gpu

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If one does not attach himself to people and desire, never shall his heart be broken. But then, does he ever truly live?

The only guarantee in life is failure, to achieve success you have to take risks.

Zelig

Depends on the game, and resolution. We've got nearly the exact same systems (I've got 4x1gb and a G92 8800 GTS), and new games at 1920x1200 are still getting bottlenecked by the gpu.

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veheATI

Bummer...my opteron isnt in stock anymore...
(those stores would say anything to let you spend some cash)...
I'll try to pick up a X2 4800+ on the second-hand market...should be good enough....