[Pc_Support] Re: igh, been fantasizing about BF2 -- Socket-462/AthlonXP has gone up in price ...

[Jason Boxman]

On Sunday 24 July 2005 23:46, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> On Sun, 2005-07-24 at 21:27 -0400, Jason Boxman wrote:
> > I'm still running an old ECS K7S5A with a XP 1800+.
>
> Well, that's not too terribly bad for most titles.  Unfortunately,
> pricing of Socket-462/Athlon XP processors have actually gone up in
> price!  As I "danced a jig before," I predicted all this.

I think I sort of maxed my board anyway.  When I bought this CPU a year ago it 
was the fastest one that stopped at FSB133.  All the other processors were 
good for 166 or 200. I wasn't expecting to be upgrading to a faster Socket A 
board in the future, so I went with the 1800+.

> E.g., I bought my wife's Socket-462/Athlon XP2600+ (2.13GHz/266MHz) for
> $64 exactly 1 year ago.  They are now no less than $92 on Pricewatch.
> The 333MHz FSB parts are a bit cheaper, but not as cheap as $64 was, and
> have a lower clock (the rating gets a boost from the FSB).
>
> AMD cut _all_ Athlon XP production months ago, hence the few Socket-462
> "Sempron" are 333MHz FSB parts, much lower clocks and still not as
> cheap.  The Sempron _has_ become the "new Duron," and Socket-754 seems
> to be its mainstay, while the Socket-939 is Athlon 64's.

Oops.  Oh well, I wasn't planning on buying anymore Socket A boards anyway.

<snip>
> > I totally need to toast this rig and upgrade to a PCIe board, since
> > it's silly to purchase an AGP video card at this stage, methinks.
>
> Not entirely true.  The AGP prices on new nVidia 6200/6600 cards have
> now finally dropped to affordable levels.  PCIe doesn't offer the
> greatest boost, at least not in an AMD platform where _both_ are already
> segmented in its real system interconnect.
>
> And AGP mainboards are _cheap_ these days, because everyone wants PCIe.

Interesting.

I guess my issue is I don't want to blow $150-$200 on an AGP card if my 
mainboard upgrade in the next 12-24 months won't support it.  I don't upgrade 
video cards every 12-18 months, but maybe every 24 or so.  So I'd either need 
to buy a new video card when I upgrade to a newer AMD solution or put off 
upgrading until I'm ready to upgrade to a PCIe VC 12 or 24 months from now.

I guess it's a 'future proofing' issue.  I can spend somewhat more now, but 
not have to buy another video card again in 12 months.  (Although I guess 
some people do that anyway, so then it wouldn't be a consideration -- but it 
is for me.)

> But here's my list of notes ...

Excellent!

<snip>
> > Any quality entry level PCIe boards?  I'm looking at buying a NVidia
> > 6600 or 6800 variant.  Probably a 6600 or 6600GT, though.
>
> AnandTech did a GPU performance evaluation of BF2.  The system was an
> Athlon FX55 (not cheap!) with 1GB RAM (now that's more typical).  Figure
> a good 25+% loss for more typical CPU.
>
> On the "budget" cards, 1024x768 with "jaggies" and only getting 30fps
> isn't nice in a 6200:
>   http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2466&p=2
>
> Now at 1024x768 with 4xAA is more my game, the 6600GT was a respectable
> 42fps, which is probably around 30fps on a typical Socket-754/939 CPU:
>   http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2466&p=3

I don't think I've ever played a game at higher than 800x600.  My video card 
is usually two generations behind the typical high end gamer, I think.

> On the same page, note that jumping to 1280x1024 with 4xAA is going to
> drop your performance by 1/3rd, maybe more.  So for those of you that
> have a typical 17" or 19" LCD at that resolution, and you hate jaggies
> like me, a GeForce 6800GT is going to be the minimum you want to look
> at.
<snip>
> Don't look to Socket-939 and future-proofing _unless_ you are willing to
> pay:
> - $50+ for a well-ventilated case**
> - $100+ for a good ATX 2.0x PS, possibly $150 for triple +12V
> - $100-150 for a good, nForce Ultra mainboard
>

I'll have to sleep on it, I guess.  I can't remember the last time I spent 
like $500 at once on computer stuff.  I might just buy a 6600 and stick my 
head in the sand for a year.

-- 

Jason Boxman
Perl Programmer / *NIX Systems Administrator
Shimberg Center for Affordable Housing | University of Florida
http://edseek.com/ - Linux and FOSS stuff