Any Performance Increase?

**Xster** · July 13th, 2002, 06:11 PM

I've been hearing about bottleneck problems, so I just want to ask if upgrading will help me in this case. I am running a P2 400MHZ with 256MB of PC100 RAM. My video card right now is an ATI Rage Pro 8MB, and I want to upgrade to a Radeon 7000 64MB AGP. Will i see an increase in performance? I usually run games, Counter-Strike and so on, but not the latest games (Morrowind, Ghost Recon). Bottom line: I want to find out if the upgrade is worth it. Thanks in advance for the help.

-Xster

**eagle1** · July 13th, 2002, 06:39 PM

Well... The CPU is definitely a bottleneck BUT, my friend has similar specs (except with a GeForce MX card) and he is playing games like GTA and Spiderman on his PC (of course at low res, and low settings.!).

New games will play horrobly on your system because of that cpu bottleneck but I'm pretty sure your old games will run faster.!

**Xster** · July 13th, 2002, 06:43 PM

So would the 64MB help me more, or should I just get the 32MB since the CPU is a bottleneck? Will i see a difference in performance vs. the 32MB one?

-Xster

**Ultima** · July 13th, 2002, 06:46 PM

No use getting the 64Mb version, cause the extra 32Mb will only make a difference when playing at higher resolutions, which you can't play decent cause of yer cpu bottleneck.

**Jeordiewhite** · July 13th, 2002, 07:32 PM

You know a little cooling and over clocking might really pull you out, If you can get a 133 fsb you may be looking at a big enough difference in perfomance. and maybe even a 550 mhz processor.
To get some real improvement you could buy a barebone system and that new video card. Otherwise your most likely stuck on the processor holding you back.

**Ultima** · July 14th, 2002, 03:59 AM

Common Jeordiewhite,

he has a P2 for pete's sake, they are terrible at overclocking.

They are seriously limited by the off die cache they have, for it isn't able to run much faster then it already is.
And 133Mhz fsb isn't really doable on a P2, so......

And if yer gonna wanna do a cheap upgrade, might I suggest a kt266a board paired with a duron 1200 and 256Mb ram??

They are pretty damn cheap, and when ya upgrade yer videocard next month, you'll have no more bottleneck

**Oscar1613** · July 14th, 2002, 12:10 PM

if you dont have enough for a full system upgrade (mobo, cpu, and ram) you could always try one of these. you could upgrade to a Celeron 1.4GHZ (tualatin) for just $169, 1.2GHz for just $149, or 1.0GHz for $129.

if you have a store bought computer (dell, compaq, etc.) you can find compatibility info here

**vass0922** · July 14th, 2002, 01:08 PM

although still looking at the 64mb maybe worth keeping an eye on. I'm assuming you won't be using a P2 400 forever, so when you ARE able to upgrade in the future you already have a decent vid card to upgrade with so one less thing to buy