For any denizens of this forum who are interested (especially the ones who reply without being rude  ) this is what my new system is doing.





It's an AMD 64 3000+ (one that got damaged last Christmas and I recently repaired) in an Abit NF8 mobo, 1GB DDR333 (not 400) RAM and Gainward 6800LE with 3 (of the 4) pixel pipe sets and all of the shaders opened with RivaTuner. I've also lightly OCd the card using the Gainward tool from core 300 to 344 and memory from 700 to 833 (could still go a bit higher). I'm running with a Samsung 160GB ATA HD.

Performance is fine - working temp of the GC stays at around 67/68 deg which seems pretty cool to me and there are (at last) no stability problems. I've passed my old AMD 2600+ system on to my son now who (would you believe) isn't really into 3D games ( much prefers constantly messaging and texting all his mates) and although it uses the cheapie PCChips mobo I got a while ago to replace the original nForce board that was damaged by one of the graphics card I got along the way, he seems pretty happy with it.

My new system didn't cost a lot (my PC is mainly used for my business and FS is really secondary) but I'm quite pleased with it. I'm stuck with the 333 DDR for the time being (came out of my old system) and maybe I'll go to DDR 400 when I can justify it. Any guesses by how much that'll increase performance?

Hi Roger.... ...!

Fifteen thousand, one hundred and eighty-six, 3D Marks, in 3D Mark 2001.... ...!

...doesn't it make you feel really good inside... ... ... ...!

I love it when that 'appens... 8)...!
LOL...!

Cheers Roger...!

Paul... ...!

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Hi Roger...!

Fortunately, when Mr. Gates and his Windows XP heavies come knocking on my door, I am at Mr. Sainsbury's, doin' a spot of shoppin'... ...!
..rather like Mr. TV Licencing Authority and his merry band of heavies... ...!

...It's a desperate life I lead, always hiding in drains, behind curtains, etc, to avoid the wrath of various Companies, Hell bent on sending me to the local chain gang to convert large chunks of rocks into rubble suitable to create a road for the the Hereford By-Pass... ...!

My copy of Win XP Pro I like, listening to the Radio only, I like...
...breaking up lumps of rock for Herefordshire County Council....I don't like...

...so many choices... ...!
LOL...!

Cheers Roger...!

Pablo...not too clued-up on Latino languages...or the small print on legal documents... ...!

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Wotcha Woozy - those are benchmarking progs that are used to test the speed of your graphics. The numbers are purely relative. Congo is the world's expert at setting graphics systems up for benchmarking - he gets phenominal scores out of his cards.

3DMark2001 isn't really an up-to-date test because it doesn't fully test DirectX 9 features - but bozos like Foz and me like it because the numbers look really impressive ( you know, in a childish sort of way   )

3DMark03 is better and if you're really keen (as it's a huge download) you can get 3DMark05 now.

To give you an idea, my old GeForce3 Ti on my old 2600+ system gave a score of 4332 in 3DMark2001. My 9700Pro gave 11223. Get the idea?

Before it broke (!) my new 6600GT that stuffed both itself and my mobo and was returned gave 13681 BUT 7260 in 3DMark03 ie better than my current setup. And that was with the AMD 2600+ cpu so looks as though my move to the de-masked 6800LE was not a good move. But there you are, have to try these things.

BTW

You can get the progs (free + payware pro versions) at the link below.

http://www.futuremark.com

Hi, thanks congo

Pity really that it's come out of a series of compromises. I already had the 3000+ cpu because I had written it off (at my cost!) last Christmas because of a stupid handling error. But I hung onto it and managed to repair the snapped pin. There you go, not my cpu of choice - couldn't afford (or justify) a 4000+ that I recently did for a client but something like the 3500 isn't that much more than the 3000.

The Abit NF8 mobo wasn't too expensive but at least it has got scope for a future cpu upgrade as and when. It's also got 2 SATA ports but, again, when I was having all those g/card problems recently I had to get a new HD that would work with my then mobo ie ATA. So I'm stuck with it for the time being.

Same goes for the RAM - I had 1.25GB in 3 slots in my last rig so I left 256MB for my son (he doesn't need it   ) and put the 1GB in the new setup. Should of course be DDR400 h/speed.

Anyway, I'm just glad to have a working system back. It is pretty smooth and fast enough but it's suffering from a sound problem which hopefully I'll be able to solve. When ATC contact you (or you them) the first syllable is always repeated several times (like you have a bad stutter). Maybe it's because I've installed a fresh FS2004 but then just copied the whole of my original FS2004 over from my last rig and there's some king of incompatability somewhere. Don't know - but it can wait for now while I get my breath (and life   ) back.

Edit

Sound problem sor'ed (as they say in Hackney). Just installed latest nForce3 sound drivers (that resolve 'problems in several games') and everything's now peachy. Now I can sleeeeep...........

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Think I'll let sleeping dogs lie until I can get the proper article. I've cleared CMOS more times than I can count over the last few weeks - can't face the prospect now things are running nicely again.

Of course, what I forgot to mention in my last post was the biggest compromise of all. Because I only started out doing a GC upgrade based on my last mobo, I went AGP. If I'd known I was going to end up with a new AMD 64 system I'd have gone PCI-e which would have been more future-proof I reckon.