Gaming Rig Bottleneck

[CyberNerd]

For purposes of gaming, and not spending too much money, whats's the part I should be focussing on upgrading this machine?:

 

 

 

 

Computer

Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Professional

OS Service Pack Service Pack 3

DirectX 4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c)

 

 

Motherboard

CPU Type Intel® Core™2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz

Motherboard Name Unknown

Motherboard Chipset Unknown

System Memory 3328 MB

BIOS Type Award Modular (09/22/08)

Communication Port Communications Port (COM1)

Communication Port Printer Port (LPT1)

 

Display

Video Adapter ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series (512 MB)

Video Adapter ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series (512 MB)

Monitor Plug and Play Monitor [NoDB] (LAW0C0638611)

 

Multimedia

Audio Adapter ATI HD Audio rear output

Audio Adapter Realtek HD Audio output

 

Storage

IDE Controller Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller

IDE Controller Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller

IDE Controller Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller

SCSI/RAID Controller AIC0NBNV IDE Controller

Floppy Drive Floppy disk drive

Disk Drive ST31500341AS (1397 GB, IDE)

Disk Drive SAMSUNG HD103SJ (931 GB, IDE)

Disk Drive SAMSUNG HD103SJ (931 GB, IDE)

Optical Drive Optiarc DVD RW AD-7201S

Optical Drive SJQVM 4PEJW92VO523 SCSI CdRom Device

SMART Hard Disks Status OK

 

Partitions

C: (NTFS) 156319 MB (28520 MB free)

 

Input

Keyboard Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard

Mouse HID-compliant mouse

 

Network

Network Adapter Realtek RTL8168/8111 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC (192.168.1.25)

Edited August 28, 2011 by CyberNerd
I put in the Actual CPU type

[localzuk]

I'm a little confused - you list 'Pentium III Xeon', but list it as having 3377Mhz clock speed? I'm guessing this is in error, as the P3 Xeon only existed in 1.13Ghz max speed form?

 

Also, you don't say what speed RAM it is.

 

The graphics card is really low powered also.

 

The hard drives aren't bad, but aren't too good either.

 

To be honest, I wouldn't know where to start with this, as it is across the board low powered.

 

Is this a server that you've re-purposed by any chance?

[Arthur]

For purposes of gaming

Any games in particular? e.g. there's a HUGE difference between Angry Birds and Battlefield 3.

 

Intel Pentium III Xeon, 3377 MHz (9 x 375)

Is this a typo? Pentium III Xeon's didn't go any higher than ~1GHz according to Wikipedia. What does CPU-Z say it is?

[SYNACK]

The box

 

What are your hopes with this upgrade, the CPU is old (possibly single core) and lacking of new instructions. Given the motherboard and CPU I imagine the RAM is DDR which is not overly quick, IDE drives are heavily limited by the bus and the lack of stuff like NCQ.

 

TBH if you are after decent performance levels you really want to swap out the MB, CPU and RAM with something like an i5 and DDR3 RAM, a cheap SATA 500GB HD will kill the other drives for performance as a system drive.

 

Its a difficult call as the foundations are not really up to any of the modern hardware that will make a real difference.

 

Windows 7 will also give you a boost and support for higher levels of DirectX which will help in future but thanks to console developers that means most games are just jumped up console ports DX9 will still work for the vast majority.

[CyberNerd]

Sorry, the software I used to pull the info doesn't look to be that good.

Don't know why it called it a P3! its an Intel® Core™2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz

 

There's actually 6GB RAM which I use for normal day to day linux stuff.

Same software (Everest) says memory read is 6153 MB/s and write is 2207 MB/s

 

 

I do have 2xPCIe slots so presumably I could put crosslink another graphics card?

Is this my best bet to improve gaming performance, eg battlefield, Deus Ex ?

 

 

The box

 

lol, the box is fine, it's a brushed Aluminium Lian

Edited August 28, 2011 by CyberNerd

[SYNACK]

What is the Motherboard? The docs will show what it supports that will help.

[localzuk]

Ok, that processor and RAM isn't terrible then.

 

I'd focus on replacing the graphics card personally. A single AMD HD 6850 card would be what I'd go for (its what I am running in my machine, which is currently a 1.83Ghz Core2Duo with 2GB RAM and that can run Battlefield Bad Company 2 on full graphics just fine).

 

Then run something like 3D Mark, or PassMark and see what areas it say are the slowest and replace them.

[CyberNerd]

What is the Motherboard? The docs will show what it supports that will help.

 

GIGABYTE - Motherboard - Socket 775 - GA-EP45-DS3 (rev. 1.0)

[CyberNerd]

Ok, that processor and RAM isn't terrible then.

 

I'd focus on replacing the graphics card personally. A single AMD HD 6850 card would be what I'd go for (its what I am running in my machine, which is currently a 1.83Ghz Core2Duo with 2GB RAM and that can run Battlefield Bad Company 2 on full graphics just fine).

 

Then run something like 3D Mark, or PassMark and see what areas it say are the slowest and replace them.

 

That sounds like a good option, but would adding a 6850 to my existing card be better than a single card? I don't really know how crossfire works? do they need to be the same card?

[Arthur]

IDE drives are heavily limited by the bus and the lack of stuff like NCQ.

The HDDs and ODD are all SATA (which is good). The first thing I would do is enable AHCI in the BIOS and then install a modern operating system so you can take advantage of all of your RAM i.e. Windows 7 (x64).

 

Disk Drive	ST31500341AS  (1397 GB, IDE)
Disk Drive	SAMSUNG HD103SJ  (931 GB, IDE)
Disk Drive	SAMSUNG HD103SJ  (931 GB, IDE)
Optical Drive	Optiarc DVD RW AD-7201S

 

By the way, have you updated the firmware on your Seagate Barracuda 7200.11? If not, you should.

[SYNACK]

It'll support a Core 2 Quad so something like a 9550 could give it quite a boost along with a better GPU.

 

You are probably better with a single GPU although crossfire will allow different cards to share it is only cards in the same generation, the support for it in games is still not 100% and given the differences a single 6800 series GPU probably would not get that much of a boost. As you have one 16x and one 8x I'd probably leave one in and use the other for additional moniters if required.

[CyberNerd]

The HDDs and ODD are all SATA (which is good). The first thing I would do is enable AHCI in the BIOS and then install a modern operating system so you can take advantage of all of your RAM i.e. Windows 7 (x64).

 

I have issue with this, I've run XP, windows 7 and Ubuntu all on the same hardware and I found that Windows 7 runs like an absolute dog compared to XP and ubuntu. If anything I'd put a 64bit XP. I'm trying to get the maximum speed out of my hardware and from personal experience Vista2 isn't going to help with that!

 

By the way, have you updated the firmware on your Seagate Barracuda 7200.11? If not, you should.

 

Thanks, I shall.

[CyberNerd]

It'll support a Core 2 Quad so something like a 9550 could give it quite a boost along with a better GPU.

 

You are probably better with a single GPU although crossfire will allow different cards to share it is only cards in the same generation, the support for it in games is still not 100% and given the differences a single 6800 series GPU probably would not get that much of a boost. As you have one 16x and one 8x I'd probably leave one in and use the other for additional moniters if required.

 

Coolio, CPU and GFX card it is.

[Arthur]

I found that Windows 7 runs like an absolute dog compared to XP and ubuntu.

There must be something wrong with your setup then. I have a similar PC (Core 2 Quad Q6600 running at 3.2GHz (from 2.4GHz), Asus P35 motherboard, 8GB DDR2-800 RAM, Radeon HD 4870 w/ 1GB RAM) and Windows 7 runs perfectly fine.

 

If anything I'd put a 64bit XP.

The 64-bit version of XP would be a terrible choice. You will find that many games do not support it.

[SYNACK]

I have issue with this, I've run XP, windows 7 and Ubuntu all on the same hardware and I found that Windows 7 runs like an absolute dog compared to XP and ubuntu. If anything I'd put a 64bit XP. I'm trying to get the maximum speed out of my hardware and from personal experience Vista2 isn't going to help with that!

 

 

 

Thanks, I shall.

 

Depends on your point of view and your hardware, the biggest thing with Vista and 7 were CPU cache, the more you have the better it goes. It also has a lot to do with filthy intel drivers but that is another story.

 

When it comes to the actual performance of the hardware you'll get much better support for the higher level features under a modern OS. Just look as high end stuff that uses lots of multi threading and large amounts of memory. Windows 7 will stomp on XP, stuff like AHCI and higher levels of DirectX along with the Aero desktop windows manager actually uses the hardware that you have and does make things like moving Windows around, dealing with crashing apps, are so many times more responcive.

 

If you use anything with .net in it above about 1.1 then it will run way better under Vista/7.

 

To be frank XP was good 10 years ago, now it is delapodated junk and if you want real/full benifits from this new hardware under Windows you are going to want to upgrade it from the 10 year old version.

[CyberNerd]

There must be something wrong with your setup then. I have a similar PC (Core 2 Quad Q6600 running at 3.2GHz (from 2.4GHz), Asus P35 motherboard, 8GB DDR2-800 RAM, Radeon HD 4870 w/ 1GB RAM) and Windows 7 runs perfectly fine.

 

It ran, but XP ran faster, and ubuntu ran faster still.

Even software specs have higher system requirements for 7 than they do XP, so there must be some truth that 7 hogs more resources.

 

The 64-bit version of XP would be a terrible choice. You will find that many games do not support it.

I'll probably stick to 32bit XP.

[SYNACK]

This is a rather old write up that shows overall that even when the drivers etc were newish and the OS support was lacking (XP) that AHCI was better for fast IO which could be a gaming upgrade all by itself if it is not already enabled.

AHCI vs IDE

[SYNACK]

I'll probably stick to 32bit XP.

 

98SE was much quicker on the same hardware, maybe try than and can the upgrade altogether

Edited August 28, 2011 by SYNACK

[SYNACK]

In seriousness you asked for ways to make your system more responcive an better able to handle games and a newer version of Windows with better implementation of GPU and multithreaded programs is a valid responce. If you want to hold on to XP for personal reasons that is your perogotive but we were only answering the question you answered.

[Arthur]

Another advantage to Windows 7 is that you won't have to faff around integrating the SATA drivers like you do with XP. It would be interesting to see if your computer is still dog slow once you enable AHCI.

 

As AngryTechnician demonstrated on his blog, W7 also lowers your electricity bill too.

[localzuk]

That sounds like a good option, but would adding a 6850 to my existing card be better than a single card? I don't really know how crossfire works? do they need to be the same card?

 

You need the same card generation to do Crossfire.

 

Also, you really want to update to Windows 7 now, as game support is better in it. My system I was talking about earlier is running 32bit XP Windows 7 and it is fine. Sure, it doesn't fly, but it runs everything I throw at it just fine.

Edited August 28, 2011 by localzuk

[Arthur]

Is this my best bet to improve gaming performance, e.g. battlefield, Deus Ex?

Are you planning on playing Battlefield 3 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution? If so, BF3 doesn't support XP at all and Windows 7 is recommended for Deus Ex: HR.

 

Almost all of the latest games will be optimized for Windows 7.

[CyberNerd]

Well I can't afford to do Windows 7 and CPU/Graphics.

so which would give me a better performance, a graphics card, a CPU or windows 7?

[SYNACK]

Do the GPU and the OS, look at doing the CPU later, overall this will probably work out smoother for the games especially with the support. Which will work best depends heavily on the game and how it is programed so in some cases the CPU would make it faster than the OS even with the XP crippleing but for the best support for the games the OS will help.

 

Unfourtunatly it is so late in the cycle now it may be worth waiting for the next version which is probably due eairly next year. If you can get home premium for a good price under OEM then it may be worth it but thinking about it more it may be more worth going the hardware route now given how late to the show it is.

[Jamo]

I can't believe people are still sticking with XP. It wasn't even designed when dual cores in standard PC's were even slightly common. The whole software stack is completely geared against the multithreading that is available in the current OSs. x64 XP is a completely bad idea, MS have almost completely dropped support for it.

 

Having to use XP at work feels totally backwards after all the GUI and usability advances in the later OSes.

 

If you want a real boost in real term performance on modern PCs I would recommend an SSD for sheer boot up and also game loading time performance they cannot be beaten.