Not a big performance jump (9550 to x1650xt agp)

[KnArFnB]

I recently upgraded my old ATI Radeon 9550 to an HIS Radeon x1650xt. The card destroys the 9550, I know it's agp but I needed an upgrade. Anyway, there is a performance increase indeed, but still, nothing spectacular. I still find the system to struggle at times in playing games on high settings. Here's the rest of my specs:

ECS L4VXA2 (V 1.0c)
Ultra X2 550w
Intel P4 2.4 Ghz
2GB Patriot DDR 400
HIS x1650xt

Shouldn't I see better gains with this much better of a card? Or am I suspecting too much from an older agp based system?

 

[ARTOSOFT]

I notice that too when upgrading from 9500pro to x1600pro. But at least my x1600pro is low base VGA card for Vista.

Regards,
Arto.

 

[Kammster]

Intel P4 2.4 Ghz is probaly the main source of slowness
newegg is almost dumping athlon 64 3200+ (s754) and 939 with combo with nforce3 boards for $65 with an overclock to 2.6ghz@236fsb it match a P4 @4ghz

x1650xt is designed for different games than the 9550 it should be like 2 times faster, with higher settings, i think!

 

[freaksavior]

i had a 9600 pro and i bought a x1600pro, i took the x1600 back i was so disapointed!

 

[NinkobEi]

not sure if x1600 are mint for gamers. stick with the 800s and the 900s

 

[KnArFnB]

OK, I know it's an agp system with an intel p4 2.4ghz. (socket 478)

But cmon, the x1650xt's clocks are doubled compared to the 9550's, and it has 24 pipelines compared to a measely 4!!!

In games like halo, c&c zh, nr2003, css, I should be able to play on high don't yah think? Yet it seems to stuggle still. The cpu can't be holding me back THAT much.

 

[KnArFnB]

Also just cover some things:

I did all the basics when uninstalling the 9550 and installing the x1650xt. Removed what I could from add/remove programs, then cleaned up the rest with driver cleaner. Popped the new card in and made sure the power connector was snug. Ignored the drivers on the disc provided, got cat 7.4 from ati.com. blah blah blah.

Im using a vga monitor, so that includes the vga to dvi adaptor (but that shouldn't matter)

Havent done a clean install of XP in a while, could this help? possibly missing/corrupted files?
(but it's a time consumer)


Other than that I don't really know what to say, I just reinstalled drivers again, let's see what happens

 

[lemonadesoda]

You've got some decent RAM and an OK GPU. Now get yourself a better mainboard and CPU that is compatible:

ASROCK Conroe865 or 775i AGP boards. Stick in a cheap Core 2 total cost of upgrade $100.

 

[Tatty_Two]

OK, I know it's an agp system with an intel p4 2.4ghz. (socket 478)

But cmon, the x1650xt's clocks are doubled compared to the 9550's, and it has 24 pipelines compared to a measely 4!!!

In games like halo, c&c zh, nr2003, css, I should be able to play on high don't yah think? Yet it seems to stuggle still. The cpu can't be holding me back THAT much.

Lol it does not have 24 pixel pipelines, it has 12 pixel pipelines and 24 pixel processors.....BIG difference! And you cannot compare clock speeds between different cores, just look at the 8800GTS/GTX, I they stock in the 500'sMhz, but are a damn sight faster than the 7900GTX that has a core stock speed of 650Mhz.

 

[KnArFnB]

Ok, then what would be a good mobo/cpu combo? The ones that lemon posted and similar? I can still use my card, memory, psu, and hdd.

 

[NinkobEi]

for DDR, you might be best off with a S939 AMD mobo/chip. If you want to spend 400$ on a proc you could get the FX-60 I only wish I had the money, and its the best chip you could possibly get for your DDR.
More modestly, for about 100$ Im sure you could find an Athlon 4600x2, or similar.

I use an A-bit motherboard and I havent had any problems with it at all. allows for easy overclocking and it was pretty cheap ($100 for a sli board back in october).

Though some enthusiasts on this forum would insist you go for a DFI Lanparty. I think that is for more advanced users though so you better know what you are doing to set it up right (if you plan on OCing anyway).

 

[Zubasa]

Lol it does not have 24 pixel pipelines, it has 12 pixel pipelines and 24 pixel processors.....BIG difference! And you cannot compare clock speeds between different cores, just look at the 8800GTS/GTX, I they stock in the 500'sMhz, but are a damn sight faster than the 7900GTX that has a core stock speed of 650Mhz.

As far as I know it has 8pp and 24ps
But I agree with the rest of it.

 

[Tatty_Two]

As far as I know it has 8pp and 24ps
But I agree with the rest of it.

Well it was he that said the 24......my main point was to point out that they were not pixel pipelines but well noted!

But of course if you want to be really precise.....it has no Pixel Pipelines.....but it has 8 vertex engines

 

[tkpenalty]

Um X1650XT, can run NFS:C at max (excluding motion blur) at around 1290x960 to 1024x786.

 

[Mussels]

OK, I know it's an agp system with an intel p4 2.4ghz. (socket 478)

But cmon, the x1650xt's clocks are doubled compared to the 9550's, and it has 24 pipelines compared to a measely 4!!!

In games like halo, c&c zh, nr2003, css, I should be able to play on high don't yah think? Yet it seems to stuggle still. The cpu can't be holding me back THAT much.

Yes, the CPU is. Go run superpi 1M test, and see how it compares to others here. Also, run 3dmark 06 and see what CPU score you get.
I've used 1600's pros and 1650 pro's, and they are a decent mid-range card - they wont game on high settings, but they will run low/ed perfectly smooth, *IF* you have a decent CPU behind them.

 

[Jimmy 2004]

What resolution are you trying to play at? That X1650XT should perform somewhere similar to an X800, and I can easily play games like Halo and Half Life 2 maxed out at 1280x1024 (well I used to be able to with my Athlon CPU, this sempron might not be as good but should be ok). I agree that the processor could be bottlenecking you a lot.

Was the 9550 overclocked? If it wasn't and you didn't get a big boost in performance then something is wrong, but if it was running at 9600 speeds then the gap may be smaller. Should still be quite a significant FPS improvement though.

 

[jpierce55]

processor/mobo combo's :
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ubCategory=343&SortField=0&PageSize=10&page=1

 

[KnArFnB]

ASROCK Conroe865 or 775i AGP boards. Stick in a cheap Core 2 total cost of upgrade $100.

How is that gonna cost just $100?


The 9550 was not overclocked, and I never tried the 9600 bios flash. I haven't tinkered with AA or AF since putting the new card in either. I'm trying everything on 1024x768 resolution, high settings. (Before I had to run everything on poor res. low settings)

I have 3D Mark 05: Before the 9550, the score wasn't even 1000, After, it was 1000 something, I don't remember exactly, but it went up.

Halo: Improved dramatically, can run it on high 1024x768 res. and get 100+ fps.

C&C Generals ZH: Runs ok on the same settings above, after being in a game for a while or a mass amount of tanks comes into the play, the frames start to drop and it gets laggy. But that's probably a cpu bottleneck more than anything.

NR2003: Runs on the same settings above better than my 9550 would. But still, after being in a pack of cars, the frames drop again and it gets laggy. (CPU bottleneck?)

CS 1.6: Thankfully this game runs fine, and I no longer lose fps when running through a smoke nade.

CSS: I was told to expect dramatic changes here. The stress test results were better, that's about it. It struggles even on low! Here's some pics with low settings, and the recommended. (Of course the recommended settings are high.)

I still haven't tried a lot of games either.


EDIT:

recommended: http://img262.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cssrecdy0.jpg

low: http://img512.imageshack.us/my.php?image=csslowps8.jpg

 

[Zubasa]

It looks like the card is seriously bottlenecked by the rest of your system.
The X1650XT should get well beyond 6k in 3DMark05. (My X1600Pro gets around 4k @600/900Mhz)

 

[KnArFnB]

I was wrong, I just ran it again to make sure, and received a 4192. Nearly smack dab in the middle of all 2018674 configs. That still isn't a 6000 though

 

[Jimmy 2004]

It looks like the card is seriously bottlenecked by the rest of your system.
The X1650XT should get well beyond 6k in 3DMark05. (My X1600Pro gets around 4k @600/900Mhz)

6000 sounds a little high (didn't think the performance gap between pro and XT was 2000 points - that would imply it scores 50% better). Anyway, if the 9550 wasn't overclocked you should see an enormous boost in games. Those cards were good value for money if you took them up to 9600 speeds, but otherwise they were awful.

But given your CPU could be bottlenecking that score doesn't sound too bad.

 

[KnArFnB]

Well what could the issue be then? An openGL/DirectX problem?

I bought the x1650xt because it was better suited for this system, an x1950 would be total overkill. If I had the system, No doubt I would have purchased the beastly x1950.

Everyone here appears to be bashing this card, saying its low end and mid range, I didn't want to do that. I just wanted to play the games listed on higher/more enjoyable settings. Should I return this thing? I can use the $160.00 towards a better mobo/cpu combo and then save for the x1950. But then again, is it possible to build a system with ddr 400/ago 8x to support that card?

Mobo/cpu combos were a buy on tiger.com, there's an outlet store about 20 minutes from my home. They all were less than $200.

Also, sorry I've been on this intel for years. I know amd has been better for gaming (Not now with the core2duo's out) But what socket would I go with? 939 or am2? Also, what would a solid cpu be?

 

[Taz100420]

Ill sell ya my mobo,cpu, mem and vid card for $225, check specs. Just a suggestion.

But if ya want AMD id go to AM2, most say 939 is dead but go what you can afford

 

[Mussels]

for comparison, i've used a lot of x16x0 cards

x1600pro = 4Kin 05
x1650PRO = 5K in 05 - they were always very close to those numbers. I can only assume the XT models to be 500-1000 points higher.

 

[KnArFnB]

Problem I'm having is finding a 939 or am2 board with agp. They are also all ddr2 memory.