Is my Radeon X800 XT underperforming?

[Szico VII]

Specs:

PC
=====================
Intel Pentium IV 2.67gHz
1024MB PC2100 RAM
80GB HDD
Plug and Play Monitor - Maximum 75hz refresh rate

GFX
=====================
Radeon X800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AGP
Internal Ramdac Clock: 400mhz
Clock: 506mhz
AGP Enabled: 8X
Fast Writes: Enabled
Side Band Addressing: Enabled
Vertex Shaders: 8
Pixel Shaders: 1
Pixel Pipelines: 16
Resolutions of Desktop AND Games: 1024x768

Games
======================
Half Life 2
Far Cry
Doom 3
Latest Drivers: Yes (ATI Catalyst, not control panel)

Ok, here's the situation. When i bought the Radeon X800 XT I looked at a load of benchmark testing on various games (namely the three above) and I have all of them. Now, say for Half Life 2 on the canals level, I'm getting FPS of around 30-50 with 1024x768, 6XAA and 8XANSIO, Everything set to full except reflections, and no vertical sync. These are the settings the game reccomends for my PC. On Far Cry, it puts ansio onto 1x and everything on high/very high (as reccomended). Doom I have everything set to full, except for Ultra Graphics. Now, there isn't lag or anything, im not complaining that it wont run the games.... but on these benchmarks ive seen theyve has scores of like 60FPS average and like 120FPS max, 40 min e.t.c On HL2 and Far Cry especially, FPS can be around 30 in quite a few areas, even going to 25ish when there are a lot of enemies (i.e last stages of half life 2) Is my processor holding back the power, are the benchmarks exaggerating or twiestibng the results, or is there not enough power to the card e.t.c. Or is it just fine #
Thanks

P.S There is no artifacting

 

[PreservedSwine]

6XFSAA? Holly crapp! Might want to turn the FSAA down...to 4x or even 2x. Your FPS will increase...dramatically. Then you can increase resolution quite a bit. FSAA is a GPU Killer, very expensive to use. Using 6X on a state of the art game is proof of your GPU's power. AF can be espenive, if you force full-time tri-linnear filtering. Setting Aniso at 8x should be fine. Several algorithms allow AF to be applied alkmost everywhere at virtually no performance hit, but if you force tri-linnear, it gets expensive as well.

All benchmarks you're comparing are likely with NO FSAA and little, if any Aniso.
It's likely that the benching computers have considerably more powerfull CPU's, but a P42.6 is more than adequate

Be sure you're comparing apples to apples, in both GPU settings and cpu.

It sounds as though your X800XT is running STRONG.

Enjoy

~Swine

 

[BringinHeat]

I think your cpu speed is bottlenecking your graphics card speed. I would seriously think about gettin a higher speed cpu preferrebly 3.2 GHz and above to match it with the x800 xt. Try takin the resolution up a notch more than 1024*768 becuase from WHAT I HEARD OR READ sumwhere running at 1024*768 is more cpu intensive, i am not sure if that is true or not but you can try it and see. But i really think that your CPU is holding your system back becuase if you look at most bechmark places they always have higher speed cpus matched with high speed gpus, actually gamespot.com did a match of how your cpu holds back graphics cards and they recommended getting something 3.2Ghz and above with the next generation gpus.

 

[Szico VII]

Aight ty - pity my monitor doesnt support higher than 1024x768
Wondering - how much do 3.2ghz's cost?

 

[Szico VII]

ok, looking for a new processor - but i am wondering which one will fit? Here are some aida32/everest info on my current one

CPU: Intel Pentium 4A 2666mhz (20x133)
Motherboard Chipset: SiS648
Motherboard Name:MSI MS-6701 (Medion OEM) (3 PCI, 1 AGP, 2 DIMM, Audio, LAN)
Manufacturer: Intel
Version: Intel Pentium(R) 4
External Clock: 133 MHz
Maximum Clock: 3000 MHz
Current Clock: 2666 MHz
Type: Central Processor
Voltage: 1.5 V
Status: Enabled
Upgrade: ZIF
Socket Designation Socket: 478
CPU Multiplier: 20.0x

CPU Properties
===============================
CPU Type Intel Pentium 4A, 2666 MHz (20 x 133)
CPU Alias Northwood, A80532
CPU Stepping C1
Instruction Set x86, MMX, SSE, SSE2
Original Clock 2667 MHz
Engineering Sample No
L1 Trace Cache 12K Instructions
L1 Data Cache 8 KB
L2 Cache 512 KB (On-Die, ECC, ATC, Full-Speed)

CPU Physical Info
Package Type 478 Pin uPGA
Package Size 3.50 cm x 3.50 cm
Transistors 55 million
Process Technology 6M, 0.13 um, CMOS, Cu, Low-K
Die Size 131 mm2
Core Voltage 1.475 - 1.55 V
I/O Voltage 1.475 - 1.55 V
Typical Power 38.7 - 89.0 W (depending on clock speed)
Maximum Power 49 - 109 W (depending on clock speed)

CPU Manufacturer
Company Name Intel Corporation
Product Information http://www.intel.com/products/browse/processor.htm

CPU Utilization
CPU #1 2 %

=====================================================

If I'm looking for a 3.2-3.4ghZ pentium 4 for between £100-200, can anyone direct me to a model that would fit my PC? Thanks

 

[BringinHeat]

i think there is a socket 478 3.2GHz intel processor you can find. I know there is definitely a 3.0Ghz one becuase that is what i have but you will have to check the intel website becuase i think there are 3.2 to 3.4ghz that will fit in that socket. I dont know any site in the UK i am in the US.

 

[Didou]

Your motherboard's chipset can only support P4s with a 100mhz or 133mhz FSB so the fastest chip you can use is the 3.06GHz P4 (the first one with the HyperThreading technology). It might be a bit hard to find though.

 

[Szico VII]

Is it worth upgrading?

 

[Didou]

For the ease of use offered by HyperThreading, yes. The performance increase will not be that noticeable.

 

[Szico VII]

For the ease of use offered by HyperThreading, yes. The performance increase will not be that noticeable.

ease of use? im not sure what you mean lol, it might help if i knew what hyperthreading was

 

[BringinHeat]

Hyperthreading is an intel exclusive technology in which windows xp separates your processor into two logical processors from one physical processor, it is designed to let you multi task more efficiently as the work load is divided among the two logical processors. However there are some programs that do not take advantage of this and then there are some that do.

 

[Szico VII]

Would it be a better option to go for a new pc w/3.6ghz 2mb cache processor and transfer the gfx card (using AGP) or keep current setup, get the 3.06ghz and keep gfx?

P.S, new PC would be around £1000-1300 for what i would want in it.