Legit Reviews

So for anyone that wants I would love some input, my friend has a very bad compaq computer with an old p4 its core is the northwood, I looked it up its a socket 478, and so its got to be an older out of date prescott with a little better performance than the first p4's. so I was thinking I'd put plop the 2.49ghz processor into a ECS 648FX-A2 1.0 ATX Intel Motherboard. the board is cheap the proc is old, but he wants to be able to put in a 9600xt or a x1600pro or something aroudn there that can run games that have come out more recently instead of being stuck playing on his gamecube while we lan. so do you think that combo of the northwood and the mob will work?

Edit: Yeah, im not sure if dropping a northwood into a prescott mobo will work, someone else will have to clear that one up!


The processor is going to be a huge bottleneck in that system, so getting a new x1600 will be overkill/pointless (I am right there arent I? )

To keep in the same sort of spec you could go for a 9800XT or something, because its AGP your newer graphic card options are limited.
A good Nvidia alternative is the AGP 6600GT, which is a good all round performer for the money.

Do you have a rough idea of how much your mate is willing to spend on the upgrade? A good bargin source on second hand computing gear is ebay, just make sure the sellers are legit!

Dan

Hadn't thought about the bottleneck problem, but I guess I should find the processor cash size I was thinking hte 9600xt cuz its half the price anyway, and I don't know how much he is willing to spend but we're going to make it a 2.49ghz northwood, 1gb of probably ddr 333mhz ram, a 9600xt, on that mobo. I still need to konw if that proc will work on that mobo for sure, its the same socket type though. They don't have "northwood mobo's" but it says pentium 4/ celeron so if a celeron will work shouldn't also a northwood and along with the prescott, kinda like how socket a is athlon xp, along with durons and semprons along with the regular athlons. so I think it will work. somebody, positve reinforcement please? Also if you don't think the x1600pro will bottleneck tell me why it does/doesn't I wouldn't mind knowing why that happens.

Here is the specs from ECS....
http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWeb/Products/P ... %20Support

Their cpu support list mentions prescotts...

It does support the northwoods it supports basically every known processor for that socket, so we're good in that department and it even has a decent cache size I learned from there. so now the only question is the video card. but I could post that in a new forum I guess.

that 2.49 northwood isn't a bad CPU at all. you can go for a 1600 easy. I would suggest a 6800GT ot vanilla 6800 (open pipes and OC the hell out of it) and it will be a damn good rig. you can also do some OC'n on the CPU (which would raise the FSB, ram also)
I did a mild tuneup on a friend of mine's rig (2.53 northwood, 512MB ram, 6800@GT) and it runs great and cool @ 2.81Ghz and the vanilla 6800 with the 16 pipes and OC'd is a great card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814140067

this one has a good reference cooler that can take the extra pipes and OC (same two slot cooler as on the Ultra)

ONly problem I see with teh 6800 is the price being 166ish and the x1600 is faster stock with same pipes , and more compatable with newest stuff, open glide 2.0 and I think pixil shader 3.0, which I'm no sure if hte 6800 does. plus its only 110-140 dollars depending on brand/ram speed.

yes, the 6800/6800GT can do SM3.0
the 6800GS is about on par with the GT and way faster then a 1600XT
here: http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/308/1/

this apollo is even said to have the 16/6 pipes out of the box, if not- you can open them easy with riva tuner. here is a little guide I wrote:
http://hardwarelogic.com/news/132/ARTIC ... 01-10.html

sweet, I'll run it by him, but I think he does'nt want to spend more than 250ish for the vid card, the 512 ram, the mobo, and the case

then here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150098

$99 after $20 mail in rebate. even the 6600GT is a little faster then the 1600XT

It's simply sad that ATi's newest midrange card can't even perform equally to a 2 year old nvidia core which was already mid range back then.

Black Mesa Scientist wrote:It's simply sad that ATi's newest midrange card can't even perform equally to a 2 year old nvidia core which was already mid range back then.

nVidia for the win man. I've been dealing with people on the EA boards since BF2 has been plagued by problems with ATI cards. A 6600 would solve most of the issues.

With ATI's drivers support history I still can't see why people use those cards, but to each his own.

NVidia seems to be the winner right now in the mid range and I am feeling more comfortable with them at the high end as well. ATI was the bomb back when the 9800 was "the card" but since then NVidia has been kicking butt.