Owners of the GeCube Radeon X1950XT AGP Card.

[evolucion8]

I want to know the idle temperature of this card on other systems, performance improvements, 3DMark score etc, for some reason it runs hot on my system and the 3DMark score didn't improve that much, may I be CPU limited? Is my PSU not enough for it? Any hints or information appreciated.!!

 

[Stumps]

Yes you are CPU limited with that video card...I was CPU limited with my A64@2.87ghz...and I'm using a X1950Pro AGP, not the XT model.

I had a huge jump in performance (2500+ points in most 3dmarks...except 01, it went up by close to 10000 points) by simply upgrading from a A64 3000+@2.87Ghz - GAK8NS PRO to a 32D E4300@2.66ghz Asrock 4coredual VSTA setup.

Anybody who says that a P4EE isn't a bottleneck on such a high end video card is just kidding themselves...it is, even overlocked to 3.7-3.8ghz it doesn't perform much better than a stock A64 3000+ - 3200+ with the same video card.

Maybe consider an upgrade to a C2D...it's well worth it...and you can continue to use you AGP X1950XT if you get the Asrock board, and dispite a few users claim that it is crap, it isn't (unless you want to overclock over 3ghz with out volt modding).

This is my first experience with an Asrock board and I was pleasently surpised by it...it's a very well rounded board...the only draw back is the PCI-E graphics slot is only 4x but most people who buy this board only use it as a stepping stone to a full PCI-E rig (like myself).

 

[evolucion8]

Actually the P4EE peforms a bit slower in games compared to an Athlon FX 53, and sometimes FX 51 which are faster than any Athlon 64, but pretty sure that this CPU bottlenecks it for real, but still allows even in such situations to increase the eye candy and having enjoyable fps, in some games the performance increase is huge, in some others is not that much.

I would not change of motherboard cause I will lost memory performance, it doesn't affect much in gaming cause I tested my older videocard on an ASRock motherboard, and the games performs similarly when that card was here, but they load slower.

The ASRock motherbard with PCI-E doesn't support Dual Channel and even though It would not hamper the gaming performance that much, (10% or less), in general bandwidth intensive applications the impact can be as high as 55%.

I've RMAe'd this videocard cause is overheating like crazy, I had to put a deskfan to blow air on it to keep it at 84C, if it goes higher than 85C will freeze my PC. Having a two fan cooler and a TEC system, doesn't even keep this Card under 70C like GeCube advertised.

I'm not the only one with this issue, seems that I found 2 more guys with the same problem, once they received their replacements, they worked in the range of 60C-70C which is nice. I'm the unlucky one now.

 

[apoppin]

you aren't going to oOC that EE are you?


it makes a big difference in overall gaming performance

bummer on your video card ... i feel your pain ... i had to do the same thing with my first x1950p
let us know how your replacement does

 

[evolucion8]

I will, but once I change of RAM, even though I can overclock this CPU up to 3.73GHz with no problems, but with higher spec ram (PC4000) I can raise the FSB without sacrificing the RAM speed. Now I'm frustrated, I just sent my card to the UPS store to be sent to newegg, hope it doesn't take that long, I don't have an onboard video and I had to use a very old PCI Trident Video Accelerator 96XX/938X and everything looks like crap. I hope that doesn't damage my board or something.

 

[apoppin]

what are you talking about?


you can do it right now with your current DDR 400 ... you will get ZERO advantage with PC4000 as the EE's multiplier is SO high - 17

i get - with my *budget PC-3500* - 1:1 all the way to 3.8Ghz it's only about 223/224 FSB
- at their fastest rated timings

the *only thing* you will get with faster RAM is *maybe* faster timings

as to the old video card ... i used a 8MB PCI SIS at times ... make sure the resolution of your LCD is supported

now OC your CPU!

 

[Stumps]

Originally posted by: evolucion8
Actually the P4EE peforms a bit slower in games compared to an Athlon FX 53, and sometimes FX 51 which are faster than any Athlon 64, but pretty sure that this CPU bottlenecks it for real, but still allows even in such situations to increase the eye candy and having enjoyable fps, in some games the performance increase is huge, in some others is not that much.

I would not change of motherboard cause I will lost memory performance, it doesn't affect much in gaming cause I tested my older videocard on an ASRock motherboard, and the games performs similarly when that card was here, but they load slower.

The ASRock motherbard with PCI-E doesn't support Dual Channel and even though It would not hamper the gaming performance that much, (10% or less), in general bandwidth intensive applications the impact can be as high as 55%.

I've RMAe'd this videocard cause is overheating like crazy, I had to put a deskfan to blow air on it to keep it at 84C, if it goes higher than 85C will freeze my PC. Having a two fan cooler and a TEC system, doesn't even keep this Card under 70C like GeCube advertised.

I'm not the only one with this issue, seems that I found 2 more guys with the same problem, once they received their replacements, they worked in the range of 60C-70C which is nice. I'm the unlucky one now.

Yes it does, the 4coredual VSTA supports Dual channel DDR and DDR2.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=4CoreDual-VSTA&s=775

the memory bandwidth in Dual channel even with DDR400 is considerably better than my SIS 655TX (the fastest Skt 478 chipset) based GA-SINXP1394 rev 3.0's, which perform slightly better than the i875p based motherboards.

 

[apoppin]

isn't that Asrock a 'crippled' PCIe bus . ... ?


kinda useless for anything better than a x1950p

 

[Aeros]

My x1950xt died after one week... Waiting on the RMA from newegg.

My temps were high even at 100% fan they were in the ~80c range. Prob a bad pelt. Getting a new power supply as well something with dual rails.

Also evo, you and I have damn near the same rig. only diff is PSU and RAM.

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: Aeros
My x1950xt died after one week... Waiting on the RMA from newegg.

My temps were high even at 100% fan they were in the ~80c range. Prob a bad pelt. Getting a new power supply as well something with dual rails.

Also evo, you and I have damn near the same rig. only diff is PSU and RAM.

Yeah, I see hehe. In my case the Peltier was working, I was able to test it running ATi Tool Artifact Testing, without the Peltier connected, the temperature raised faster. With or without it, it reached up to 92C and would freeze the display. The only thing that stopped that from happening was using a small deskfan to blow air directly to the videocard. Probably the problem with my card was that the cooling system wasn't seated properly or wasn't doing good contact with the GPU. I could be able to solve it by myself but It would violate the warranty. So Now I'm stuck with a Trident thing PC 2MB that is not able even to play MPEG Movies,

 

[apoppin]

ha ha -my 8 MB SIS beats your Trident
:shocked:


at least i can run my display at 12x10
-60hz

--not so good for 14x9
:roll:

i still keep it for 'next time' i am without a 'real' videodcard ...

still
--better than my psychic connection to my PC

... and it appears Sapphire solved their problems ... it's GeCube's turn ...

at least you got yours from NewEgg
:thumbsup:

and isn't your *current* RAM capable of 225 FSB at 1:1

that will give you over 3.8G

why do you want the really fast stuff?

 

[evolucion8]

AT 1:1 FSB, I cannot overclock faster than 3.6GHz, at 5:4 FSB Ratio, I can reach up to 3.73GHz. But the RAM will run at 340MHz or something (Do not remember correclty) And the bandwidth performance got impaired greatly. With a beefy PC4000 RAM, I can overclock at 1:1 FSB with little or no loss in bandwidth performance, after all, this CPU hungry bandwidth.

 

[Stumps]

Originally posted by: apoppin
isn't that Asrock a 'crippled' PCIe bus . ... ?


kinda useless for anything better than a x1950p

Makes no difference if you are using a high end AGP card does it...a C2D lets the X1950 series really stretch their legs.

But then again....a 8800 series Geforce at PCI-E x4 is still considerably faster than anything else on the market.

that's the only drawback to the 4coredual VSTA...oh and the 2GB ram limit...but as I've said in other threads...you don't buy this board for a long term investment...it's just a stepping stone (as it was intended to be by the manufacturer) to a full PCI-E rig...you can use your old Video card and DDR and get the benifits of a fast C2D processor.

 

[apoppin]

OK and when you upgrade your GPU you *also* upgrade your MB

again

sounds like a lot of extra work and painful little steps - paying more for a AGP GPU - just for keeping some cheap RAM? ...




... now

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: evolucion8
AT 1:1 FSB, I cannot overclock faster than 3.6GHz, at 5:4 FSB Ratio, I can reach up to 3.73GHz. But the RAM will run at 340MHz or something (Do not remember correclty) And the bandwidth performance got impaired greatly. With a beefy PC4000 RAM, I can overclock at 1:1 FSB with little or no loss in bandwidth performance, after all, this CPU hungry bandwidth.

you are saying your current RAM chokes well below 212 FSB ?
:Q

is it even PC 3200?

 

[Stumps]

Originally posted by: apoppin
OK and when you upgrade your GPU you *also* upgrade your MB

again

sounds like a lot of extra work and painful little steps - paying more for a AGP GPU - just for keeping some cheap RAM? ...




... now

when using the the 4coredual, why would you have to upgrade the mobo when you upgrade to a newer video card?...the whole point is to allow you to purchase each new part (DDR2, PCI-E VC and C2D cpu)one by one and then once you have pretty much all of those components then you get a decent (read GA-965P-DS3) motherboard and complete the upgrade.

I've found this motherboard very conveinant...I can now upgrade to 2GB of DDR2 without having to do a full system upgrade...which I'll be doing later this week...and then all I have left is to get a PCI-E video card (Hurry up R600 or I'll just go out and buy a 8800 series) and then a new mobo later on when I can afford it.

you seem to be missing the point of this board...not everybody can afford to race out and do a full upgrade...I have already invested a considerable amount of money into my Sapphire X1950Pro AGP when I was still using my AGP A64 setup...I had 1GB of decent DDR400 which was doing the job fine...but my A64 was no longer cutting it and I wanted faster...this board cost me less than AU$100 which is pretty much pocket money to the average Australian PC enthusist (most mobo's cost anywhere between AU$150 and AU$400).

I get the benfits of a super fast C2D and got to hold on to my X1950Pro AGP which as you know is no slouch as far as gaming goes.

 

[evolucion8]

Yeah, at 1:1 FSB, after 3.6GHz the system would become unstable. This RAM is not very overclockable, is a very low latency RAM, 2X512MB PC3200 OCZ Gold Dual Channel Kit Rev 2 I think, or Rev 1. http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/m...cz_el_ddr_pc_3200_dual_channel_gold_c2 They're like this one, the only difference is that even though mine is rated at 2-3-2-6, it can do 2-2-2-5 with no problems, but low latency RAM's are not overclockable, and they do not get along that much with ASuS mobos, so that's why I want to buy PC4000.

 

[SolMiester]

Originally posted by: Stumps

Originally posted by: apoppin
OK and when you upgrade your GPU you *also* upgrade your MB

again

sounds like a lot of extra work and painful little steps - paying more for a AGP GPU - just for keeping some cheap RAM? ...




... now

when using the the 4coredual, why would you have to upgrade the mobo when you upgrade to a newer video card?...the whole point is to allow you to purchase each new part (DDR2, PCI-E VC and C2D cpu)one by one and then once you have pretty much all of those components then you get a decent (read GA-965P-DS3) motherboard and complete the upgrade.

I've found this motherboard very conveinant...I can now upgrade to 2GB of DDR2 without having to do a full system upgrade...which I'll be doing later this week...and then all I have left is to get a PCI-E video card (Hurry up R600 or I'll just go out and buy a 8800 series) and then a new mobo later on when I can afford it.

you seem to be missing the point of this board...not everybody can afford to race out and do a full upgrade...I have already invested a considerable amount of money into my Sapphire X1950Pro AGP when I was still using my AGP A64 setup...I had 1GB of decent DDR400 which was doing the job fine...but my A64 was no longer cutting it and I wanted faster...this board cost me less than AU$100 which is pretty much pocket money to the average Australian PC enthusist (most mobo's cost anywhere between AU$150 and AU$400).

I get the benfits of a super fast C2D and got to hold on to my X1950Pro AGP which as you know is no slouch as far as gaming goes.

You know stumps, thats not a bad idea, i'm in the same boat & know I have ridden you over the Asrock purchase, but, i just bought the same card as you to drive my 20"lcd.

At the end of the year a c2d would be a nice addition to the mix, however would be new ram,mobo,cpu and their cant be many AGP c2d mobo out their.

I was think just sell the lot at year end and start again.

 

[apoppin]

i see ... it IS a lot more work ...

... and it made sense after you got your APG GPU ...

also, at the time DDR2 was *expensive* ...

if i was going to upgrade my CPU ... now ... i'd got for it all
--just have ZERO need --at my middlin' resolution


finally, thanks for the explanation evolucion8

i thought your ram was OC'able ...
--and you DO realize you can loosen your timings to get 222 ... very little performance difference

mine is PC3500 and it has no prob at 225 FSB 1:1 or 3825 ... otoh my CPU gets hot ... i would need a much better cooler and healthy overvolt.

 

[Stumps]

Originally posted by: evolucion8
Yeah, at 1:1 FSB, after 3.6GHz the system would become unstable. This RAM is not very overclockable, is a very low latency RAM, 2X512MB PC3200 OCZ Gold Dual Channel Kit Rev 2 I think, or Rev 1. http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/m...cz_el_ddr_pc_3200_dual_channel_gold_c2 They're like this one, the only difference is that even though mine is rated at 2-3-2-6, it can do 2-2-2-5 with no problems, but low latency RAM's are not overclockable, and they do not get along that much with ASuS mobos, so that's why I want to buy PC4000.

surely you could just loosen up the timings and overclock the ram...that seems to work for most ram, I can get up to 220mhz out of my lowly PC3200 Seitec ram that I use in all my systems..I just back the timing off a bit from 7-2-2-2.5 to 8-3-3-2.5 and it works fine...and the looser timings don't make much of an impact at all on performance.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Hey speakin of Tridents i have the pci version of a Trident Blade 9880 Turbo.... I donno if the cards still works or not.... i took it off some old work computer before throwin it away... I think this might be my savior to test my new c2d system since i dont have a pci-e card.... since AMD is tryin to be a jackass with their r600... hope it can display my desktop in xp...

 

[postmortemIA]

so apoppin, people say that my A64 is faster than your P4EE...it is cheaper for sure...

...and I just ran some 64-bit apps min ago

 

[Stumps]

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
so apoppin, people say that my A64 is faster than your P4EE...it is cheaper for sure...

...and I just ran some 64-bit apps min ago

if your A64 is faster than a 3000+ then yes it is, he was barely able to reach the performance of my Skt 754 A64 3000+/NF3 single channel DDR400 setup...

 

[postmortemIA]

Originally posted by: Stumps

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
so apoppin, people say that my A64 is faster than your P4EE...it is cheaper for sure...

...and I just ran some 64-bit apps min ago

if your A64 is faster than a 3000+ then yes it is, he was barely able to reach the performance of my Skt 754 A64 3000+/NF3 single channel DDR400 setup...

It is S754 running at 2.5GHz.

 

[Stumps]

Originally posted by: postmortemIA

Originally posted by: Stumps

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
so apoppin, people say that my A64 is faster than your P4EE...it is cheaper for sure...

...and I just ran some 64-bit apps min ago

if your A64 is faster than a 3000+ then yes it is, he was barely able to reach the performance of my Skt 754 A64 3000+/NF3 single channel DDR400 setup...

It is S754 running at 2.5GHz.

yep, you'll be faster...in games that is...plenty of encoding related stuff that the P4EE is still faster than an A64 at...but I gave up competing with lowly P4's using my A64...at 2.87ghz, my A64 had 99% of anything using netburst defeated in most tasks.

now I have my little E4300 and I'm not going back...