what processor to use for a gaming rig?

[aidynphoenix]

hello guys.. i have 2 agp motherbaords here.. one is AMD other is Intel. i happen to have a intel pentium4 @2.4ghz
and a Athlon XP 3000 barton.
how would the athlon stack up versus the intell in gaming performance?

i will mostlikley be useing a gig or more of ddr 400 ram.. and a nvidia 6600gt 256mb videocard..
suggestions welcomed

ok well i benchmarked several different videocards last night..
i got benchmarks for the athlon xp3000 only.. going to start the P4 here soon.
it seems i reached a plateau,
just for the record.. my ram is 1gb of ddr266. set correctly.
it seems as the videocards get better. the framerate stays about the same.
i was amazed that a geforce4mx440 could play farcry so well.



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farcry was always 1024x768. doom and painkiller were 800x600 resolution

 

[Cabbs]

My suggestion is to save for a complete upgrade.

 

[eslfish]

My suggestion is to save for a complete upgrade.

Exactly!

 

[aidynphoenix]

well this isnt for my main rig.. this is for my little brother..
my main rig is better. amd 64 5000+ black edition, nvidia 9600gt, 3gb ddr800 ram..

not finished benchmarking yet.. but the pentium 4 system is beating it by a decient margin..

with that system what do you guys think might be the main bottleneck responsibe for the same framerates between a geforce4 ti4800 up to a 6600gt?
im thinking it must be ram speed maybe? the 266 isnt fast enough??

interesting results...


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[pcsupport]

My suggestion is to save for a complete upgrade.

Go for a quad core Intel...

 

[foothead]

Go for a quad core Intel...

Read the thread.

OP: what are you trying to do exactly? I know you are putting together a gaming system, but will you be using just the parts you listed or buying upgrades?

 

[Atomic Rooster]

Read the thread.

I suggest you do the same foothead. He said he already has these parts. How else would he be able o benchmark them.

Looks like the Intel Pentium 4 and the 6600GT are the ones to use.

 

[foothead]

I suggest you do the same foothead. He said he already has these parts. How else would he be able o benchmark them.

Looks like the Intel Pentium 4 and the 6600GT are the ones to use.

I didn't know if he was willing to buy upgrades or not. all the listed parts are pretty dated, but a gpu upgrade would definitely help.

And yep I agree, P4 and 6600. Btw, were both benchmarked with fresh os installations? I recall the 3000+ being faster than a midrange P4

 

[aidynphoenix]

well the p4 seems to run best with the 6600..
yes it was a new os installation.. no background programs other than fraps..
newest directx 9.. and i reinstalled the right nvidia driver after each time i swapped videocards,, (i didnt use the same windows install from computer to computer)

but there must be some kind of bottleneck going on.. i mean a geforce4 ti4800 with 128 on it shouldnt run anywhere near a 6600 with 256 on it..
do you think the ddr266 ram speed is the bottleneck? perhaps slowing down what the processor can give the videocard?