Upgrade from Radeon 9700 to X1300 maybe?

[netbjarne]

I'm overall resonable satisfied with civ4 performance on my rig (see sig) - however, I'd like to enable more of the eyecandy in civ4, and maybe some antialiasing. Budget is low, and my mainboard only supports AGP.

I've found 256 mb ATI X1300 cards at around 100$. Would that do anything for me, or would that just be waste of money?

Any tips would be appreciated.

UPDATE:

After additional research, I've learned that in the ~$200 pricerange, one of these two AGP cards are available:

ATI RADEON 1600X PRO - or - a NVIDIA GFORCE 6600GT

The ATI is a newer, and supports newer features (some pixelshader and hdr stuff i think), and comes with 256 MB ram - BUT - the older NVIDIA 6600GT actually outperforms the ATI in many benchmarks - but maybe uses more power? I like my current silent PC with its passive GPU cooler.

Which is the better choice - ATI RADEON 1600X PRO or NVIDIA GFORCE 6600GT ???

 

[crunch]

Hard to tell. What is your memory and CPU? E.g., no use upgrading your graphics if RAM is the bottleneck, or so.

 

[netbjarne]

Hard to tell. What is your memory and CPU? E.g., no use upgrading your graphics if RAM is the bottleneck, or so.

Well, according to my signature I've got 1 gb of memory, and a pentium 2.4ghz cpu (no hyperthreading) - so I suppose that memory is not an issue, but I don't know about the cpu.

I've done some testing with "fraps" - that displayes framerate... I'm typically around 20-30 fps (details: medium). 30 fps looks resonable - 20 is so-so when panning around the map. I was supprised to see, that turning on antialiasing (2 or 4x AA), does not have a severe impact on frame rate, around 2-5 fps..

Zooming in has a positive effect on framerate. Zooming out, lowers framerate a bit - to the mentioned 20 fps.

CPU utilization is always at 100%, but as far as I know - this is a program design issue - its that way no matter how fast a cpu you've got (correct me if i'm wrong)...

Bjarne

 

[Zkal]

Not worth it. The X1300 is a bit slower than your 9700. If you really want to upgrade get a 7600GS or GT. They are faster than your 9700.

 

[Comraddict]

an 7600GT or 1600XT would be worthy upgrade, everything bellow is a waste of money.

 

[netbjarne]

an 7600GT or 1600XT would be worthy upgrade, everything bellow is a waste of money.

Hmm. Well I sort of expected/feared that. Well, I'll let it be as it is. Not much point in throwing ~$300 after a PC which others component (cpu, memory, motherboard) can't be upgraded for a reasonable price. Might as well build a new PC instead.

Thanks for the input

 

[dragokatzov]

Not worth it. The X1300 is a bit slower than your 9700. If you really want to upgrade get a 7600GS or GT. They are faster than your 9700.

I agree, or any of the Radeon X1600's would be good too

 

[illram]

If I can piggy back on this thread, I was also wondering if it is worth it for me to upgrade my gfx card. I have a dell dimension P4 2ghz with 1 GB RAM (max), 80GB HD, and a Nvidia GeForce MX420 I believe. It's an old video card which runs Civ 4 only slightly faster than the integrated intel gfx card in my relatively new laptop. I'm guessing anything would be an upgrade but I dont want to shell out the cash unless it's going to be a major upgrade; otherwise I am content dealing with the occasional sluggishness.

On a side note, whats this about mother boards only accepting certain cards? Is there a specific card I need to get based on my motherboard or should they all pretty much work?

 

[crunch]

On a side note, whats this about mother boards only accepting certain cards? Is there a specific card I need to get based on my motherboard or should they all pretty much work?

Well, your motherboard is pretty important. Because your graphics card is plugged into it. There are several types of this plug. PCI is pretty old and it's hard to get any decent card for it. AGP is semi-old, and you should find good cards. PCI Express is a rather new format and most recent cards fit there.

 

[illram]

Well, your motherboard is pretty important. Because your graphics card is plugged into it. There are several types of this plug. PCI is pretty old and it's hard to get any decent card for it. AGP is semi-old, and you should find good cards. PCI Express is a rather new format and most recent cards fit there.

Thanks for the info. I did some research into it and found out what I need (AGP) but I am reluctant to upgrade as I am not quite sure a)how much of an upgrade I am going to get for Civ4 and b) if it's worth it to upgrade with Vista coming out and all the new system requirements that are going to come with it.

 

[farsider]

the 7600GS is about $150

 

[opticaljim]

I had an Nvidia 420 then switched to a 6200 with some improvement but overall, still dissapointing.

Then I switched to a Radeon X 1300 512 MG AGP card and I'm in heaven. Different strokes for different folks. I guess it all depends on how bad the previous card was performing.

On a sidenote, I also switched my monitor to a LCD so that might also account for a lot of the improvement.

 

[rbj2001]

X1400 is the same performance as a 9700 (I've had both). So X1300 is slower and X1600 faster than your current rig.

 

[Comraddict]

X1600 is insignificantly faster, that is the catch, it is not worth investing money unless you receive singinifant boost.

 

[Artosoft]

I'm overall resonable satisfied with civ4 performance on my rig (see sig) - however, I'd like to enable more of the eyecandy in civ4, and maybe some antialiasing. Budget is low, and my mainboard only supports AGP.

I've found 256 mb ATI X1300 cards at around 100$. Would that do anything for me, or would that just be waste of money?

Any tips would be appreciated.

I have similar configuration with you, only my video card is ATI powercolor 9500 (mod to 9700).

Quite tempting to upgrade to ATI X1600pro (which is around S$250).

Does it really improve to have a vga card upgrade than processor from 2.4GHz to 2.8GHz?

Regards,
Arto.

 

[Artosoft]

X1600 is insignificantly faster, that is the catch, it is not worth investing money unless you receive singinifant boost.

Are you referring to ATI X1600 or X1600pro (noticed the 'pro' series). I am ATI fans.

Thank you in advance.

Regards,
Arto.

 

[netbjarne]

Does it really improve to have a vga card upgrade than processor from 2.4GHz to 2.8GHz?

Well. Upgrading from 2.4 to 2.8GHz is roughly about 20% performance improvement on the cpu, if you not take any other improvements into account (like hyperthreading). I've found, that socket 478 cpu's, pentium 4, are quite expensive compared to what never CPUs are costing. I can expect to shell out $250 for a 2.4 to 3.0 GHz CPU upgrade - I don't expect that to be worth it - think that a graphics card upgrade will give more bang for the buck, when it comes to civ4. But that is all only speculation.

Best regards
Bjarne

 

[netbjarne]

After additional research, I've learned that in the ~$200 pricerange, one of these two AGP cards are available:

ATI RADEON 1600X PRO - or - a NVIDIA GFORCE 6600GT

The ATI is a newer, and supports newer features (some pixelshader and hdr stuff i think), and comes with 256 MB ram - BUT - the older NVIDIA 6600GT actually outperforms the ATI in many benchmarks - but maybe uses more power? I like my current silent PC with its passive GPU cooler.

Which is the better choice - ATI RADEON 1600X PRO or NVIDIA GFORCE 6600GT ???

 

[Artosoft]

Ok, my itchy palm finally robed me S$250 for ATI PowerColor x1600pro AGP 512mb .

It is 500MHz processor and 810MHz memory. Using ATITool, I overclock it to 567MHz processor and 936MHz memory (not max actually, as some people can overclock it to 600MHz processor and 945MHz memory, but that's the stable one I've got so far).

3Dmark05, about 50% (3Dmark05: 3991) faster than my previous 9500pro (mod to 9700pro) card (3Dmark05: 2006).

Now I set all the graphics setting in Civ4 to max, AA = 2 (previously all graphics setting max, but low texture and AA = 0).

Faster graphic ==> No. Nicer display ==> Yes. Faster gameplay ==> No. Heat ==> cooler than 9500pro.
Also, I am not sure whether 512mb memory is worthy for Civ4, as I can't see any different in graphic.
As my rig is small shoe box PC and I mod the side panel to allow fresh air direct to the VGA card, the result is lower temperature inside the box than before (my CPU fan is not as loud as before).

Do I recommend x1600pro for upgrade?
If you only upgrade thinking you can play Civ4 faster ==> not recommended.
If you want to max all the graphics setting, if you have real 9700pro or above ==> not recommended.
If your card is below real 9700pro ==> recommended.
For my case yes. It is worthy for S$250 upgrade from old 128mb card to 512mb card (at least for few years ahead).

Regards,
Arto.

NB: I have found this card can have GPU temperature reading and can control its fan speed. Another plus point for this card.