Folks with Geforce 3 and a 700mhz pc or less, please read!!

Check it. I'm going to spend up to $200 for a Geforce 3. However, I know the newer cards want some power to run them! My PC has no power! Check it:

Tyan Trinity 400
P3 500e o/c 700mhz
256 mb pc 133 sdram
Voodoo 3! (that's right the Voodoo 3 :( )
Sblive

Got my company bonus and can't afford to get a cpu for now. Now here is the question: I KNOW THE GEFORCE 3 WILL RUN FASTER THAN MY VOODOO 3, BUT WITH MY MEASLY 700MHZ, WILL IT RUN FAST ENOUGH TO JUSTIFY THE NEAR $200 I'M GOING TO DISH OUT FOR THE GEFORCE? It would be great to see replies from folks with a 700mhz w/Geforce 3 setup. Timedemo stats or links to sites would be great. Also, I checked pricewatch.com and $200 is around the cheapest of the geforce3's out there. anyone know where to find one cheaper? OEM is ok.

thanks a million in advance.700mhz

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Originally posted by low-standards
Check it. I'm going to spend up to $200 for a Geforce 3. However, I know the newer cards want some power to run them! My PC has no power! Check it:

Tyan Trinity 400
P3 500e o/c 700mhz
256 mb pc 133 sdram
Voodoo 3! (that's right the Voodoo 3 :( )
Sblive

Got my company bonus and can't afford to get a cpu for now. Now here is the question: I KNOW THE GEFORCE 3 WILL RUN FASTER THAN MY VOODOO 3, BUT WITH MY MEASLY 700MHZ, WILL IT RUN FAST ENOUGH TO JUSTIFY THE NEAR $200 I'M GOING TO DISH OUT FOR THE GEFORCE? It would be great to see replies from folks with a 700mhz w/Geforce 3 setup. Timedemo stats or links to sites would be great. Also, I checked pricewatch.com and $200 is around the cheapest of the geforce3's out there. anyone know where to find one cheaper? OEM is ok.

thanks a million in advance.700mhz

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yeah it will be plenty fast, but nowhere near as it would if you had a more powerful system

You will get perfromce that wil;l be at or about a geforce ultra. Plus you will not be able to upgrade down the future.

rather than doing that this is what i would do.

You can get a ecs SiS 745 for 60$
Get a duron 1.0GHZ 49$( new morgan core based on the XP core)
and get a stick of 256 DDR for like 70$
also get a decent cooler like the Volcano 6u. its like 15$

Then sell you current MOBO, CPU, and RAM and get a geforce 2 GTS-V for 49$. You will have a nice rig that can play any game today at full details in 1024-768 rez.

If you have any questions feel free to e-mail me at [email protected] or reply to this thread. all prices were from www.newegg.com :D

my gf3-ti200 is considerably than my voodoo3, even when i run the CPU at stock speeds (850mhz, 100mhz FSB). if you're looking to spend $200 tops, i would get the MSI GF3-ti200 with ViVo for $142 and a duron 1.0ghz or faster for a nice speed upgrade. the CPU upgrade won't be much, but then you can always overclock.

Yep that would be a good upgrade. I'd get a Gainward GF3-Ti200. Its currently $146 at newegg. ;)

Waste of a good $200 if you ask me. A GTS-V for around $50US will fit well. A GF2 Ti 32MB for $80US is far more than a 700 needs.

A GF3 ti200 will do 150fps in Q3 1024-32, but your 700 will only push out around 80 - 100. where's the sence of putting such a fast card on such a slow rig? the GF2 is actually less CPU reliant so as long as the GF2 can out pace the 700MHz CPU, its all you need.You wont use half the speed of the ti200, though it would be worth it if a Mobo and CPU upgrade are the next in line.

My 750 @ 1ghz pushes quake 3 1600x1200 with every setting maxed at an average of 90 fps. With my xp 1600 It pushed 110 (these are timedemo's) However clocked at the stock 750 it pushed an average of 75 fps.

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Originally posted by -Justin-
My 750 @ 1ghz pushes quake 3 1600x1200 with every setting maxed at an average of 90 fps. With my xp 1600 It pushed 110 (these are timedemo's) However clocked at the stock 750 it pushed an average of 75 fps.

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Thats raises a good question. If the monitor cant do 1600x1200 or even 1280x960 at better than 70Hz, then anything above 1024-32 is useless.
Most 15" and cheaper 17' monitors wond do better than 1024x768 with a decent refresh rate.

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Originally posted by GB_Cobber
Waste of a good $200 if you ask me. A GTS-V for around $50US will fit well. A GF2 Ti 32MB for $80US is far more than a 700 needs.

A GF3 ti200 will do 150fps in Q3 1024-32, but your 700 will only push out around 80 - 100. where's the sence of putting such a fast card on such a slow rig? the GF2 is actually less CPU reliant so as long as the GF2 can out pace the 700MHz CPU, its all you need.You wont use half the speed of the ti200, though it would be worth it if a Mobo and CPU upgrade are the next in line.

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Sound advice....

Ace's Hardware did a test showing what would happen. Basically it went like this. GF2 based cards were able to beat GF3 based when run on older systems still using SDRAM. The GF3 really needs high memory bandwidth to really do what it's capable of doing.

You would still do better than with the Voodoo 3, but I don't thing you would be all that impressed because the card needs the bandwidth, and your system is both CPU and bandwidth limited for most new games.

See my sig, I run into the same problem with CPU and bandwidth limited with newer games like RTCW, Serious Sam, and others. Unless you think you will also be able to get a new CPU, mobo, and faster memory in a very short period of time, don't waste your money on a Ti200, get a GF2U or something like that. If you will be upgrading in a very short period of time, then go ahead and get it.

Currently titles, either business and games, are not using even half of the hardware power of your configuration. I don't believe your hardware plus a GF3 can not handle the games you are dreaming of.

There won't be any killer apps or games that will throw your hardware obsolete in the near future, either.

So get the GF3 and DirectX 8.x and enjoy. Those who pursue 100+ fps with all effects on are only wasting money or feeding nVidia and ATI for their financial results.

If you are planning to shell out that kind of money, wait two weeks the geforce4 4200 is going to be coming out feb 6th. Once games that start using t&l start to come out, you will see a definite difference between a gf2 and a gf4. It will the the difference of being able to turn everything on and see it in full glory, and having to turn some things down inorder to play it. I'm even starting to see this now. Your cpu is plenty fast enough for the card.

700 is fine. My friend switched from a Geforce ddr to a Radeon 8500 and in areas there the GPU is used, the radeon kicked ***. Get the best card you can get.

well, at least now i can play giants at 1024x768x32 with all max graphics and have acceptable framerates. giants too!! the ONLY game I know how to benchmark is quake 3, retial version, unpatched. I went from 45fps with the voodoo 3 all max (16-bit of course) to 57fps all max and 32-bit. max payne WILL NOT even LoAd on my system now. it gets past the videos in the beginning but then locks hard!!!! oh well. at least i get 32 bit textures and 32 bit color. which i can't tell the differnece. HOWEVER, daddy loves the anti-alaising!! so freaking sweeet. Thanks for all the posts and suggestions, this message board rocks. i'm going to d/l the latest drivers from nvidia now. hopefully i'll get more fps. doubt it. stupid 700mhz.

c-ya!!

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Originally posted by Un4given
Ace's Hardware did a test showing what would happen. Basically it went like this. GF2 based cards were able to beat GF3 based when run on older systems still using SDRAM. The GF3 really needs high memory bandwidth to really do what it's capable of doing.

You would still do better than with the Voodoo 3, but I don't thing you would be all that impressed because the card needs the bandwidth, and your system is both CPU and bandwidth limited for most new games.

See my sig, I run into the same problem with CPU and bandwidth limited with newer games like RTCW, Serious Sam, and others. Unless you think you will also be able to get a new CPU, mobo, and faster memory in a very short period of time, don't waste your money on a Ti200, get a GF2U or something like that. If you will be upgrading in a very short period of time, then go ahead and get it.

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Ah...if it's the article that I'm thinking of, isn't that the one where they experianced that VIA bug which severely limits performance on SDR platforms?

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Originally posted by low-standards
well, at least now i can play giants at 1024x768x32 with all max graphics and have acceptable framerates. giants too!! the ONLY game I know how to benchmark is quake 3, retial version, unpatched. I went from 45fps with the voodoo 3 all max (16-bit of course) to 57fps all max and 32-bit. max payne WILL NOT even LoAd on my system now. it gets past the videos in the beginning but then locks hard!!!! oh well. at least i get 32 bit textures and 32 bit color. which i can't tell the differnece. HOWEVER, daddy loves the anti-alaising!! so freaking sweeet. Thanks for all the posts and suggestions, this message board rocks. i'm going to d/l the latest drivers from nvidia now. hopefully i'll get more fps. doubt it. stupid 700mhz.

c-ya!!

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You might want to turn off Vsync in Open GL when benchmarking Q3.
And going by that 57fps it seems your also running at 60Hz refresh rate.That'l give you a headace and its bad for the eyes.
My MX400 used to get 56fps in Q3 1024-32 max. Now i get around 90 with the Ti. You should be seeing at least 75-80 only because your FSB is slower.

I would say get it! I bought a Geforce 2 Ultra to run with my Celeron 466, before I had a V2. It worked very well, I could run 1600x1200 in most games very fine. I later bought the CPU I've now, a PIII 700. It became better and more balanced out. I know I can get more out of my games with a faster processor, but I can play any game under the sun with max details and the highest resolution, including Return to Castle Wolfenstein to take an example. I run Medal of Honor: Allied Assault at 1280x1024 with almost every option set to max, the other ones are at the next highest and with 2x FSAA. With a G3 it will work even better and you get more features, and for $200 it's a good choice, IMO.

Not exactly relevant to this, but you might want to give it a look: http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardwa...ng/default.asp

Get a PIII 1ghz $110 and a cheap GF3 Ti200 $130 and sell your 500E to make up the difference I got $75 for a 600E aweek back.

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Originally posted by low-standards
I went from 45fps with the voodoo 3 all max (16-bit of course) to 57fps all max and 32-bit. max payne WILL NOT even LoAd on my system now. it gets past the videos in the beginning but then locks hard!!!! oh well. at least i get 32 bit textures and 32 bit color. which i can't tell the differnece.

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hmm...$130 for 12 FPS..kindof makes you think. Maybe we get too hyped up about FPS. And this is from a voodoo3 to a geforce3, thats quite a generation gap.

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Originally posted by Mandorallen of Molynnr


Ah...if it's the article that I'm thinking of, isn't that the one where they experianced that VIA bug which severely limits performance on SDR platforms?

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They didn't say anything about any bugs, and the only VIA bug I know of is the PCI latency, which shouldn't affect the AGP. They just showed that the GF3 series GPU did better when combined with a DDR based system, and the GF2 series were actually able to, in some cases, beet the GF3 on platforms where SDR SDRAM was used.

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Originally posted by Un4given


They didn't say anything about any bugs, and the only VIA bug I know of is the PCI latency, which shouldn't affect the AGP. They just showed that the GF3 series GPU did better when combined with a DDR based system, and the GF2 series were actually able to, in some cases, beet the GF3 on platforms where SDR SDRAM was used.

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They didn't say anything about any bugs, however performance of the Geforce 3 card on the SDR KT133A system was so bad that it could only be the Win98/Geforce3/KT133A bug which was affecting their test system.

I meant to post this artical, but lost the link. The thread in which I originally posted the link is now a 404 - File not found on internet.com, corrupted thread I guess. :(

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http://www.sharkyforums.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/006334.html

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Suffice to say that it showed about up to 20% performance loss in certain conditions. Setting AGP aperture size up to 128MB, or reverting to certain BIOS flashes fixed the issue, and performance difference between a KT133A/KT266A at high res was very small.

Found it posted on another forum :

http://www.onlinekosten.de/hardware/artikel/?ID=106

Looks like I was wrong...up to 60% performance loss in some situations, and they didn't have a direct comparison of chipsets. :o

Still, a 1 GHz Athlon w/ KT133A got 111FPS in Quake 3 at 1280x32 high detail while a Athlon XP 1900+ w/ KT266A got 128FPS. The performance difference between the two is not much considering the increase in processor speed.

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Originally posted by Vengance_01
You will get perfromce that wil;l be at or about a geforce ultra. Plus you will not be able to upgrade down the future.

rather than doing that this is what i would do.

You can get a ecs SiS 745 for 60$
Get a duron 1.0GHZ 49$( new morgan core based on the XP core)
and get a stick of 256 DDR for like 70$
also get a decent cooler like the Volcano 6u. its like 15$

Then sell you current MOBO, CPU, and RAM and get a geforce 2 GTS-V for 49$. You will have a nice rig that can play any game today at full details in 1024-768 rez.

If you have any questions feel free to e-mail me at [email protected] or reply to this thread. all prices were from www.newegg.com :D

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This is good advice. I think spending your money on your system's foundation (mobo, CPU, memory) is the smarter way to go. I have a PIII 800, a 440BX mobo, and SDRAM, and upgraded a few months ago from a GF256 to a GF3 Ti 200. I definitely saw a performance increase, but I think I would've gotten more for money had I upgraded my mobo, CPU, and memory. Then again, I probably would've bought the GF3 Ti 200 after all of this anyway.

From what I noticed is that I only notice frame rate drops in areas that are obviously very CPU dependant.Also depends which game too.
But when processing power isnt choking my geforce 3 blazes

Why not get a GeForce 4 Ti 4200???

Who cares if his processor is 700Mhz it will still rock.