Performance-oriented upgrades: input, please.

[Attomic]

I'm currently looking to update one thing with the plan to improve my gameplay. Problem is, I don't have a lot of money to spare, so it needs to be limited to about $100 - in other words, I can only choose ONE. Bear with me:

Currently, the game runs okay on my machine, but it's a bit low in framerate (30-60 in most quests, but in raids, it can drop to the freaking TEENS) and I seem to be somewhat more susceptible to lag than most people I run with. I run in-game resolution at one step below my monitor's native resolution (1280x1024 native) because running it at that resolution drops my framerate by 10+, and that's just too low for comfort. As a result, I'm looking to upgrade either my processor or my video card and would like to get informed feedback on which one will deliver the most improvement for the dollar.

My present equipment in those two areas is:

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ 2.2 GHz (slot in motherboard is socket 939)
Video card: ATi Radeon X1300 Pro PCIe (256 memory, I believe)

Neither of these is suckage incarnate, but I'm just trying to get an extra step better. I do intend to upgrade both as time goes by, but for the foreseeable future, I can only swing one and would like to get the best bang for the buck. One caveat - given how well these brands/techs work with my computer (HP Pavilion a1330e), I'd prefer to stick with them as far as possible, so swapping over to an entirely different brand or tech approach is something I'd like to avoid, unless I truly can get best performance/value on something else.

Background info: We're on 3 Mbps ADSL, upgrading to 7 Mbps on Monday, and I connect wirelessly with a Wireless-G adapter (although our router broadcasts on B - this adapter does give me the option of piggybacking on a friend's wireless network should ours lose connection). I'd hook up to the friend's network, but his is saddled with a number of high-demand devices already, and there's a distinct drop in throughput when I do connect to his network.

So, what it comes down to is this: Which of the two pieces should I upgrade and with what?

[Attomic]

More detailed information.

Video card (from http://ati.amd.com/products/radeonx1...cie/specs.html ):

Radeon™ X1300 PRO PCI Express - Specifications
Key Features

• 256 MB DDR2 memory
• Ultra-threaded Shader Model 3.0 architecture
• Avivo™ Video & Display platform
• DirectX® 9.0 and OpenGL® 2.0 support
• DVI+VGA+VO
• CrossFire™ Ready

What’s in the Box

• Radeon™ X1300 PRO graphics card
• Set-up CD
• HDTV out cable
• DVI-to-VGA adapter
• Manuals

System Requirements

• PCI Express® based PC is required with one x16 lane graphics slot available on the motherboard
• 350-Watt power supply or greater recommended (assumes fully loaded system)
• 256 MB minimum system memory
• Installation software requires CD-ROM drive
• DVD playback requires DVD drive and decoder software (not included)

Graphics Technology

• Radeon™ X1300 PRO graphics processing unit

Memory Configuration

• 256 MB DDR2 memory
• 128-bit memory interface

Operating Systems Support

• Windows® XP
• Windows® XP x64 Edition
• Windows® Media Center Edition 2005
• Windows® Vista Compatible

Warranty

• 1 Year Limited1

Display Support

• DVI-I connector for digital CRTs or flat panels
• VGA connector for analog display
• Drive two displays simultaneously with independent resolutions and refresh rates

Display Modes

• Digital Displays (Connected by DVI)
  • All Resolutions up to 2560x1600
• Analog Displays (Connected by VGA)
  
  • All resolutions up to 2048x1536
• TV-out
  
  • SDTV (analog): 480i | 525i
  • HDTV (analog or digital): 480p | 720p | 1080i | Any custom resolution2

Motherboard (from http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...roduct=1831241 ):

Motherboard specifications table
Part / Feature Specification / Support Motherboard description

• Motherboard manufacturer's name: ASUS A8AE-LE
• HP/Compaq name: AmberineM-GL6E

CPU/Processor

• Socket: 939
• Supports AMD Athlon64, AMD Sempron and Athlon 64 X2 processors

Front-side bus (FSB)

• 2000MT/s or 1600MT/s, depending on what the processor supports

Chipset

• Northbridge: RS482

• Southbridge: SB400

BIOS features

• 4Mb LPC EEPROM
• HP BIOS with enhanced ACPI, DMI, Green, and PnP Features Plus

Form factor

• ATX form factor, 9.6 in x 9.6 in

Memory

• Dual-channel memory architecture
• 4 x 184-pin DDR DIMM sockets support unbuffered non-ECC 4 GB 400/300 MHZ DDR memory modules

Processor (from http://www.amdcompare.com/us-en/desk...=ADA3700DAA5BN ):

Processor Details
AMD Athlon™ 64 Details
Processor AMD Athlon™ 64
Model 3700+
Ordering P/N (Tray)ADA3700DAA5BN
Ordering P/N (PIB)ADA3700BNBOX
Operating Mode32/64
SteppingE4
Frequency2200Mhz
HT Speed 2000
Voltage 1.35V/1.40V
Max Temp 49-71°C
Thermal Power 89W
L1 Cache 128KB
L2 Cache 1MB
CMOS Technology 90nm SOI
Socket Socket 939

[GeneralDiomedes]

I would say Graphics card if you had to pick 1. You are a few generations behind with the 1300. I always like to be 1 behind the latest when it comes to GPUs.

Also might want to take a look at your task manager while you play, if it's always at 100% then a CPU upgrade will help too. My experience is that GPU upgrade is more bang for buck however.

[Attomic]

Okay. Bear in mind, though, that I have little to no interest in whether or not I'm "behind"; I simply want to increase my playability, not to be up to the latest or the next-to-latest. With that on the table, are there any recommendations for video cards in the $100 range that fit best with the system described above?

But I'll check my Task Manager in-game at some point. Where would you recommend I check it - in a busy public instance or a private quest instance?

Speaking of Task Manager... Mine now ONLY shows the CPU usage. I have no access to processes nor the ability to stop processes. Any idea how to fix that?

[Attomic]

Oh, and one more question. The mobo is listed as having a Socket 939, but HP's site insists:

Supports AMD Athlon64, AMD Sempron and Athlon 64 X2 processors

I can't find any Athlon 64 X2 processors that work with 939 - they're all Socket A2. What gives? Obviously, I'd like to go dual-core, but the options I've seen for Socket 939 are sparse at best.

[GeneralDiomedes]

Okay. Bear in mind, though, that I have little to no interest in whether or not I'm "behind"; I simply want to increase my playability, not to be up to the latest or the next-to-latest.

Whether you have no interest or not, it's a useful way of guaging where your best bang for buck is without sifting through piles of technobabble and performance comparison. For example, If GPUs double in speed every year, but CPUs double in speed every two years, and you are 3 years behind in both, and DDO is more GPU intensive, upgrade your GPU

But I'll check my Task Manager in-game at some point. Where would you recommend I check it - in a busy public instance or a private quest instance?

I'd just have it open all the time .. hard to predict when your client is going to slow down. Also, how much memory do you have? Pagefile swapping can significantly degrade your performance.

[Attomic]

Whether you have no interest or not, it's a useful way of guaging where your best bang for buck is without sifting through piles of technobabble and performance comparison. For example, If GPUs double in speed every year, but CPUs double in speed every two years, and you are 3 years behind in both, and DDO is more GPU intensive, get the GPU

I understand that... but it's things like "DDO is more GPU intensive" that throw me. Is it? I really don't know these things, to be honest - my understanding was that the game was demanding of BOTH processor and video card, which is why I'm asking these questions. But if it IS that much more demanding of and dependent on the video card, that leaves me a little up the creek, because at least I can figure out the relative abilities of processors but video cards are baffling to me when I'm trying to compare.

And isn't framerate more dependent on the processor than on the video card? That's what I've gathered, and if that's the case, it's a real concern for me - it makes me wonder whether my processor's going to become a chokepoint if I upgrade the video card... and might even make getting a better video card a waste (i.e., if the video card is capable of a lot but can only deliver a fraction of it because of an underpowered processor, it would be throwing money away to upgrade the video card, right?). I honestly don't know these things for certain.

Which is why I'm still asking the same question: With all of the system specs listed above, which upgrade is SURE to deliver the MOST performance improvement?

(I hope I'm not coming across as dismissive of your valuable input - I just don't have enough information to process it properly and do it justice. )

[Attomic]

I'd just have it open all the time .. hard to predict when your client is going to slow down. Also, how much memory do you have? Pagefile swapping can significantly degrade your performance.

2 gigs.

[Riorik]

Try this site - read the whole article of course.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/03/..._under_100_tie

Oh, generally, you're right - looks like you can only buy 4000+ processors that fit socket 939 currently - not that much of an upgrade.
You'd probably better getting an 8600 GTS than an 8600 GT however.

[GeneralDiomedes]

I understand that... but it's things like "DDO is more GPU intensive" that throw me. Is it?

My experience: I upgraded from a 7800GT to an 8800GT and I no longer notice slowdowns when the screen is busy. Average frame rate improvement was probably around 10-20 for intensive situations (just my estimate). My processor is an Opteron Dual Core 170 that I purchased over 2 years ago. The fact that my processor is getting close to 3 years old, and video card upgrades are still giving me big improvements tells me that DDO is more GPU intensive given gpu/cpus of similiar release dates.

[Attomic]

Thanks, guys.

Riorik - Interestingly, I was told just yesterday to check out the Tom's Hardware site for this very purpose!

*EDIT* I checked out that article and think I'm going to go with the Radeon HD 2600 XT when the time comes.

[Attomic]

Speaking of Task Manager... Mine now ONLY shows the CPU usage. I have no access to processes nor the ability to stop processes. Any idea how to fix that?

FYI:

I just googled "task manager only shows cpu usage" and got a tech discussion thread where they said that that is "tiny footprint mode", which shows only the CPU usage in a bar graph and big line graph. The way to get out of it is to double-click on any blank part of the border and BOOM! Got my processes/applications tabs back!

[Attomic]

I'd just have it open all the time .. hard to predict when your client is going to slow down. Also, how much memory do you have? Pagefile swapping can significantly degrade your performance.

Opened up Task Manager while in Meridia... and my CPU usage was in the 80s and 90s! Looks like I'm definitely going to need to upgrade my CPU... somehow.

So now, I need to add a specific question: Does ANYONE know of a decent AMD dual-core at a reasonable price for Socket 939, and which is still available?

[Kraldor]

I would recommend the ATI Radeon HD3650. It sells for under $100 and delivers great performance (and supports DX10.1 if you're running Vista)

[Attomic]

How do these compare? They're all under $100 at Tiger Direct.


HIS - Hightech Information System Limited
HIS Radeon HD 2600 XT IceQ Turbo 512MB PCIe
GPU/VPU: RADEON HD 2600 XT RAMDAC: Dual 400 MHz Additional Features: Vista Ready CrossFire Ready HDTV Ready OpenGL 2.0 DirectX 10 Video Memory: 512MB Memory Type: GDDR3 Core Clock: 830 MHz Memory Interface: 128-bit Memory Clock: 1860 MHz Stream Processors: 120 Interface Type: PCI Express Interface Speed: 16x Connector(s): Dual DVI (Dual Link) HDTV/S-Video HDMI (w/Dongle) Multiple Monitors Support: Yes

PALIT
Palit Radeon HD 2600 Pro Super 512MB PCIe
GPU/VPU: RADEON HD 2600 Pro RAMDAC: Dual 400 MHz Additional Features: HDCP Enabled OpenGL 2.0 DirectX 10 Vista Certified Maximum Resolution: 2560 x 1600 (Digital) Video Memory: 512MB Memory Type: DDR2 Interface Type: PCI Express Interface Speed: 16x Connector(s): VGA (15-Pin D-Sub) HDMI DVI (Dual Link)

HIS - Hightech Information System Limited
HIS Radeon HD 3650 iCooler II 512MB PCIe 2.0
GPU/VPU: RADEON HD 3650 RAMDAC: Dual 400 MHz Additional Features: HDCP Enabled HDTV Ready OpenGL 2.0 PCI Express 2.0 Vista Certified DirectX 10.1 CrossFireX Ready Maximum Resolution: 2560 x 1600 (Digital) Video Memory: 512MB Memory Type: DDR2 Core Clock: 725 MHz Memory Interface: 128-bit Memory Clock: 1600 MHz Stream Processors: 120 Interface Type: PCI Express 2.0 Interface Speed: 16x Connector(s): Dual DVI (Dual Link) HDTV/S-Video HDMI (w/Dongle) Multiple Monitors Support: Yes

Diamond Multimedia
Diamond Radeon HD 3650 512MB PCIe 2.0
GPU/VPU: RADEON HD 3650 RAMDAC: Dual 400 MHz Additional Features: RoHS Compliant HDCP Enabled HDTV Ready OpenGL 2.0 Vista Certified DirectX 10.1 CrossFireX Ready Maximum Resolution: 2560 x 1600 (Digital) Video Memory: 512MB Memory Type: GDDR2 Core Clock: 725 MHz Memory Interface: 128-bit Memory Clock: 1600 MHz Stream Processors: 120 Interface Type: PCI Express 2.0 Interface Speed: 16x Connector(s): DVI (Dual Link) DVI (Single Link) HDTV/S-Video HDMI (w/Dongle) Multiple Monitors Support: Yes

[Attomic]

And how about these?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102703