My New Computer

Yeah meaning your ram can totally help squeeze out some extra frames until you get a really sick card to go with that shit. Thats basically what I'm shooting for.

Originally posted by SKID MARK
The only problem with the 9600 series cards is that they only have 4 rendering pipelines instead of 8. The 9700/9800 series have 8 pipelines. I use an 8500le 128 ddr w/agp4x with no frame issues. Since I upgraded my mobo + cpu + mem to 1 gig of Dual channel 400 DDR my frame rates are between 80 - 100 fps.

I believe there is a way to soft mod a 9600 to 9700 or 9800 pros. If you flash the 9600 with the right bios, it will enable the extra 4 pipelines. If I recall correctly, the 8 pipelines are there, its just ATI has 4 of them disabled through software.

Originally posted by Evan
Here are the parts I'm getting for my new computer:

AMD Athlon XP 2500+ CPU
ASUS A7N8X Deluxe (Revision 2.0) Motherboard
1GB (2x512MB) Samsung Dual Channel DDR400
Sapphire Atlantis Radeon ATI 9600 Pro 128MB 8x AGP
80 GB Western Digital Hard Drive with 2MB Cache
Aspire Dreamer II Case with 350W PSU

Grrrrrrrr! Yoink! mine mine mine mine mine.

I just installed the Albatron PX865PE pro II motherboard and its running nice. Have my cpu at 2.81ghz from 2.4b and ram is 312 from 266. Soon I will be upgrading cpu and ram. woohoo.

I would go with some dual channel DDR 400 to optimize your memory bandwith. I am running level 1 DDR 400 mushkin (1GB.) and it smokes my old pc2100 DDR ( 512MB).

Try this link CPU's have dropped alot this month.



http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=property&DEPA=1

[Evan]

Originally posted by Edogg
I believe there is a way to soft mod a 9600 to 9700 or 9800 pros. If you flash the 9600 with the right bios, it will enable the extra 4 pipelines. If I recall correctly, the 8 pipelines are there, its just ATI has 4 of them disabled through software.

And where might I find this special BIOS?

[yaDad]

what might the difference in FPS btw a MB with 4x AGP and 8x AGP...?

[RCglider]

Originally posted by Yadad
what might the difference in FPS btw a MB with 4x AGP and 8x AGP...?

2x to 4x a lot
4x to 8x nothing really

Originally posted by SKID MARK
I would go with some dual channel DDR 400 to optimize your memory bandwith. I am running level 1 DDR 400 mushkin (1GB.) and it smokes my old pc2100 DDR ( 512MB).

Try this link CPU's have dropped alot this month.



http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=property&DEPA=1

Yes I'm definately wanting Dual Channel DDR400, but you need a processor with 800mhz FSB to do so, I have only 533 on my 2.4b, thats why I'm selling my 2.4b, my gig of pc2100 ram and my old gigabyte mobo, and with that money I'm going to get a 2.4C with 800mhz FSB and a gig of dual channel DDR 400. Also currently, I took the overclock off my processor and I'm running my ddr266 @ 333 with ramsinks, and its running great. Very noticable even from 266 to 333 so I can't wait for the 400 and the 2.4c my benchmarck as of right now has only gone from 11500 to 12400, but I'm sure with that ddr400 I'll get a nice kick, plus I want to get a much better vid card in 3-4months at the latest. I suggest if anyone here is looking for a new mobo that supports not only 800mhz FSB but 1200Mhz FSB by overclocking, that you check out the Albatron PX865PE Pro II motherboard, its really well made. The onboard gigabit lan rocks too. Look it up, its got great features, its available at http://www.zipzoomfly.com for a hell of a price too.

[plukkie]

yeah that's looking good.
I'm hoping to get a radeon 9800 x pro next month:
It's a 512mb card:D

Originally posted by Edogg
I believe there is a way to soft mod a 9600 to 9700 or 9800 pros. If you flash the 9600 with the right bios, it will enable the extra 4 pipelines. If I recall correctly, the 8 pipelines are there, its just ATI has 4 of them disabled through software.

Only on the first series you could use a "thirrd party" driver that would enable the other pipelines but......, they changed sthe design so now it's locked in the hadrware...too bad:violin:

Originally posted by Mechanized-Deat
Only on the first series you could use a "thirrd party" driver that would enable the other pipelines but......, they changed sthe design so now it's locked in the hadrware...too bad:violin:

actually ive seen softmods on tech forums where people used a specific vga bios(not driver) from a higher end card like 9700 or 9800. Its not a third party driver or bios. Although I think to complete the process they do have to use certain drivers.

[Hunter/Killer]

Nice Evan
Lets see what it does to your scores!

Hunter/Killer

TOOL the only thing is that your albatron is an 865pe chipset and not intels new 875p. The 865pe does not have the PAT (Performance excell. tech.)enabled. I know this may give you some more room for overclocking. Also if you use Cable or DSL the 875p chipsets rout the onboard LAN right to the northbridge and does not go on the slower PCI bus. Other than that it looks like a nice mobo! I run an Abit IC7 MAX3.

Originally posted by SKID MARK
TOOL the only thing is that your albatron is an 865pe chipset and not intels new 875p. The 865pe does not have the PAT (Performance excell. tech.)enabled. I know this may give you some more room for overclocking. Also if you use Cable or DSL the 875p chipsets rout the onboard LAN right to the northbridge and does not go on the slower PCI bus. Other than that it looks like a nice mobo! I run an Abit IC7 MAX3.

My Abit is7-e is a 865pe and it has PAT(aka gat). I just had to flash to a newer bios.