Cooler Master case (Centurion Plus 534) Thermaltake Pure Power 680W PSU Scythe SFF21E intake fan (1200rpm), Thermaltake A2329 exhaust fan Asrock AM2NF3-VSTA mbd (socket AM2, DDR2/800 RAM, AGP, 5 x PCI) Athlon64 X2 6000+ 3GHz (dual-core), overclocked to 3.15GHz. Thermalright Ultra120 Extreme CPU cooler + Scythe SFF21F 1600rpm fan Sapphire X1950Pro AGP (512MB), Accelero X2 cooler, oc'd to 641/783. 4GB RAM (4 x 1GB DIMMS, two dual-channel DDR2/800 OCZ kits) 3Com Gbit NIC, QLA12160 SCSI card, LSI U320 21230R RAID card Maxtor Atlas 15K U320 147GB 15000rpm system disk 3 x Fujitsu U320 147GB 15K RAID. 20X Liteon DVDRW. ******************************************************************** 27/Mar/2007. Purpose of this analysis: the demonstrate the performance bottlenecks caused by slow RAM for 3D tasks running at high resolution and high quality visuals. Tests done using three different systems with exactly the same graphics card (X1950 Pro AGP). Oblivion frames-per-seond test descriptions (URLs below), done before I installed the Natural Environments mod: 1. Dense forest location at night, focus on the centre of the ruins. 2. Bottom of the stairs in Merchants' Inn, focus on the inn keeper. 3. At wooden door to City Isle (inside), Market District, N.E. corner, focus between the two vertical red flags on far building. 4. Talos Plaza, west city entrance, inside the plaza, focus on the head of the dragon statue. 5. Behind (north east) of the Wawnet Inn, standing on the rock, facing, a) the Inn, b) east to the city, c) north to the horizon above the hill texture 'seam', and d) the end of the pier. 6. Signpost outside the city, facing S.E. Images: http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/misc/obliviontest1.jpg http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/misc/obliviontest2.jpg http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/misc/obliviontest3.jpg http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/misc/obliviontest4.jpg http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/misc/obliviontest5a.jpg http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/misc/obliviontest5b.jpg http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/misc/obliviontest5c.jpg http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/misc/obliviontest5d.jpg http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/misc/obliviontest6.jpg And here are the results: MEDIUM DETAIL: 1024x768, 4X AA, no AF, Texture Preference = High Quality, MipMap Detail = Performance, in-game settings at default. All results are fps. | Dell650 Dual- | Athlon64 3400+ | Athlon64 X2 6000+ || Athlon64 X2 6000+ Test | XEON P4/2.66 | 2.64 (220/12) | 3.15 (210/15), || 3.21 (214/15) Num | DDR266, PC2100 | DDR400, PC3200 | DDR2/800 (394) || DDR2/800 , GF8800GT (700) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | 36 | 48 | 48 || 79 2 | 25 | 39 | 63 || 63 3 | 18 | 26 | 40 || 48 4 | 21 | 34 | 49 || 49 5a | 28 | 45 | 71 || 84 5b | 50 | 80 | 125 || 150 5c | 61 | 91 | 149 || 182 5d | 36 | 54 | 89 || 111 6 | 26 | 53 | 67 || 92 Systems with faster RAM are already 50% to 150% better, but now see what happens at high-res/high-detail... HIGH DETAIL: 1600x1200, 6X AA, 16X AF, Texture Preference = High Quality, MipMap Detail = High Quality, in-game settings at default, All results are fps, and remember this is with the same gfx card! The last test is especially tough on the old Dell. | Dell650 Dual- | Athlon64 3400+ | Athlon64 X2 6000+ || Athlon64 X2 6000+ Test | XEON P4/2.66 | 2.64 (220/12) | 3.15 (210/15), || 3.15 (210/15) Num | DDR266, PC2100 | DDR400, PC3200 | DDR2/800 (394) || DDR2/800 , GF8800GT (700/1715/920) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | 6 | 42 | 45 || 39 (8X AA), 47 (4X AA), 69 (no AA) 2 | 25 | 38 | 50 || 63 (8X AA), 63 (4X AA), 63 (no AA) 3 | 14 | 24 | 37 || 47 (8X AA), 48 (4X AA), 48 (no AA) 4 | 19 | 32 | 50 || 48 (8X AA), 48 (4X AA), 50 (no AA) 5a | 13 | 42 | 58 || 59 (8X AA), 70 (4X AA), 84 (no AA) 5b | 31 | 74 | 81 || 90 (8X AA), 122 (4X AA), 138 (no AA) 5c | 23 | 86 | 88 || 107 (8X AA), 153 (4X AA), 169 (no AA) 5d | 14 | 46 | 53 || 56 (8X AA), 66 (4X AA), 88 (no AA) 6 | 6 | 36 | 48 || 48 (8X AA), 60 (4X AA), 76 (no AA) *************************************************************************************************** Here's an extra table of results that include video encoding, and note that the video conversion results are times in minutes and seconds (converting an 800-frame PAL MJPEG AVI into MPEG2 with TMPEGEnc). "C.B." = CineBench 9.5. Again, these results are for the _same_ gfx card in each system (my X1950 overclocked from 580/703 to 641/783). 1. Dell Precision 650: Dual-XEON P4/2.66GHz, 4 x 512MB PC2100 DDR266 ECC 2. Athlon64 3400+ (@ 2.64GHz, 220/12), 1 x 512MB PC3200 DDR400 (K8Upgrade-1689) 3. Athlon64 6000+ (@ 3.12GHz, 208/15), 4 x 1GB DDR2/800 dual-channel (@ 832MHz) HIB = Higher Is Better LIB = Lower Is Better Dell 650 Athlon64 Athlon64 X2 2 x P4/2.66 3400+/2.64 6000+/3.15 3DMark2006: 4781 4589 5583 HIB 3DMark2005: 6314 9764 11094 HIB 3DMark2003: 14250 15990 17810 HIB 3DMark2001: 18665 24668 36087 HIB C.B. 1/Render: 259 392 464 HIB C.B. N/Render 518 N/A 853 HIB C.B. Shading: 272 414 511 HIB C.B. SW-L: 1086 1770 2178 HIB C.B. HW-L: 1831 3349 4472 HIB TMPEGEnc: 4:38 2:57 1:43 LIB I've done quite a bit with respect to having better parts to cope with the high heat output from various overclocked items and the SCSI disks, but this isn't necessary if one isn't going that far. Indeed, there are better AGP cards out now, ie. factory overclocked versions of the X1950, so one could get just as much speed from a X2 5600+ oc'd from 2.8 to 3GHz, using a newer X1950 that already comes fitted with a better cooler - would be cheaper than what I did. I only went for the 6000+ because I could afford it. :D The one thing I do miss about the Dell though is its native PCIX. Three of the 147GB 15K disks were setup as an internal RAID in the Dell, which gave 200MB/sec, whereas the new system's typical 32bit 33MHz PCI only gives 105MB/sec. Ah well, it does at least produce access times that leave the SATA RAID systems in the dust. :D So, if you ever want to get something better than your 3000+, feel free to ask as I"ve already done tons of groundwork wrt to good cases, fans, coolers, PSUs, CPUS, etc. Note that if you were starting from scratch though with respect to getting a better system, then you'd be better off with a Core2Duo as they overclock much higher. I didn't get one because I couldn't find a single AGP-equipped Core2Duo mbd that supported DDR2 RAM running at full 800 speed. I also wanted lots of PCI slots. ********************************************************************** I already had the AGP card from a previous Dell XEON system. Would like to have bought a Core2, but I couldn't find any Core2/AGP mbd that supported DDR2 at full 800 speed, and the week I bought all the parts was just a few days after AMD cut the 6000+ price by 50%, so the price was much better for the AMD aswell. Next system will probably be a Core2 or quad though, and move to PCIe; unless ATI or NVIDIA release another decent AGP card. Atm my system is definitely gfx-limited. I've been more than impressed with the results, better than I was expecting from reading numerous review articles. I get 40 to 150fps for Oblivion, 1600x1200, 16X AF, no AA, high detail. See: http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/misc/pics.zip Dreadfully addictive of course. :D (though I've taken a break just now and am back on Stalker for a while. No less addictive though, went to bed at 4am last night - bad me! 8D) Would be awesome if NVIDIA released a good AGP version of the 8800, but so far nothing, or if ATI did an AGP version of the 2900. However, I'm all set for a while. I did find a very fast SATA RAID card (Areca, 24-port, tested by someone I know at 1186MB/sec!), but it's hellishly expensive (800 UKP!). Will stay with SCSI for a while, maybe switch to a more costly mbd sometime, eg. this one does have PCIX: http://www.hothardware.com/printarticle.aspx?articleid=786 Cheers! :) Ian.