Parhelia on (much) slower machines?

[bobby2]

Ok - humdrum, but would be nice to know.

Am about to upgrade 3 machines. Two are working PCs - with G400DH, and one is my game PC. The game PC has a nice old GFTi200, and its only a PIII700.

I can pump it up to 1.4G easy with a small investment, but how would it perfom with a P inside. Indeed, has anyone been using their P with a significantly slower machine, and can they indicate what perf is like (HQ numbers etc)

[Evildead666]

if u have a look around someone did some beta testing on a Athlon 700, but i can't remember where.
It was in one of the links when the NDA ceased.

[Neomagic_Twist]

I think Kruzin is still on a P3 700'ish and things seem to be running quite well on there.

[Cheesekeeper]

The effect on performance in many cases will depend on the game itself. Games like the original Unreal Tournament are very much CPU limited - if the CPU isn't massively powerful, upgrading the video card won't make much of a difference. Games like Quake 3 are the opposite - while CPU speed (among others) will affect performance, the speed of the video card is much more important.

Also keep in mind that if your PIII motherboard doesn't have an AGP 4x slot (which many don't) this may slow things down a bit. The difference between AGP 2x and 4x is usually minor, but when tested in the past the video cards weren't really using AGP 4x to its full potential........

[Ryu Connor]

Also keep in mind that if your PIII motherboard doesn't have an AGP 4x slot (which many don't)

Eh? The only PIII compatible motherboards that don't have an AGP 4x slot are the 440BX (2X only) and the i810/i810E (no AGP slot at all). The i820/i820E, i840, i815 series, and all the VIA chipset PIII boards have a AGP 4x slot.

[Cheesekeeper]

Yup, and of the people I know who are running PIII machines, the majority of them have 440BX boards. Boards like the Abit BX133 are designed to run with BX chipset overclocked to 133, and are usually faster than an 810/815 board running at the same rate. These are great boards, fast, and stable as hell, but only support 2x AGP.

Point taken though, there are heaps more PIII boards that support 4x AGP. It's surprising how few of them I've seen out there, in comparison to 440BX boards............

[Ryu Connor]

You must deal mostly with enthusiast machines. As the VIA and i8xx series comprise a huge chunk of the open market.

[Kruzin]

As pointed out, I'm running a P3-700 and it's doing great here.

[e-Pit@m]

Hey dude,
Can you be a little more sepecific then just simple GREAT?
How bout some numbers?
3dMark would be intresting me...

[R.Carter]

I guess the real question is, will the Parhelia work on the older Intel 440BX based motherboards or not?

I do know that the Parhelia documentation indicates the requirement as a AGP 2.0 system. I assumed that was due to the fact that AGP 2.0 added AGP 4x and 1.5v signalling.

But, will the Parhelia work in a AGP 1.1 system (i.e. 440BX) or not?

I assume the cards keying will be the determining factor if it will fit into the AGP slot or not.


EDIT: Heheh... the ASUS P3B-F uses a Intel 440BX doesn't it? So I gues it should work then.

[piaxVirus]

I still don't think the BBz can release FPS numbers.

[Wombat]

Can you be a little more sepecific then just simple GREAT?
How bout some numbers?

You need to read up a little more. BBz can't publish numbers yet, especially since they are unlikely to be running released drivers.

[Kruzin]

Yup exact numbers are a no-no, unless running on public drivers, which we generally don't do. I did run the same drivers a couple weeks ago that the reviewers used, so I can quote based on those. My 3dMark2001 score went from ~1150 on my old G550 to almost 4700 on the Parhelia.

And yes, mine is a BX mobo, and it works fine.

[bobby2]

thanks, thats all I wanted to hear

[mikeul]

I don't see why exact numbers are a no-no unless there's something wrong.
People flamed other cards based on non public drivers too (Xabre anyone?)