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Perhaps my system is starting to show its age, or I've just become too demanding, but I'm not quite satisfied with my performance on the F.E.A.R. demo, so I was toying with the idea of an upgrade.  Then again, there are apps that cannot be put 100% (FS2004's 3D clouds, anyone?) so I'm not sure it's be worth it.

AMD 64 3000+
MSI K8N Neo
BFG GeForce 6800 OC AGP
1024 PC3200 (I think)

Hi Scorp...!

If the spec which you have just listed is what you have at present, it's difficult to know how you could improve on it... ... ... ...!

..a BFG 6800 GT OC is pretty cool for a graphics card...!

Cheers Mate....(Even if you do hail from Texas)... ... ... ...!

Paul.... ...!

I think thats a good rig lol..
You cant realy complain on the graphics card.. the chips a 'tad' old.. but still better than most..  ::)

My conclusion:

or I've just become too demanding

Howdy Foz'!

I dunno about it being a "GT".  I think maybe that means it has 256 RAM?  I know mine has 128.  I'm still happy with it though.  Perhaps F.E.A.R. is just too advanced for its time.  That and Battlefield 2 are the only games I can't run at 100%.  Though they still look great!

I s'pose I'll concentrate on getting surround sound as opposed to using the AUX channel on my dinky little 2 speaker mini-stereo, and lets not forget that fouth CD drive!

    -Starr, hopelessly obsessed with going over the top...  Like 2 gigs of RAM!  Even in texas "mate"!

The only thing I would dream of doing to that would be throwing a 3800+ or higher in it. Unless you plan on overclocking, that is the only thing you could do to make a noticable improvement.

Beyond that, you would need a new motherboard (SLI) and a couple cards to fill the SLI slots. And the new processor.

Too much money if you ask me, I just overclock the heck out of my stuff. I figure when my overclocked rates become outdated, then I upgrade.

Perhaps my system is starting to show its age, or I've just become too demanding,

You can never be too demanding. 200 fps in doom 3 or bust.  ;D

but I'm not quite satisfied with my performance on the F.E.A.R. demo, so I was toying with the idea of an upgrade.  Then again, there are apps that cannot be put 100% (FS2004's 3D clouds, anyone?) so I'm not sure it's be worth it.

AMD 64 3000+
MSI K8N Neo
BFG GeForce 6800 OC AGP
1024 PC3200 (I think)

No fear, Dr. Overkill is here.

I have diaganosed your disease as being non-fatal. Don't worry, there is a cure called overkill. Here is your prescription:
AMD a64 4800
4 gigs DDR600
2x 7800 GTX
Asus A8N-SLI premieum
Audigy 4 pro

Ok, I'm serious now.

A 6800 (non gt/ultra) is only slightly more powerful than a 6600 gt (which is a mainstream card). I recommend you upgrade to a 6800 GT at least. I'd also upgrade your CPU to a 3800 w/venice core. That will give a pretty decent boost.

FEAR is a pretty demanding game, even by my standards.
If your willing to spend the money, an amd a64 4000 combined with a 6800 ultra will run it no problems at 100%.

There you go then, Scorp...

What Autopitot said, plus a herd of Hereford white-faced steers...and you're sorted... ... ...!

Cheers, all you guy's from Takes-Us... ... ...!!!...!
LOL...!

Paul...Hereford. England... ...!

http://www.herefordcattle.org/

Scorpion, you should be getting reasonable performance now, and yes, I use a less powerful card than you and I run 3D clouds etc, in fact all my apps run fine.

Your rig would benefit from a faster CPU, that would be the most sensible upgrade path, as long as you are happy staying on socket 754.

Socket 939 based systems offer more in the performance stakes, so that is your fundamental problem.

I would look at using some benchmark software such as 3dmark and use your results to compare with similar systems as your's, to try and determine whether you have any serious configuration problems first.

There you go then, Scorp...

What Autopitot said, plus a herd of Hereford white-faced steers...and you're sorted... ... ...!

Cheers, all you guy's from Takes-Us... ... ...!!!...!
LOL...!

Paul...Hereford. England... ...!

http://www.herefordcattle.org/

Fozzer!  Your beef!  What have you done?  You need 100%, grade A, Texan Angus beef! Longer's always better!

Scorpion, you should be getting reasonable performance now, and yes, I use a less powerful card than you and I run 3D clouds etc, in fact all my apps run fine.

What I meant was flying with real, updated weather on a stormy Alaskan dawn.  Me thinks that'll stress any machine.

Your rig would benefit from a faster CPU, that would be the most sensible upgrade path, as long as you are happy staying on socket 754.

Socket 939 based systems offer more in the performance stakes, so that is your fundamental problem.

I would look at using some benchmark software such as 3dmark and use your results to compare with similar systems as your's, to try and determine whether you have any serious configuration problems first.

I've often thought about this.

I've also noticed that socket 754 boards don't seem to feature PCIe.  As long as I don't lose too much of my... assets ...in switching to 939, I think it's a viable option.  I've wanted to do this mostly because the 7800 seems to be exclusive to PCIe.  Then again, is the 7800 really leaps and bounds beyond the 6800?

I'll do a 3DMark, but I doubt I have any configuration issues since I reformatted.

Then again, is the 7800 really leaps and bounds beyond the 6800?

A single 7800 GTX can can beat 2 6800 Ultras in SLI. And we're not talking about wussy low resolutions like 1600 by 1200, we're talking manly resolutions like 2048 by 1536 with AA at 4x.

Hmm...

[thinks for a moment]

I suppose I should be getting a 7800 then eh?

I got 3822 points if I remember correctly. What that means is beyond me.

In what test? and what settings? to make it meaningful to me....

Socket 754 boards come with PCIe as well, but thats not the thing.

S939 uses a different CPU, so that's the only bit other than the board you need to buy extra.

939 runs a faster FSB, and a dual channel memory controller resides on the CPU itself. I think they are the two main performance factors compared to socket 754.

If you were considering a CPU upgrade anyway, then you are really only going to need a replacement mainboard in addition to that to get into socket 939.

Mind you, some decent RAM would be good if you dont already have it because many socket 939 rigs will auto-overclock if set to do so, which isn't a bad feature to have if you are not manually overclocking.

I just downloaded 3DMark03 by Futuremark off Download.com, and ran the only available option: "Run 3DMark"

Well, I get over 9000 marks with a 6600GT.

I'm still not sure if you have a vanilla 6800 or a 6800GT.

In either case, your score seems very low to me.

That score could be normal if you had all quality and filtering options maxed and forced in your driver settings if your card was a vanilla 6800, but it still seems low to me, I've never tested a plain 6800 myself.

For example, with a 6800GT I would expect at least 12,000 points.

Anyone else have a better idea of the 6800 and 6800GT's actual performance in 3Dmark03 ?

At this point, if it were my rig, I wouldn't rest until I was getting 3 x times the performance you are getting.

I think you need to fix what you have, nevermind upgrading.