Which would be better?

[Scottler]

A P4 3.4 with 1 GB and a Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb, or a P4 3.4 with 2GB and a Radeon 9800 Pro 256mb?

Of the two setups, which do you think would offer better performance?

[GunnerMan]

Lets see 9800 Pro 256 and 1 gig ram, 2 gigs is wastin money...

If it were me id go the 6600GT or 6800GT my 2 cents....

[Scottler]

That's what I thought.  Thanks!

[GunnerMan]

Well lets know when you are ordering it and ask questions you have when building(if you have any )
Can't wait to see how it goes but one last urge for the 64 bit PCI-E You know im not gonna let 64 Bit and PCI-E out of your eyes untill you are on it flyin!

[the_autopilot]

A P4 3.4 with 1 GB and a Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb, or a P4 3.4 with 2GB and a Radeon 9800 Pro 256mb?

Of the two setups, which do you think would offer better performance?

Performence wise, 2 gigs is always better (as long as the memory is the same).

But for the average user, is 2 gigs really necessary...NO.

Here's my recommendations though:
ditch the intel as you probably don't do encoding.

Get an amd, get a 6600 gt and 1 gig of ddr400 mem and your good to go.

[GunnerMan]

He says he does Video editing, but I really beg of him to get at least a 64bit cpu, I think he should do AMD to especcially with Venice commin here who knows it might whoop Intel.
 Like I said above im gonna keep telling you because I know its your money and I may sound pushy to get what I am telling you but ther are at least 3 guys here that agree I am afraid you will be very very pissed at yourself in the end because you didnt get something that has good upgrade potential. They are really pushing PCI-E now and I have never seen a conversion go so fast but I would bet the farm any new gen cards are going to be scarce findings in the AGP department.

[the_autopilot]

If he does video encoding I encoruage him to get an intel then.

The intel 640 should be perfect for you. It has 64-bit support as well as all the other kinks AMD gives you (like NX excute bit and speedstep tech).

I still recommend a 6600 gt, thought you may want to get ddr2 ram instead.

As for venice, don't worry about it. If you do upgrade to that, you'll probably want a new mobo that can handle the higher fsb that cpu will have.

[GunnerMan]

Yeah, true autopilot, but

[the_autopilot]

http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=tweek;action=display;num=1109606545;start=15

[GunnerMan]

Ahh thanks seems like some good voltages there for that clock... what is the reason for running at a lower Multi? Have you tried 3.5 on a higher vcore?
I really want a phase change now , wish they would go down in price tho. Do you have that video cards on water?

[the_autopilot]

No problem.

I have tried 3.5, but its too unstable. that and I'm satisfied with this overclock, I have pushed it to its limits without crashing. If I disregard crashing and count POST screen only, then I could go up much higher.

My cards are water cooled of course. I actually have two pumps, with one serving each card, drawing from a big main reservoir. I use peltiers to cool the water in the reservoir.

[GunnerMan]

Wow, yeah 3.45 is pretty damn fast and 1 grand a big sum to pay if you ush it to hard and kill something. Are your video cards overclocked any?

Unfortunatly for me when I got this system I didnt know the definision of OC so I got a board without a PCI/AGP lock so my max stable OC is 2.35  
ASUS K8V Se Dx (saved my ass a few times but OCs like dog shit)
AMD64 3200+ S754 ClawHammer
BFG 6800 Ultra
512 mbs OCZ Platinum El PC-3200 2-2-2-5 on UPS truck commin here now...
Not comparible to yours but I wish I had a better motherboard, and it might get to 2.5-2.6, when I didnt know about PCI/AGP lock I had it up to 2.4 at 1.86 Vcore before I stoped, did not want to blow anything.

[the_autopilot]

Yeah, my vids are overclocked, but not by much. Main reason is that even my fx-55 can't keep up with the data the gpu's can process, so i have no reason to o/c them at all actual.

I bet when I get an fx57 and put it in, my 3dmark score will jump enormously due to it being able to handle more data.

BTW, for your setup, thats a decent overclock. Yeah, the AGP lock will limit you.

[GunnerMan]

Thats true, but 2.3 is quite whimpy, 3dmark01 is 20k at 2.2, I hope that improves when I get rid of this old PC-2100 that I somehow borked and now its running at PC-1600

[Scottler]

Gunner...I'll make a deal with you dude.  lol

If you can find me a setup that lets me run the specs you suggest, I'll look at it.

I've had a hard time finding much that lets me run PCIe.  I'm not totally opposed to the idea, but my noob-ness really limits where I search.

I've looked around, and I have seen a little bit, but nothing that really jumped out at me.

So if you can find it, I'll look at it.  Deal?