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FX2500 in an Inspiron 9400/E1705.. Drivers and O/C question. - Page 2

post #21 of 43
1/21/08 at 9:33am
i bought my fx2500 for 180 shipped and insured , and sold my fx1500 for 120$ so i had a good bargain
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post #22 of 43
1/21/08 at 10:38am
I sold my old 7900gs for £101 or just over $200 on ebay
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post #23 of 43
1/25/08 at 1:22pm
Thread Starter 
Update,

Got my card yesterday after paying the relevant customs duty.

No problems removing old 7800 or installing the new card, made the minor adjustment to the plastic casing and the card fit very nicely.

Installed 169.04 drivers and then benchm'd using 3dMark2005, and I got just over 8000 3dmarks. A good improvement from 5600 from the 7800.
I've then flashed the BIOS to 600/700 as a starting point and am now getting 8880ish points in 3dMark2005 (I know it's not a realworld test, but it gives me comparable results from overclocking)

As I've got a 1680x1050 22" monitor which I run my laptop display through, I'm hopefully going to see good results from running games at that resolution, something the old 7800 struggled with, and as we all know, running games at less than native res on a LCD can be a mixed experience.

Thanks for help and advice, I'm probably gonna stick to the 600/700 clocks for a while unless people think there really is loads more there, but from what I've seen I won't get much more out of the card.

Cheers

Dan
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post #24 of 43
1/25/08 at 4:07pm
i have my clocks at 550/650 if i want more i will just use software to overclock it, how is your temperature in games? Mine has got to 92c playing crysis but its not throttling down yet and i run my fans on full.

What cpu do you have? Im guessing by your 3dmark score you have something like a T2400 am i right?
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post #25 of 43
1/25/08 at 7:17pm
Thread Starter 
Yes, I've got a T2400. Comparing similar systems on 3dmark05 i'm right up there.

I've got the Bioshock demo, and I've noticed that (with all the settings to high) it stutters in a few places (almost down to 1 frame), then returns to the 20-26fps it was getting.

Is it something to do with only having a 5400rpm drive or my processor?

I could upgrade the processor to a T7400, but in real terms will this improve smoothness noticeably?

I could also put a internal 7200rpm drive in, but I've got a Freecom 400gig 7200rpm external drive which is USB 2.0 and I use for data storage... anyone know what would happen if I install any games on this rather than the C drive?

Will the games stutter more due to the USB connection not transferring data fast enough, or will it improve hdd access times for my games?
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post #26 of 43
1/26/08 at 4:55am
I noticedx a difference in frame rates when i went from a T2400 to a T7400, I believe a faster hard drive will only help loading times and definatley dont install a game on the usb drive as it will be very slow.
I find demo games not to be optimised enough , try lowering your resolution. How about posting your system specs. Ram ect
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post #27 of 43
1/26/08 at 4:23pm
Thread Starter 
Specs should now be in my signature.

Running the FX2500 at 640/740 with no problems now, passed 9000 3dmark 05 and over 5500 3dmark 06.
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post #28 of 43
1/26/08 at 6:33pm
So how are the temps on your gpu at those clock speeds?
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post #29 of 43
1/27/08 at 8:07am
Thread Starter 
Depending on whether its FanGUI or Rivatuner, it peaks at 82 or 74 degrees.

Seems stable so far but I'm gonna run a few high graphic games through it and see what happens. I may knock it back 10mhz on both the core and the memory, just to make sure I'm not too close to the "edge".
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post #30 of 43
1/27/08 at 11:03am
Im hitting 92c with i8kfangui and ive off set that 8c. God knows what temps i would get at those clock speeds.
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post #31 of 43
1/27/08 at 3:44pm
Thread Starter 
I've knocked the clocks back down a bit to 630/730 as I was starting to get artifacts when running 3dmark06 and Arma.
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post #32 of 43
1/27/08 at 4:55pm
Good idea, you dont want to ruin the card before you've had some decent use out of it, thats why im not pushing mine to hard. It plays everything i throw at it so im happy, i will only push the clocks up when trying to get more 3dmark points but i dont do that very often.
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post #33 of 43
1/27/08 at 7:29pm
Thread Starter 
I'm very happy with the card, I was holding off buying Bioshock and COD:4 as I didn't like the thought of playing them with most of the eye candy turned off.

Now I should be able to play them at reasonable frame rates with most things on, although I'm under no illusions that I'll be able to have everything on super high settings, but I just can't justify spending 700 to 800 pounds on a new setup, so the new graphics card is as far as I can go (7950 wasn't worth the extra few fps IMO).... though I might upgrade the processor and the HDD.. any recomendations of good HDDs that'll fit in the Inspiron? (I've asked this on another thread I'm running too )
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post #34 of 43
1/28/08 at 6:11am
i have the seagate momentus 160gig 7200rpm its a very good drive , the loading times are loads better with this than my old 5400 drive.
Id get a T7200-T7400 if i were you. The t7600 are quite expensive.
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post #35 of 43
1/30/08 at 9:44am
http://aycu25.webshots.com/image/433...5565363_rs.jpg

Thats the best i can get from my FX2500 i didnt bother trying 800 on the memory as it wouldnt make much difference.
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post #36 of 43
1/30/08 at 2:07pm
I second that, Get a T7200 CPU next, it does perform better than the T2500, and again selling your T2500 will offset the price.

I think the T7200 sell for around $ 150 - $ 200 range, and are the best bang for the buck
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post #37 of 43
1/30/08 at 4:17pm
Thread Starter 
Will a T7200 be a big improvement over a T2400?

And is a T7400 worth the extra money?
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post #38 of 43
1/30/08 at 5:16pm
Yes it will be a big improvement, obviously not doing little tasks but in 3d and encoding its a good improvement and worth the upgrade. I got my T7400 a year ago for £150 - $300 which i thought was very cheap back then. Just in 3dmark i gained 1000 points for upgrading my cpu from a t2400.
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post #39 of 43
1/30/08 at 5:45pm
Thread Starter 
What about the difference between a T7200 and a T7400?

If you take their retail price as a guide (I know the price varies on Ebay), the T7200 newly boxed is £185 and a T7400 is £264. (Double that amount to get the rough US$ equivalent).

Iis the T7400 worth the extra £81?
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post #40 of 43
1/30/08 at 5:47pm
maybe not, i bought mine from ebay. If i had the choice now i would buy the T7200 with that price difference.
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