This is my story. I have a custom built system with the following specs:
Gigabyte 7ZX mobo w/integrated Soundblaster
AMD Athlon 900 CPU
256 SDRAM
ATI Radeon 8500 64 MB Vid Card (Driver 4.13.9016)
VIA Apollo KT133A chipset (4in1 driver 4.38)
Windows 98SE
I bought the system with an ATI All in Wonder 128 Pro graphics card and just upgraded to the 8500 last week. I never 3dmarked the system with the old card but did so with the 8500. The results:
http://service.madonion.com/servlet/Ind ... Id=3095402
Hopefully you can access the link but I have several questions.
- My score was only 5998 at 800x600 res w/32 bit color and was 5600 at 1024x768 w/32 bit. Why are these scores extremely low with the Radeon 8500 with 64 MB of DDR RAM? Is is the mobo, the processor, SDRAM I have in the system? Is it a combination of both? It'd be great if anyone could give me an idea on what piece to upgrade that would provide the biggest bank for the buck without replacing the whole system.
- The new 8500 seems to be running o.k. Picture clarity is improved but the card is not providing the quantum leap many told me it would. It seems like during gaming my character runs in a very choppy manner, no matter what server I play on. What might be causing this?
- If any of you would access the link above and give me insight as to why it lists my AGP rates at 1x/1x and why it lists my front side bus at 10000 MHz, it would be much appreciated. I have a 256 MHz front side bus.
Any and all suggestions would be of great help. Thanks in advance.