Does a motherboard increase performance?

[warhorse9000]

I just bought a new MOBO and I was told that in itself the mobo would give me better performance. I didnt really beleive it because I had always thought of a new motherboard as a platform for better hardware rather than an upgrade. My question is.. does a motherboard running the same CPU and Video card offer anything to gaming performance?

My specs

Windows XP SP1

MOBO: GIGABYTE GA-7VAXP (333 FSB and 8X AGP support)
PROC: AMD ATHLON XP 2100+ (1.7 Ghz)
VID: AGP Radeon 9000 pro 128 meg (4X agp)
MEM: 512 DDR 2100
HDD: IBM 40 gig 7200 RPM


The GIGABYTE board is an "upgrade" from an ECS K7S5A 266 FSB and 4X AGP MOBO

As far as I know I have the latest flash and support drivers but I dont notice any performance. Are my original feelings accurate and the MOBO is just a platform for better hardware or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks for your help

WARHORSE

[lil Jimmie]

When I went from a Asus P4S533 to a Asus P4PE-BP I really couldn't see a difference until I ran some benchmarks.

[Sixpack]

No, Not that I'm aware of. But if you changed the cpu and video card that would make a big dif providing the mobo can handle it.

[Nuclear Krusader]

Being the most important part of the system, the mobo is responsible for performance and stability.

[Pounder]

I would think what chipset that was on the board could make a difference in speed

[warhorse9000]

Well at 333 FSB and 8X AGP support there isnt a lot that the board cant handle at least for now. My thought was that maybe a faster throughput might actually allow any boosts of performance that my previous board bottlenecked. In either case, I did need the board for future upgrades anyway.

While I am at it.. the GA-7VAXP allows for mega overclocking in cpu and I dont know how far I can take the 2100+ withut burning the chip. I also dont know if it will even make a difference in the first place.

I have been experimenting and managed to raise it from 133 to 140 but it was a little unstable. I ran 3d mark and it didnt give me one single noticable extra frame. I guess that the only real way to get better performance is to buy better hardware..

Thanks for the support guys

Warhorse

[TwoRails]

Hi warhorse9000,

Yes, mobos can vary in "speed." A higher quality mobo, such as Asus and others will be faster than cheapo mobos. Benchmarks show that there can easily be 20% difference or more between them. More stable, too.

The closer in quality between two different mobo's will show less of a spread, of course. And, yes, many times a benchmark is needed to "see" a difference, but this is true in many components, especially since everything is so fast anymore.

HTH

TwoRails

[warhorse9000]

I guess my real question is.. How will all this effect Gaming?

I dont care if I can open the control panel .0005 seconds faster. I want better FPS and I guess a Video Card or Processor is the logical next upgrade.

Thanks


Warhorse

[TwoRails]

A quaility mobo should get you at least a couple of FPS better or more, but I don't recall ever seeing boards benchmarked in just that fashion.

[warhorse9000]

Thanks to all of you.

[Blakhart]

The mobo is the main determining factor, as everything relies upon it. I buy the one that has the most interesting technology and hope for the best. Benchmarks are also good to look over before you buy.

As far as mobos determining performance:
Went from an nforce1 mobo that gave me 9800 3dmarks to an nforce2 that with the same parts, got 11500. I assume the reason why is the vid card does agp8, and the nforce1 does agp4.
Placing the agp8 card into a agp8 mobo showed an improvement.

[warhorse9000]

I have noticed a slight increase but nothing to write home to mom about (not that she would understand anyway)

I do have the best board on the market right now for a socket A and even though I do not have an 8X AGP card the support for one is there. I do beleive that the 8X support is the real power behind your very dramatic change in 3d marks. You must have a 9700. I would kill for that card. Also I have read that the architecture of the board is also a factor as well wired chips can send data faster.

In the end though it is the hardware on the board that does the most damage. If you did not have an 8X card as I dont, the 8X support would have meant squat. Not to mention all the other goodies you must have like a processor and memory that supports a higher FSB. I have the board but not the right hardware to maximize the power of it.

Thanks for the post though, I enjoy hearing everyones input

[mike breck]

Although different chipsets will offer varying performance, when it comes to gaming, the CPU and graphics card are the key components. Most games rely on the graphics card to do most of the work, whereas some other types really work the CPU as well.

Your bottleneck at the moment is your graphics card. If you upgrade the card you will see better performance in games and higher 3DMark scores (if that's important to you).

HTH

[reboot]

About your interest in overclocking...
You won't burn up a chip just by overclocking it (it's extremely rare), unless you increase voltage to the vcore to get it stable at a higher speed.
The only way to tell how fast it will go, is to try it. Boost the CPU's FSB in 1 or 2mhz increments until it is unstable, then back it down a bit. That will be as fast as you can get, unless you increase voltage.
If you increase voltage to get more speed, THEN you are seriously going to increase heat, and THAT's when a chip will burn.
If you can keep the vcore temp under about 65c, then you can keep going as much as you dare. Remember that the "official" meltdown temp of that chip is 95c, but I suspect it will get flaky, and probably melt long before you get that high. A chip that is running 65c idle, may get seriously hot under a load, so a stable system may be nice to look at around 4ghz, but you won't be able to do anything on it. Better to have a stable working machine at 3ghz than a flaky one at 3.1ghz, especially if heat starts to build up under load.

[warhorse9000]

The bottleneck I was referring to was really about the game Splinter Cell

I have almost double the "recomended" specs to play that game but even at a terrible 800X600 resolution and low settings, my FPS sits around 30. That is horroble considering I am hearing stories about people with Celerons and GeForce 3's running the game better. I know that my Radeon 9000 128 meg isnt anywhere near the best card but it should be good enough to play that game.

This is not the first game that has given me problems in the same manner. I have double or even triple the "recomended specs" but something is stifling performance, hense my bottleneck

I just dont know what to do

I suppose its back to the shop for yet another buy!

[pam123]

I switched from an FIC board to an Epox and went from being unable to play any game at all to having no trouble playing any game I wanted. So, yes, it makes a difference.
As for less drastic improvements just go over to Tom'shardware, or Anandtech, : www.tomshardware.com , www.annandtech.com ; and read the motherboard reviews and the benchmarks.
It's pretty clear that some motherboards deliver much better performance from your hardware than others.

[reboot]

Is your RAM really running at 266mhz?
Is your video card really running at 4X?
What version of directx have you got?
How many other processes and programs do you have running at the same time?
How many programs in the taskbar?
Have you disabled all the unneeded services?
Have you manually adjusted the swap file?
Any other "tweaks" you've done to XP?

I think you should be able to get a few more fps out of the system you've got, and not have to purchase more hardware.
I can play it easily on an XP2000+ with a GF 4 MX440SE (64meg) video, and rarely get below 35fps, but that's a fully tweaked XP Pro.

[warhorse9000]

I have no running process's that dont need to be running as far as I know. Like no messenger or Automatic updating. I have nothing in startup anyway.

I am not sure what a good setting for virtual memory is so I havnt touched it but advice in that area would be nice.

When I run my benchmarks, it does report that my memory and cpu are running the way that they are supposed to as far as I know. I do have my voltage multi at 133 anyway.

I have run some basic tweaks but I am not sure which processes are needed and wich ones are not.

The VM settings would help though

[reboot]

Check running processes and what you can shut off at http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm
With 512 meg of RAM, a fixed swap of 768meg is plenty. Set it and forget it, both max and min. If you ever get an out of mem error, increase that.
Do you have MS Office? Is "fastfind" disabled?
How many programs do you have in the taskbar?
Do you shut down your anti-virus prog while playing the game?

[warhorse9000]

Thanks for the website.

I dont use antivirus because in my experience all it does is slow down your computer and let new virus's thought anyway.

To remove or search for a virus, i go to

http://housecall.antivirus.com

and run a web based scan. The site is updated every 2 days so it is pretty current.

I have ZERO running in the taskbar. I dont even have the displayed. I turned off startup and all sounds as well cause they bug me. I will check the site and thanks for the VM settings