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AMD experts please respond

jimmyman99jimmyman99 Member UncommonPosts: 3,221

Heya folks. Im planning on upgrading my system and I need advice from AMD experts. My current system is :

Intel P4 1.8 Ghz processor
Asus P4S800 mobo (SiS chipset)
Asus Nvidia FX5200 with 256Mb video memory
2x512mb DDR (i think 3200) RAM

Ive heard too many times about AMD being better for gaming and stuff, so, I wanted to upgrade my Mobo/CPU and possibly vid card too but I have no idea what to pick, i never had AMD before. I want to upgrade to equivalent of P4 2.8 HT. My current mobo doesnt support dual channel RAMs so Id like that feature on my new Mobo.

Can i have 2x512 dual cannel and 2x512 regular RAM?
im planning to fit this all in a range of 500 Can $ (approx 400 US $)

If any1 lives in toronto, do you guys know where I can buy all that for cheap AND if they accept trade-ins?

Thanks

I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
image
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
imageimage

Comments

  • VercadesVercades Member Posts: 1,065

    Eh this might help, if its doesn't, just use the search option on the forum to see if you can find a thread that has what your looking for.

    http://www.cybertechhelp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66314&highlight=AMD+INTEL

     

     

  • jimmyman99jimmyman99 Member UncommonPosts: 3,221

    Thanks for your reply. It helps a bit with CPU selection, but I found no info o nthe motherboard.
    So far ive selected these from http://www.apluscomputers.ca/cpu.htm


    AMD 64 3000+ SOC 939 $194
    AMD 64 3200+ SOC 939 $249

    there is also one
    ATHLON 64 3000 $193

    Its 1 $ cheaper the SOC 939, any idea why and whats the difference between them? Also, whats the difference between 3000+ and 3200+ ?

    Prices are in CAD $. I posted the link to a website that I usualy buy PC stuff, so if you could suggest something out of their stock plz do so. Thank you again

    I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
    image
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
    imageimage

  • DremvekDremvek Member UncommonPosts: 160

    Socket 939 is the new technology, which all AMD processors in the near future will use, including their dual core. So, if you want to be able to upgrade just the processor at a later date without getting a whole new motherboard, get the 939 one.

    As for your RAM question,  I think you need all dual channel to get the speed bonuses that come with it being dual channel, though you can probably run non-dual RAM, it'll be slower.

    For mobo, you just have to decide on what features are important to you. I would definitely have support for SATA drives, integrated LAN connection and Socket 939. If you want maximum upgradability down the road, go PCI-Express. This will mean, however, you'll need a new vid card and possibly a new power supply. If you don't want that kind of investment, go AGP.

    Asus, MSI, Gigabyte are among some of the better known and more widely supported motherboard manufacturers. I use newegg.com for most of my hardware purchases and have had good luck with them. I believe they ship to Canada as well, so it might be worth checking them out for you.

    Those processors should run as fast or faster than a 2.8 HT, so they should meet your requirements.

  • jimmyman99jimmyman99 Member UncommonPosts: 3,221

    Thanks for your reply. I will probably go with the 939 socket, I dont care much about the onboard stuff, I believe separate hardware will operate better then the onboard one. Actually, does anyone know whats the real difference between the onboard LAN and a separate network card?

    I still need a question about difference between 3200+ and 3000+ answered please. The difference in $ is 50 bucks so its important to me.

    I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
    image
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
    imageimage

  • ChonkaChonka Member Posts: 27

    I personally have been building AMD systems for a few years now (I'm anti-Intel). I have found them to be extremely reliable...and well worth the cost compared to Pentiums (which are more expensive). The downside to AMD's processors is their FSB (Front Side Bus). Most of them are 266 or 333.

    For your processor I would recommend a Athlon XP 3200 (Barton Core 400Mhz FSB )Athlon XP 3200 w/ 400mhz FSB (Barton Core), or if you want the newer 64 bit technology, The Athlon 64 3000.Athlon 64 3000 The Barton serious doubled the amount of L2 Cache on the chip which makes them extremely faster than the older Thoroughbred cores. The XP 3000 is about the equivelent or better than a Pentium 3.0 Ghz. You should be able to find these processors anywhere from 90 - 150 dollars which is a great deal.


    As far as motherboards are concerned, I have found great success with the Nforce2 and Nforce 3 chipsets. VIA and Nforce in my opinion are the only contenders for AMD. Nforce2 and above all have Dual Channel ram like you say you wanted, and usually include some nice extras as far as LAN's and Audio. VIA's drivers are some of the most stable on the market and very easy to upgrade. The KT400+ series of motherboards by VIA work very well and are usually extremely stable. The Nforce series tend to be a bit faster as far as gaming goes though. Just remember that if you go with the Barton core, the motherboard will require 333 or 400mhz FSB and will have to accept a "Socket A" or "Socket 462/370" etc. If you go with the new 64-bit Athlon, thats the "Socket 939" which is mentioned above.

    By the way, dont place too much importance on the Dual Channel ram. Real world tests show that it really doesn't help quite that much yet. Maybe in a few years from now when games will require 3 gigs to play it might help. It kind of just eliminates the bottleneck by making to roads instead of one. The catch is that both roads dont work AT ALL TIMES.. Only when it's needed. If the traffic gets full on one channel...the second channel kicks in. Dont be thinking that if you have 2 sticks of 1 Gig each that they are both working for you at the same time.

    Good luck to you and I hope this was some help. If you have any more questions lemme know I'll do my best...


    PS - Your video card is very slow despite the 256mb of ram it has. The bulk of video card performance is achieved through the speed of the GPU (Graphics Proccessing Unit) and the SPEED of the ram (not the amount). Look for high numbers in this area. The best performance / cost at this point in my opinion would be the ATI Radeon 9600XT or the Geforce FX 5700 Ultra. Either also can be attained with 256 of RAM. I built a recent system that runs Everquest II with MAX settings just fine with a 9600XT 256M vram. So shop around a bit

    Chonka Kimoto 70 Shaman (EQ I since beta) - Retired
    Azuri Spiritweaver 26 Mystic / 13 Craftsman (EQ II) - Retired due to boredom
    Azuri Jingizu W/N20 (Guild Wars)

    image

    image

  • jimmyman99jimmyman99 Member UncommonPosts: 3,221

    Thank you for your reply. A very informative reply, although I still have a several questions:

    1) is there a big difference in performance between

    AMD 64 3000+ SOC 939 $194
    AMD 64 3200+ SOC 939 $249

    As you can see, the price difference is substancial

    2) which MoBo Should I pick?

    ASUS A8N-SLI DELUXE NF4 Socket939 4DDR Aud+GbE+1394a 2PCI-Ex16+2PCI-Ex1+3PCI ATX A8N-SLI DELUXE
    $227.00

    ASUS A8V Deluxe K8T800Pro Socket939 4DDR Aud+GbE+1394a 5PCI+AGP8X ATX Retail A8V DELUXE $165.00

    ASUS A8N-SLI NF4 Socket939 4DDR Aud+GbE+1394a 2PCI-Ex16+2PCI-Ex1+3PCI ATX (PATA+ A8N-SLI $193.00

    ASUS A8N-E nForce4 Ultra Socket939 4DDR Aud+GbE PCI-Ex16+PCI-Ex3+PCIx3 ATX SATA A8N-E $145.00

    ASUS A8V-E Deluxe K8T890 Socket939 4DDR Aud+GbE+1394a PCI-Ex16+2PCI-Ex1+3PCI ATX A8V-E DELUXE
    $168.00

    what is GbE, 1394a, PCI-Ex16 PCI-Ex1 ?


    Thank you

    I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
    image
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
    imageimage

  • dsorrentdsorrent Member CommonPosts: 1,627


    Originally posted by jimmyman99
    Thank you for your reply. A very informative reply, although I still have a several questions:1) is there a big difference in performance betweenAMD 64 3000+ SOC 939 $194
    AMD 64 3200+ SOC 939 $249

    In all honesty, get the 3000+. You can run the 3000+ Winchester (s939) as if it was a 3200+. The Winchesters are one of the easiest OCing cores out. Even if you are not really into Overclocking, you could slap in the 3000+ and run it at stock 3200+ and not know the difference. As for the "technical difference" between the 2, the 3200+ runs at a core clock of 2.0 Ghz and the 3000+ runs at 1.8Ghz. However, what you need to understand is that AMD clock speeds are NOT the equivalent of Intel clock speeds (i.e. comparing a 2.0 Ghz Processor to a AMD 3200+ is likce comparing apples to oranges.)

    Both the 3000+ and 3200+ run at the same front side bus, have the same cache, etc. The ONLY difference is the multiplier they run at.


    Originally posted by jimmyman99

    As you can see, the price difference is substancial2) which MoBo Should I pick?ASUS A8N-SLI DELUXE NF4 Socket939 4DDR Aud+GbE+1394a 2PCI-Ex16+2PCI-Ex1+3PCI ATX A8N-SLI DELUXE
    $227.00 ASUS A8V Deluxe K8T800Pro Socket939 4DDR Aud+GbE+1394a 5PCI+AGP8X ATX Retail A8V DELUXE $165.00 ASUS A8N-SLI NF4 Socket939 4DDR Aud+GbE+1394a 2PCI-Ex16+2PCI-Ex1+3PCI ATX (PATA+ A8N-SLI $193.00 ASUS A8N-E nForce4 Ultra Socket939 4DDR Aud+GbE PCI-Ex16+PCI-Ex3+PCIx3 ATX SATA A8N-E $145.00 ASUS A8V-E Deluxe K8T890 Socket939 4DDR Aud+GbE+1394a PCI-Ex16+2PCI-Ex1+3PCI ATX A8V-E DELUXE
    $168.00 what is GbE, 1394a, PCI-Ex16 PCI-Ex1 ?
    Thank you

    GbE is Gigabit ethernet, something you will not use. As for the PCI-E stuff, you need to decide on the video card you are going to use. If you are going to use an AGP one, then your only choice of the above is the A8V. If you got with a PCI-Express, then I'd say go with the A8N-E because it has SATA support. PCI-Express is the newer technology, so if you're seeking longevity out of the system you build, then go with a PCI-Express motherboard.

    Asus makes a great product so you really can't go wrong with any of thier boards. You just need to decide which one suits your needs. Let us know if there's any other questions we can help with.

    Edited for formatting...

  • jimmyman99jimmyman99 Member UncommonPosts: 3,221

    Thanks for your help. Im gonna stick with A64 3000, ASUS A8N-E nForce4 Ultra Socket939, ATI 9600XT. I actualy had hard time deciding on a vid card. I went with ATI after reading reviews on the INET. Seems that ATI has better performance when I turned on better settings (AA+AF) while NVIDIA has better performance without those good settings.
    Im not completely sure about mobo yet, I will ask the person in store which one to choose.

    thank you for replies, very informative and helpfull.

    I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
    image
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
    imageimage

  • DremvekDremvek Member UncommonPosts: 160

    I believe that that motherboard you have picked out is PCI-Express, so make sure the vid card you get is also PCI-Express or it will not work in that motherboard. Also, most PCI-Express mobos should have ATX 2.0 power supplies. PCI-Express mobos have 24 pin sockets for the connection from teh power supplies, but the old ATX 1.x power supplies are only 20 pin. You can plug the 20 pin power cord into the 24 pin socket and it will work fine, as long as you don't completely fill up yer motherboard.

    PCI-E 16 and PCI-E 1 are the PCI express slots - they replace the old PCI and AGP slots.

    As for vid card - ATI and nVIDIA really don't make a difference. I prefer nVidia, and I'm sure there's hundreds of people on this board that prefer ATI. For a PCI-E motherboard tho, I would strongly consider a GeForce 6600, which was natively designed for PCI-Express and is a good performing, solid and relatively inexpensive vid card.

    I would consider www.tomshardware.com for good reviews of all of the hardware pieces. They seem to be impartial for the most part, and review Processors, motherboards, vid cards, power supplies, and pretty much anything else you can shove into yer machine.

  • jimmyman99jimmyman99 Member UncommonPosts: 3,221

    Is PCI E better then AGP vid card?
    Man this complicates things a bit, I dont know my power supply, I will probably have to buy a new one, shouldnt be expensive though.

    Out of those mobos with PCI E, which one would u recommend? I dont care much about onboard stuff, I believe they arent important if I have stuff separately (I dont need onboard lan or audio because I have separate hardware), am I correct on that one?

    Thanks

    I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
    image
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
    imageimage

  • DremvekDremvek Member UncommonPosts: 160

    In terms of quality and performance, AGP and PCI-E are pretty much equal right now. However, AGP is slowly going to disappear (probably take a couple of years) while PCI-E will become more popular. I personally went with PCI-E on the machine I just built.

    Features are pretty much all that differentiate most mobos. If you aren't going to run with 2 vid cards, don't spend money on SLI (I wouldn't go with SLI, personally). Plus, SLI is nVidia only at this point, and you mentioned you're looking more at ATI. Some people buy SLI boards because it comes with 2 PCI-E16 slots, but if you read about these boards, if you run with both slots, they only run at PCI-E8, which basically means they're not true 16 slots if you use them both.

    Looks like the only difference between the A8N-E and the A8V-E is firewire support and chipset. If you don't need firewire, consider the cheaper one, though personally, I'd get the A8N-e, as I think the nForce chipset is worth the extra $20. EDIT: Looking closer at the A8V-E, it appears this card has firewire too. I still think it's worth $20 for the nForce chipset however.

    As for the onboard lan - it comes with pretty much any mobo now. I use it, as it's one less extra card that will fail in my machine - takes up less space and leaves bus space open. Audio - if you've got a BETTER sound card than what is on the mobo, use that. If it's not, I'd use the onboard. Same with RAID/Sata support, etc.

  • ChonkaChonka Member Posts: 27
    The PCI Express technology is still fairly new. It was originally developed by Intel? If I"m not mistaken. The Geforce GT series were the first cards on the market to use the technology. From what I understand, the PCI bus is the largest and fastest transfer medium available to a PC.  The AGP bus, despite the recent transition into "8X" still doesn't quite compare. Although I dont think this would make your games much faster at this point. I think in the future when games require huge amounts of graphical and memory bandwith then you may see a difference.  There not even much of a difference between 4X and 8X at this point.  The manufacturers and reviewers over hype these technologies somewhat to stimulate an audience and to trigger sales for those "early adopters".  While this technology is pretty neat, the current world applications are slim.  But if you like to gear towards the "not quite so distant" future..then make sure to go with PCI Express.

    Chonka Kimoto 70 Shaman (EQ I since beta) - Retired
    Azuri Spiritweaver 26 Mystic / 13 Craftsman (EQ II) - Retired due to boredom
    Azuri Jingizu W/N20 (Guild Wars)

    image

    image

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