Anyone still uses Asrock 939 Dual SATA2?

[vaharim]

Hi, I am a newbie in the forum.

I have been disconnected for quite a while from the high end gaming scenario mainly because of lack of time, but I have been thinking of upgrading my rig and decided to consult with you guys what my options are.

My specs are as follow:
Asrock 939 Dual SATA2
AMD 64 3700+ running at 2.75GHz on air at 35-45c (I have OCd this one to 2.85 but I don't really need that sort of power hence running at 2.75GHz)
Asus 7600gs 512mb silent
Windows XP Pro installed on
Seagate Barracuda ATA 120 Gb
Hitachi 300Gb ATA for storage
2Gb generic DDR PC3200
Bestec 400W

I have got an Opteron 170 and an Ati x1900xt so I will be updating this rig in the next 10 days.
Now, the question is: Should I sell my 7600gs and the x1900xt to buy an 8800GTS or 2900xt, or should I just take the plunge and move to the m2 platform? is it Really a big difference between 939 based platforms and 940 or m2 based ones? or is still worth it keeping this rig for while, lets say for a year.
I havent bought performance memory because I dont know if is it worth keeping this rig and it will be waste of money if I have to move to DDR2 based platform in the next 6-9 months, but i will buy it if I can keep this set up for a year or more.
My main interest is in FPS type of games specially the military simulator ones.

I know that there's plenty to discuss on this topic so all comment are very welcome.
Cheers.

[Agent]

Just to do the honurs before everyone else does: There would be no point moving to a AM2 platform. Times have changed a fair bit and Intel is currently in the lead over AMD for gaming machines. They also have superior chipsets at the moment for both desktop use and overclocking.
If you look at going with a new rig, there is almost no point buying another AMD system im afraid Core2 is the way to go!

As for the graphics card - What resolution will you be running at, and more importantly, what games are you planning to play?

[vaharim]

Hey, Thanks for a very quick response.
I am thinking along the lines of STALKER, Call of Duty, War Wound and Half Life 2.
I will appreciate any sugestions on games as well, as I said I haven't been playing for almost two years and it will be cool to learn from your experiences with FPS kind of games, I m very keen in realism of weapons and physics.
Another gender I really like is combat flight simulators, I have a sidewinder 2 that hasn't seen daylight in two years.
Oh yeah, forgot to say, a minimun of 1024x768 and an average of 1280x960 would be desirable.

[Pob255]

Well your max resolution is set by your monitor, how well it works is up to your pc (esp graphics card)
ps did you mean 1280x1024 ? as 1280x960 would be a wide screen resolution

The 7600GS can actually cope with most games at 1280x1024
However Stalker is an utter pig from what I've read
The x1900xt should be able to cope with the majority of current games at 1280x1024 at max details.
1280x1024 is the current most common max for 17"-19" TFT monitors

[Pob255]

As to the rest of your system, I'd personally keep it for now but start saveing up
Untill we start seeing DX10 games to actually know what is truely needed.

One thing I am a little worried about is your Bestec 400W PSU, you need to check the actual manufactor of that PSU

EDIT: found the link
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/370

[vaharim]

Hi thanks for that tip about power supply, it will become handy when building a new system.
I think that so far you have confirmed my hunch that I better stick whit this rig for a while.
I have seen the opty kicking butt even when compared with some pretty good processors like the athlon fx-60, athlon x2 5000+, athlon x2 3800+ and the Pentium D 930, acording to that review the only test where the D 930 was significantly faster than the Opteron 170 was the ones where the application is totally governed by cpu speed and in all the other tests the Opty holded its own agains those CPUs.
By the way the psu is manufactured by Bestec, I am going to buy a new psu soon as you can get them quite cheap, I was thinking something like the Neo HE 500 GB.
Any ideas on good bang for your buck on one or two gigs of memory? willing to spend around £70-100.

[vaharim]

Ahh, forgot to say, I have 2 monitors a compaq 7500 crt and an Acer AL1916WAs wide screen, I find the compaq slightly better when working on photographs. but the acer kicks butt for films.

[Pob255]

I'd advoid cheap PSUs they are a big route to many problems
I'd say you're looking at around £40 minimum for something under 500w, which is all many pc's actually need

for DDR2, Corsair or OCZ are good brands and great value atm.
But again look for who actually makes the chips
the corsair XMS2 and the OCZ gold are both good, (micron chips) and a matched pair of 1gb sticks will cost around £70

[GAteKeeper]

The Pentium D 930 is old hat compared to the Core2Duos, dont get drawn into old benchmarks etc the best chips out there atm are all Core2s and you can get some cheeper varients.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=2795&p=1 is a old but good intro into C2Duo

from a personal perspective the best investment i made wasnt a faster chip/memory or gfx card it was a 24" WUXGA panel, i now mostly play Day of defeat.

GK