Help me spend dosh; Upgrading Mobo & CPU

[Boz0]

Greets to all at Hexus,

I am looking for some buying advice from those who know, so here goes:

Budget available: £300 to £350

Current spec: Asus A7V8X, Athlon 2000+, 768mb PC333, Radeon 9700 Pro, 2x 80Gb IDE HDD w/ 8mb cache.

Primarily I am looking to get a new CPU and Motherboard, possibly a graphics card, maybe more Ram. Things seem to have moved on since last upgrading and all this Athlon 64 lark is new to me (Newcastle, Winchester?, 500mb or 1gb L2 Cache?). Also I am in a spin over new motherboard offerings with higher FSB, PCI Express, new chipsets, SATA etc. I usually stick with AMD Processors but is it wiser to go with Intel pound for pound?

I have recently been looking at Abit's '3rd eye' motherboard which seems to be quite impressive. I think you can get it in both AMD and Intel flavours.

My PC gets used mainly for the Net and Gaming, I think these latest game engines like FarCry and HL2 are calling out for more memory and CPU power, my g-card seems to struggle a bit these days?

Tell me what you think guys, what killer combination would you buy?

[mike_w]

From what I've seen, Athlon 64 seems to be better than Intel's offerings in games. For Athlon 64, there are two main sockets: Socket 754 and Socket 939. Although at this point in time, both have extremely fast CPUs, I would advise Socket 939 if you want to upgrade in the future. While Socket 754 is going to become the budget socket, Socket 939 will continue to be AMD's main socket. However, Socket 939 obviously costs a lot more Socket 754, so 754 might be the best option.

You may actually want to wait a bit before buying a new motherboard. In Q1 of 2005, the nForce 4 board is supposed to be coming out, which should bring PCI Express (AGP's replacement) with it. Since PCI Express is supposed to eventually replace AGP completely, it should let you upgrade in the future.

Of course, if you don't want to consider future proofing your PC, and just want something that will fly, then a Socket 754 with an AGP X800/6800 will be more than enough!

However, that's probably out of your budget. At this point in time, I'd get a new CPU and motherboard in your position. That might be out of your budget if you do decide to go Athlon 64, since you might have to get some new RAM as well, although you can probably squeeze it in if you buy fairly cheap parts.

[Boz0]

Thanks for the advice. I will go as high as I can with mobo, most probably plump for a socket 939, though I dont think I can wait around till Q1 of 2005 for the new breed tbh so Nforce 3 will probably suit me for now. What, in your opinion is the best 939 board currently available?

I do fancy the Athlon 3200+ but the 3400+ is a little expensive for just 1 chip I think. Will 768 of PC333 Ram be sufficient with one of these CPU's or will I need more?

Thanks for your input so far, much appreciated

[mike_w]

Will 768 of PC333 Ram be sufficient with one of these CPU's or will I need more?

I think you'll need PC3200 RAM to run in sync with the new Athlon 64 CPUs, so your current RAM (PC2700) wouldn't be fast enough (I think). You'd probably be best off getting 2x512 or 1x1024 PC3200 RAM. If you really want to spend a lot, you could look at Corsair XMS, Crucial Ballistix, etc. (not really my area of expertise!). If you want a cheaper alternative, then Corsair Value Select is pretty decent, apparently with little performance loss from the more expensive stuff.

[Boz0]

I'm am quite sure I have seen socket 939 boards that support PC333 and even PC266 Ram? I would rather not ditch it yet as it cost me quite a lot (it's from Crucial).

[BUFF]

yes, you can run RAM at 333fsb on AMD64 (indeed in certain configs. the board/cpu will automatically step faster RAM down to 333fsb) - but obviously you won't get maximum possible performance as the bandwidth will probably be the limiting factor.

Oh & AMD64 PCI-E boards should start popping up in a couple of weeks .e.g ABIT AX-8

[Boz0]

Do you mean that the bandwidth of the lower spec ram will hinder the maximum performance of the mobo?

[BUFF]

Do you mean that the bandwidth of the lower spec ram will hinder the maximum performance of the mobo?

More like the CPU - a bit like having a rev. limiter on a car.
However, it isn't very much - about a 5% reduction compared to using PC3200 iirc.

[Boz0]

uhu, well I didnt know that, thanks. I think I will plump for the 3400+ anyway so I doubt I will notice the loss of bandwidth. What do you think is the best available AMD motherboard right now? Should I go with a 939 or a 754?

[BenW]

There will always be a reduction, no matter what CPU speed you use

754 - value
939 - future

[mike_w]

I will go as high as I can with mobo, most probably plump for a socket 939, though I dont think I can wait around till Q1 of 2005 for the new breed tbh so Nforce 3 will probably suit me for now. What, in your opinion is the best 939 board currently available?

Apparently, nForce 4 boards are due out on Thursday: http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.p...8&page=1&pp=15

NForce4 launches on Thursday .

And Hexus have just given nForce 4 a review as well.

[Mblaster]

nForce 4 looks like an awesome board!

[Boz0]

Sweet! Thanks for the info, I guess I will be going with Nf4 then

Thanks for all advice, much appreciated. Will let you know what I get soon