Advice on purchase AV8,3500+

[tom deloford]

Hi

Is £340 a good bundle deal for AMD 3500+, 2 x PC3200 512Mb (1024mb) & Abit AV8 S939
and will I notice the difference from my exsiting 2.8Ghz P4 overclocked to 3.12 (800mhz fsb) ,Asus P4C800E, 512mb kingston, is it really that much faster given that I am already running an ATI X800 XT PE and Raptor HD or am I just wasting 340quid for an extra 2 fps!!!

Am I gonna notice the difference at all?

Thanks for any advice..

[Spunkey]

Depending on the spec of the ram, its not a bad price. You'll probably notice more performance increase from having 1Gb insead of 512Mb though.

Assuming thats not a bundle deal, i think you'd be better off with an NF4 board if you can.

*edit*
1,000th post w00t!

[tom deloford]

You'll probably notice more performance increase from having 1Gb insead of 512Mb though

It is 1024mb ram, 2 X 512mb = 1024mb

[Spunkey]

yes, but your current rig which you're upgrading from has....

[tom deloford]

Sorry I get you now..

Thanks

[nichomach]

I concur; your processor's already giving you over 3GHz stable, and were it me, I'd see what extra performance I'd gain by chucking in an extra 512MB. I can virtually guarantee that it WILL whomp up your performance, and it's a comparatively inexpensive (and transferrable, should you decide later that you really HAVE to ditch the P4/Asus combo) upgrade. Yes, you would see a performance improvement by going the upgrade route you suggest, but I reckon that you'd see a whacking boost for a lot less by just adding the memory.

edit: I'd also note that given that your most valuable component which you'd want to retain is your X850 and that's AGP, an NF4 board isn't an option, since you'd need a PCI-E card.

[tom deloford]

Only problem with that is that buying ram first and then cpu/mb later is more expensive than buying all together in bundle... hmmm difficult one

Thanks for the suggestion though

[tom deloford]

This is the ram type:

TwinMOS PC3200 DDR-DIMM 1024MB Dual Pack Kit w/two matched PC3200 DDR DIMMs

Is that good, dont know much about TwinMos ram.

[Spunkey]

TwinMos is good value stuff - i use it
not extremely overclockable but will run cas2 no problems (stock is cas 2.5)
Its about £40 per 512Mb, so by my calculations you're paying £15 more than you could buy the parts for individually.

You could have a 3200+ on a DFI Ultra-D with 1Gig of Geil Value ram for £330. Or same kit with a 3500+ for £390.

As nicho said though, the most cost effective upgrade you could do at the minute would be to stick another 512Mb of ram in your machine. £350s worth of A64 wouldnt see that much of an increase in real terms.

[StormPC]

In applications that are CPU intensive you will notice a huge difference, especially if it's a 3500+ Winchester which overclocks like mad. If you're just video gaming at low to medium resolutions then it's probably not worth it and you should just upgrade your RAM.

Make no mistake though, an overclocked Winchester will slap a 2.8 GHz (overclocked to...) quite silly in CPU intensive applications.

[tom deloford]

Its about £40 per 512Mb, so by my calculations you're paying £15 more than you could buy the parts for individually.

You could have a 3200+ on a DFI Ultra-D with 1Gig of Geil Value ram for £330. Or same kit with a 3500+ for £390.

I didnt mention that this price includes VAT and the bundle also comes with fan (im sure its very oem but im probably not going to be overclocking it silly. I hope )

lowest non bundled prices I could find (inc vat):

Av8 = £72

TwinMos DualPack 1024mb = £92

AMD 3500+ = £184

Fan = £10

= £358


email me with your supplier!!!

[tom deloford]

If you're just video gaming at low to medium resolutions then it's probably not worth it and you should just upgrade your RAM

Low to medium resolutions with a ATI X800 XT PE on 21inch TFT!!!!!!
My monitor only does 1600x1200 without scaling, I dont have a choice, it has to be high!

Make no mistake though, an overclocked Winchester will slap a 2.8 GHz (overclocked to...) quite silly in CPU intensive applications.

Yea I think FS 2004 uses shed loads of CPU, similar with 3DStudio Max and compiling in VS.Net..

I think Ill go with the bundle. Thanks for suggestions all.