nF3 mobos for XP?

[KVandal]

Does anyone know if these are/will be in producion?
There are currently three available, but these are for theK8, not the K7.

Any help appreciated.

KV

[Agent]

Nope.

They may be one more revision of the NF2 that has firewire and SATA on the southbridge - but the NF3 is for the 64bit range.

[Axion]

nf4 then?

[Kezzer]

no point in getting 64bit until they make use of it, such as 64bit software which isn't really out yet and doesn't fully use its capabilities.

[SilentDeath]

there is point, the amd64s r fkn fast, with a 2ghz beating a p4 @ 4.1ghz.... and thats in 32bit mode.. i want one!

[St3v3]

Nforce 3 is athlon 64 only.

I don't think there will ever be another chipset released for the Athlon XP as AMD will want the Athlon XP range gone asap to ramp up production of the Athlon 64's. I heard that ViA have another chipset planned for the athlon xp, but I doubt it'll ever be released.

I'm fed up of preaching about ther athlon 64 now, just buy one!

[Stoo]

The XP will live on for a while, but as the next "Duron"

St3v3: Give me the money and I will buy one

[Trickle]

Originally posted by |SilentDeath|
there is point, the amd64s r fkn fast, with a 2ghz beating a p4 @ 4.1ghz.... and thats in 32bit mode.. i want one!

• Is AMD 64 cost effective? Currently, no its not. Not even if NF3 rocks will it be of use to anyone with a budget of <£400 for mobo + cpu. Wait until the baby chip prices come to light + its overclocking potential is known.
  
• Is it worth spending £££ on new socketA mobo at the end of the line? Whilst you often are forced to buy both at once no matter what stage of the life cycle, at least you tend to have more room for maneouvre once things settle down.
  
• Is it worth buying into new cutting edge technology? Currently, if you have a problem you either swap in other parts you already have to diagnose the problem (or head round to a mates). Buy into this stuff and you are forced to play the full on Mobo+cpu in one RMA game. Add to that rapid mobo revisions meaning your cutting edge technology ceases to become non-cutting edge much faster at this point in the life cycle.

The answer is pretty obvious. Now is not a good time to be buying AMD. Wait for AMD and intel to settle into the next price war, like at the start of the year and then buy. Does anyone posting on these forums have any software thats not satisfied by 3.5GhzIntel/2.2 Ghz XP?

[KVandal]

I agree, now is not a good time to be buying, but neither is the new year. Easter is looking good, PCI-X and BTX should be out around then in half decent numbers, the new A64 (739 pins, instead of 740 i think, might have got the #s wrong) will also be out.

All in all, although lots happening atm, its a b***** awful time to be buying given that whether you buy intel or XP/64, they will all be out of date come xmas.

However, given that i am losing this comp, i will be needing a new one and easter is a long way away... HDs are cheap, RAM is cheap so ill b ordering the parts next week probably.

KV

[drunkenmaster]

Now isn't a bad time to come, also, doesn't matter what stuff you are buying, anything can die and need RMA'ing, diff chip mobo makes no difference whatsoever.

Yes the AMD64 is cost effective, the new chips will be £375 on release, and are faster than a 3.2Ghz 800Mhz fsb P4 by , well, a freaking large amount, the 3.2Ghz P4 being upwards of £450. So cost effective, considerably.

Having that little, "but there aren't any low end chips for cheap" type arguement, might well be valid, but, there will be soon, clocks are ramping up nicely, the 2ghz chips are said to be hitting 2.4Ghz, and getting over 25K 3dmark 2k1 at around 2.25Ghz i believe. Not bad(very heavily clocked 9800 pro, but much higher clocked 9800 pro, and P4 @4.1ghz p4 was needed to COME CLOSE< BUT NOT BEAT IT).

The athlon out in feb will be teh Athlon fx 939 pin version, dual channel non ecc needed type. The athlon 64 is NOT dual channel, but is kicking intels ass. The Athlon fx 51, at £650 on release, is about 10-12% faster across the board than the ath 64, but it shoudl be at that price. But, jsut to point out, a 2MEG L3 cache Extreme edition P4 will cost that much, and offer less than 10% gain from that cache(maybe 2-3% at max, few more in "tailored" benchmarks). So in other words, by the ath 64 and kill the P4 for gaming, 99% of home use, or get this extreme edition(maybe not even as fast as ath 64) and pay a shed load for it. But even then the ath fx will become the same price, and still be 10% faster.

IE, amd is only way to buy right now. If you do that, why settle for less than the AMD 64. I'd guess buy around, late october latest, they will be around for £200 ish. New speeds will be about pretty quickly by the sounds of things, and this fist Athlon 64 has knocked price of the Athlon XP 3200+ down to £250, from £380 yesterday.

[drunkenmaster]

Also, by the sounds of things, getting highest clock outta them, means changing multi, not fsb, as this seems to be limiting overclock. SO lower fsb, and bandwidth is quite a bit beyond the P4. This means cheaper lower latecny ram will be best combo. Also, via look like the chipset to have.

I have 2 theories for this. For one, it was annouced a long time ago, back in august last year, that Via had hammer chipsets in production, so they are on 2nd 3rd gen mobo's already, they have had a long time to come up with a great chipset. As shown by their kt600, their single channel, low latency knowledge is up to scratch, Nvidia's ain't. Also, as Via has been spending a long time, and lotta cash on AMD 64 bit stuff, you can see by the very small diffs from kt333-kt600, that they didn't realy develope it. They are pushing for amd 64, not the ath XP.

Nvidia, as i noted, took the market with a good dual channel chipset, that won't help them now, starting from scratch, they haven't ever made a single channel mobo(NF1 was dual channel, jsut not very good). Add to that their developement has been on teh AThlon XP platform, no early mobo's were ever announced or shown, or heard about. This all makes sense when we are seeing 2 things, early benchies leaking, on Via boards, not NF3, companies don't leak the worse performing results, they leak the best . Also a couple peeps with early boards are suggesting that 3dmark quale 3 are deffo faster on teh Via mobo's.

[Russ]

Originally posted by |SilentDeath|
there is point, the amd64s r fkn fast, with a 2ghz beating a p4 @ 4.1ghz.... and thats in 32bit mode.. i want one!

ive seen the 1.4amd64 beat a 3.1p4 in 3d mark, how sexual is that.

[Trickle]

Originally posted by drunkenmaster
Now isn't a bad time to come, also, doesn't matter what stuff you are buying, anything can die and need RMA'ing, diff chip mobo makes no difference whatsoever.

It does if it busts 1 year + 1 day after oyu bought it, but still no one else you know has jumped into the new format yet.

Also, if one component breaks 4 months in, you cant just (for ex.) swap in your old cpu/mobo to keep the system on its legs whilst you wait for the rma.

Think about it. The posts on these forums - the plees for help. Usually you just want to post "God dam it, just swap things in and out until you find what isnt working". But unfortunately 80% of the peeps posting dont have extra kit

When you stick to a format for a while you tend to end up with extra chips/mobos lying around. I think I have about 5 different socketA chips now.

For someone who may already have an intel format chip, the decision coming up whether to buy another intel chip or the new AMD 64 could indeed be swung by this.

[Trickle]

Originally posted by drunkenmaster
Yes the AMD64 is cost effective, the new chips will be £375 on release, and are faster than a 3.2Ghz 800Mhz fsb P4 by , well, a freaking large amount, the 3.2Ghz P4 being upwards of £450. So cost effective, considerably.

To me £400 chips are never cost affective. Do they go 4 times as fast as £100 cpu? Pre 1997 before GPU's and when software was still waiting for the hardware to advance (instead of being the other way round today) then spending £££ on cpus could make some sense for the home user.

It depends on your definition of the term and what market you are aiming it at i.e. server markets where buying a chip that will last 3 months longer = longer uptime + less man hours + overall service charges - makes hardware costs less relevant etc.

[drunkenmaster]

What you don't seem to get is, teh 2.4C is actually a downclocked 3.0C, IE, if you DIDN'T have that £500 chip on release, subsidising the 2.4C, there would BE NO 2.4C. Likewise without the £400 3200+ there would have been NO 2500+'s. Its the way the world works, in 2-3 months, there will be a 2500+ equivilent on the Ath 64 world, well, more like a month I'd guess.

The only way you CAN afford the lower chips, is by people subsidising you and paying more for the same chip, so bark as much as you want, but ultimately, other people are paying for your chip, so maybe be less judgemental of the other chips.

hardware costs are very relevant in the computer industy, its just for many company's, maybe gfx rendering, its simple, the faster they can get work done, they more they can do, so they buy teh chips that will be fastest without overclocking, and with a garentee from manu that it will run that speed.

PS, since when has hardware been waiting for software to advance? HL2 will only jsut play on recent hardware(without looking like pap). As its supposed to run, less than 5 gfx cards will play it as designed to, nothing currently available will be able to run it in 1600x1200+ fullscreen aa+af, yet in a year, with NEW hardware, we will be able to.

As far as being costeffective, for companies, as i said, when power is needed, this is cheaper than the slower competition, so very cost effective for them, and for you, this means it will sell more, thus making the lower end, subsidised chips even cheaper, hence cost effective for you.

If this chip was £800, then the cheap versions out in a few months max, would NOT be £70, not even close. get it?

[Swafe]

funny thing is, if you clocked a celeron to 3ghz, then downclocked a ath64 for 1ghz

the athlon 64 would easily cream it , amd is the way to go