Athlon 64 system - best 'bang for the buck'

[Ceefer]

In the days when Athlon XP's ruled, the best price/performance ratio for a cpu & motherboard seemed to be an XP2500+ (Barton) coupled with an nforce2 motherboard, because the XP2500+ could easily be overclocked to 3200+ speed or greater, providing excellent performance at a reasonable price.

Is there a similar clear winner among all the various flavours of Athlon 64 and chipsets?

[Hottentot]

The best option is a A64 3000 or 3200 Venice and an Nforce 4 mobo. But you have to pay a lot more than for the Barton/nForce 2 and its not that much faster at equivalent clock speeds. Plus you need a PCI express graphics car which adds a lot of cost.

[noah]

have a look at this ,it might answer some questions for you. was provided by scarlet infidel in this thread:

http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=46216

and if you compare the same clock speeds in a barton and a winchester you'll see there is a fair bit of difference - roughly 40 fps in far cry for 2000 mhz chips

[Scarlet Infidel]

Not to mention that the Venice cores will be faster than the winchester at stock, also they should overclock further than a 2500+ barton should. Plus when 64-bit finally comes around youll get another boost of performance. (odd how i keep praising athlon 64s yet i own a prescott)

[BUFF]

Best bang for the buck would be a s/h 754 system from someone going PCI-E - particularly if you want to keep using that 9800 Pro.
There is very little difference between 754 & 939 speeds (in fact 754 3000+ & 3200+ outperform the 939 3000+ & 3200+ at stock).

[Smokey21]

Defo with Buff.

If you really want bang for buck, a DFI 754 Board with a Newcastle 3200+ or a Clawhammer on the cheap, would be nice. Easily clockable to 2.4Ghz should be and you'll get nice performance.

[Hottentot]

Looks like you might get a 25-30% improvement if you upgrade to an equivalent speed A64 over the Athlon XP. ie comparing the 2.2 Ghz processors. If you can obtain a cheap 754 mobo and processor it could be worthwhile but your upgrade options from there are very limited. Saying that everyones upgrade options are looking limited if you play games as the dual core processors are a poor option at the moment.
Personally I am going for one last upgrade (San Diego and NF3) and then I expect to have to buy a completely new system in a year or so.

[SlipSand]

I too will be upgrading. I am thinking A64 Venice 3200+ DFI NF4 LP SLI-DR Mushkin DDR466 1GB D-C (<--My next upgrade) and A 6800GT PCI-E of course.

[sawyen]

Actually i am having the same config u guys were toking abt previously wif XP... 2500+ barton wif NForce2 mobo. I was thinking of moving to a A64 3200+ but I'm using a 6800GT AGP.. Are there any good mobo u guys cud recommend on a socket 939 that still uses AGP? And is it worth upgrading? or should I just wait?

[StormPC]

Actually, I believe the 3700+ San Diego and NF4 are the best bang for the buck. Winchester and Venice are great as well, but that 1MB of cache really helps on a lot of things. The San Diegos are overclocking at 2700MHz+ with stock cooling making them more powerful than a stock FX-55 with a lot less heat.

[Ceefer]

Hmm, £200 for a San Diego and £100 for an NF4 939 mobo.....bit more than I was thinking of spending actually. Are any of the Semprons uber-clockers?

[Hottentot]

A socket 939 that uses AGP ? , Either VIA KT800 Pro or nForce 3. I have gone for the Epox 9NDA3, an NF3 mobo. Slot in my 6800GT and buy a new processor probably the San Diego 3700. With a water cooled over-clock I should get a 20 to 25% speed bump for about £300 (minus the price of selling my 754 CPU/mobo)

[Smokey21]

Actually, I believe the 3700+ San Diego and NF4 are the best bang for the buck. Winchester and Venice are great as well, but that 1MB of cache really helps on a lot of things. The San Diegos are overclocking at 2700MHz+ with stock cooling making them more powerful than a stock FX-55 with a lot less heat.

Granted it's a good setup for the money storm, it' still pretty expensive, to be called bang for buck.

And you still on about 1Mb L2 being the be all and end all.

[BUFF]

Hmm, £200 for a San Diego and £100 for an NF4 939 mobo.....bit more than I was thinking of spending actually. Are any of the Semprons uber-clockers?

nF4 boards start at around £60 iirc.
A decent s/h 754 board & ~3000+ cpu (overclock to 2.4GHz hopefully) should be ~£110ish I would think.

[Ceefer]

Buff, thats more like it! £110 is what I spent on my XP-M 2500+ and Abit NF7. Going to ebay to look for a 754 mobo.

[BUFF]

There's a for sale & wanted forum here ...