A modern day JIUHB?

[acidrainy]

Hi there,

Looking at my sig, many of you will know exactly what the topic of this thread is referring to. The JUIHB XP Athlon has done me well, for some time now, but 64 beckons me for a new adventure.

What I have here is a mobo that cost me £80 and a CPU that cost me £40 together capable of a 900MHz overclock - on air cooling! Is there a modern day equivelent of this? What's the combo of the times? I am essentially looking for an upgrade where I get the best bang:buck that I can find!

Understandably, probably going to have to shell out on a PCI-E gfx card too. Bring on the X1900 crossfires!

[BenW]

I've heard the 3700+ is good, i had 400Mhz and an undervolt on my 3500+

[acidrainy]

I've been seeing a lot of X2's as I’ve been scanning the forums tonight. Is this the best way to move? I always did like the prospect of dual core.

[asteroth]

get ab opteron 144 or 146, mine does 2.5ghz on default volts and 2.7Ghz (board limited) with a .2v bump. also look at the Asrock DualSATA2 or the new Asrock SLi board. £40.

[bright_]

in terms of bang for buck an opteron 144 or 146, or the 3700 San Diego are the best. Dual core wise it's the Opteron 170 and the 3800 X2 (so i belive) if You do a lot of multi tasking and can afford £200, clocking an x2 to about 2.6 will give rewards if not, go for one of the single coreS

[Agent]

Opteron buddy , by a long shot !

[iranu]

Gotta be an opteron 146 - 2Ghz stock, mines running at 3Ghz on a TT big Typhoon @40C under load 34C idle). Cost me £103 for chip £28 for cooler.

I think they are a little bit more expensive now (£130) and the ball park overclocked figure of 2.7Ghz is usually banded about. But there have been Hexusites who have got 3Ghz out of recent batches.

[Platinum]

Opteron 165, dual core, stock speed is 1800Mhz, mine runs all day at 2600mhz, mobo is holding it back so I think I can get more from it.

[Kumagoro]

If you are tighter for money and want dual core how about the
Pentium D 805 Dual Core 64 bit LGA 775 2 x 2.66 GHz 2MB (1 Mb per Core) Cache

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...uct_uid=107617

[acidrainy]

So we are talking about a 144 or 146 here then.
Once, decided on that... We need a cooler and a mobo to pair these up with.

I have 2x1gig ram atm, My intention is to go for another 2 sticks of the same in a couple months - bringing me to the magic 4gig RAM number! .

Any recommendations on MOBO + Cooler then?


Edit: I have been out of the loop for a long time now, what's the major diff between opteron and X64? I understand opteron was meant to be the multi CPU part, but the 1xx series appears to all be single units?

[Agent]

You cant run 4gig properly in a normal desktop. You'll only have just over 3gig useable due to addressing of PCI devices, and various other system level components.
Go with 3 gig at most, anything more is a waste.

Cooler ? : http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.p...ghlight=cooler
There is another, very similar thread around in general hardware, i just cant put my finger on it at this second. Have a search

Mobo : The Abits seem to be clocking very well. Mine certainly flies.
ASUS also seem to be recommended a lot, but from reading various forums, some people are having BIOS issues / bugs.
Its best to have a quick read around for yourself and decide

[Agent]

If you are tighter for money and want dual core how about the
Pentium D 805 Dual Core 64 bit LGA 775 2 x 2.66 GHz 2MB (1 Mb per Core) Cache

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...uct_uid=107617

Performance isn’t that great though, and it’s not even close to the Opteron in terms of heat dissipation.
Even overclocked heavily, in most cases, going for a Opteron (overclocked) would provide better performance.

[acidrainy]

Mobo : The Abits seem to be clocking very well. Mine certainly flies.
ASUS also seem to be recommended a lot, but from reading various forums, some people are having BIOS issues / bugs.
Its best to have a quick read around for yourself and decide

Damn @ 4gig

I will admit, I do have a soft-spot for Abit's. Been using them for about 5 years now - with very little issues. I would be easily swayed towards one. Saying that, a lot of my friends do use Asus’ boards. The name does come up again and again as being good.

What board is it that you are using Agent?

[acidrainy]

If you are tighter for money and want dual core how about the
Pentium D 805 Dual Core 64 bit LGA 775 2 x 2.66 GHz 2MB (1 Mb per Core) Cache

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...uct_uid=107617

Intels do tend to give me "the fear" especially when it comes to quality of product. Thanks for the suggestion but I am afraid I like the green-side of the fence too much.

[Agent]

Damn @ 4gig

I will admit, I do have a soft-spot for Abit's. Been using them for about 5 years now - with very little issues. I would be easily swayed towards one. Saying that, a lot of my friends do use Asus’ boards. The name does come up again and again as being good.

What board is it that you are using Agent?

Im using the Abit AN8 "Fata1ity I am pR0" motherboard. Its basically the same as the AN8, just with a few more fans bundled, some chavvy red LEDs, and a red PCB. I brought it due to a stupidly cheap price before you ask
The KN8 has now superseded the AN8, but they are also supposed to be good. Although, apparently they don’t have uGuru anymore on them. Not sure why.

Im running my Opty at 2.7 day in, day out. It posts at 2.95 fine, but isn’t stable. Im sure it would be with more voltage, but im more than happy with 2.7 @ 1.55 on air. I don’t want to take the voltage any higher.

Im looking to go with a duel core Opteron if I can get the money together – I do loads of 3d max renderings, so it quite literally does mean double the speed for me in those situations.

[acidrainy]

Im looking to go with a duel core Opteron if I can get the money together – I do loads of 3d max renderings, so it quite literally does mean double the speed for me in those situations.

Now this makes me wonder, jump on this opti band-wagon or hold back for cheaper x2's? I do like to play games whilst running a few services and music in the BG - I also like the prospects of such a smooth desktop environment - but would dual core be that much of a boost for me or not?

Is the idea of this upgrade too late? Am I about to buy something that is going to be pushed back a generation in a month?

From the cooler aspect, looks like the XP-120 with a sturdy fan is the flavour of the month.