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Thread: help on AMD spec please

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    help on AMD spec please

    Hello all,

    I had a 2800+ barton on a Gigabyte GA7VAxp which have both died - it spends most of it's time on, and whilst I was out the plastic lugs on the mobo decided to come free, the heatsink came loose, you can imagine the mess - one dead cpu & mobo

    So, wanting to stick with AMD was just after some advice/feedback on the following:

    mobo - Asus a8n-sli
    cpu - amd x2 4200+
    gfx - ????

    Will get a sata2 hdd and use the existing 2GB pc3200 RAM - the system is used for quite a bit of gaming and a lot of general and heavy data crunching - imaging, videos, rainbow table generation etc.

    It's been a while since I built a system (other than simple desktop), what gfx card to recommend? Don't want to spend silly money, but want something at least half decent. Do I need an SLI board, or should I be looking at AM2?

    Thanks chaps!

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    Senior Member Merlin4458's Avatar
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    may aswell go am2, and sli really isnt needed m8, depending on your budget, the 7900Gt's can be had for quite a nice price now, i have that same mob, and its perfect
    Rig: Amd 64 3700+ San Diego | Abit AT8 | 4x512 Corsair XMS3200C2PRO | PowerColour X850XTPE / Arctic Cooled | Samsung Spinpoint 250Gig | Enermax NoiseTake 485w | Arctic Freezer 64 Pro | Coolermaster Wavemaster Silver | Dell 2405FPW | Logitech G5 / Everglide Destrukt Monstermat |

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    I didn't think the a8n-sli was am2 though?

    I take it if I do go am2 I would need ddr2 memory as well?

    How does the performance compare with am2 vs X2?

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    AM2 and S939 performance is almost identical, but future releases from AMD will be on the AM2 socket. It would be more worthwhile selling your DDR and buying some DDR2.
    Depending on your budget it could be worth looking at a Core2Duo system, as it's the new performance leader and you're basically buiding a completely new system.. but that's completely up to you.
    Graphics wise, midrange choices would be between x1900GT, x1900XT, 7900GS, 7900GT. Depends which one is at your price point .

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    youll be able to use am3 chips with am2 bones (the only difference will be that am3 chips have a DDR3 controller in addition to a DDR2 controller)

    that means if youve got more spare cash then you should be able to upgrade to something a bit more cutting edge around january 07 with a simple chip swap

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    Thanks for your help chaps, been out of the hardware market for only a short time, amazing how quick it changes!

    I've revised the specs, how about this:

    LN14339 ASUS M2N-E, NF570, Socket AM2, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX £53.19 £62.50
    LN14249 AMD AM2 Athlon 64 4200+ Windsor Core, Dual Core 2.2GHz, 512KB x 2 Cache, Retail £104.99 £123.36
    LN7592 1GB (2X512MB) Corsair Value Select, DDR2 PC4200 (533), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 4-4-4-12 £66.42 £78.04
    LN11571 250 Gb Western Digital WD2500KS Caviar SE16, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.9 ms £45.89 £53.92
    LN15606 256MB XFX 7900GS XT, PCI-E (x16), Mem 1400 MHz, GPU 480 MHz, 20 Pipes, HDTV/Dual Link DVI-I £126.39 £148.51



    Net Total £396.88

    Carriage £6.03

    V.A.T. £70.51

    TOTAL £473.42

    I'll be re-using my existing case and psu, woohoo - anything to help save pennies against this sooner than expected cost.
    Last edited by alfa145; 07-09-2006 at 07:42 PM.

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    if your psu and cooling is good enough you can get a 3800+ x2 up to say 2.4ghz no problem at all and it will cost less

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