939 & PCI-E: Should I wait?

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m1garand

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I'm tired of my 3.0 P4 9700 pro box, I need something to revitalize my gaming experience. What I'm wondering is if I should just go with one of the current 939 setups w/ 3500+ & 6800 GT or wait for a PCI-E platform to be released. Has anyone heard any dates on this? I remember somebody was testing an epox board a while ago, but they were supposed to be released by now. Maybe not, I dunno... :confused:
 
I'm in the exact same situation as you. I could order a s939 fx-53 and a mobo which I can't pick out because they are all horribly flawed right now, or I could wait another couple weeks and go with the ultra super duper dfi board.

But by the time the dfi board comes out, the nforce 4 chipset will be close to launch from what i've heard on xtremesystems.org/forums. And thats a LOT better than nf3 (sata 300, pci-e, sli support, etc...).

And if I do that, I might as well wait another week for the fx-55. While I'm at that, I should prolly just wait another week and pick up a 512mb 6800 ultra extreme.

What I want to know is when the hell is nf4 coming out. I want a hard date. This is so frustrating trying to go amd. They clearly perform better but its so much simpler on the intel side. If I wanted to go intel, I woulda just picked up a 3.2EE and kept my modded p4c800-e deluxe. Its stable and mature. But its just so much damn slower than the fx-53/

I friggin hate waiting. :mad:
 
computerpro3 said:
I'm in the exact same situation as you. I could order a s939 fx-53 and a mobo which I can't pick out because they are all horribly flawed right now, or I could wait another couple weeks and go with the ultra super duper dfi board.

But by the time the dfi board comes out, the nforce 4 chipset will be close to launch from what i've heard on xtremesystems.org/forums. And thats a LOT better than nf3 (sata 300, pci-e, sli support, etc...).

And if I do that, I might as well wait another week for the fx-55. While I'm at that, I should prolly just wait another week and pick up a 512mb 6800 ultra extreme.

What I want to know is when the hell is nf4 coming out. I want a hard date. This is so frustrating trying to go amd. They clearly perform better but its so much simpler on the intel side. If I wanted to go intel, I woulda just picked up a 3.2EE and kept my modded p4c800-e deluxe. Its stable and mature. But its just so much damn slower than the fx-53/

I friggin hate waiting. :mad:
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i certainly know how you are feeling. Im in a similar situation myself :(
For me, im not rich just a regular hs student so the fx is unfourtantely not a viable option for me. A price of one of those fx series processors might as well be the cost of my entire computer :) .

My dilema is should i wait for 939 nforce 4 mobo + chip or get a socket 754 nforce 3 board (most likely the asus k8n-e) + chip. The prices on socket 754 boards and chips are really so low right now that it is really hard to resist. But if i wait, by the time nforce 4 comes along, the 3500+ should be in the affordable range for me (~300) and i get newer technology.To Buy or to wait? That is the question.
 
IMHO...

If you are going to spend the dough on a socket 939 wait until the newer boards come out with PCI express and DDR2 support. The performance of a stock 939 3500+ is less than asocket 754 3000+ CG revision with a good overclock.

I myself was in the same boat, I decided to jump in with a socket 754. Here's why:
The cost of the 3500+ and the cheapest socket 939 mobo I could find was around $470. I didn't have that kind of cash to spend only on a mobo and proc. I was able to buy my proc, mobo, memory, ps, and dvd burner for $520. I don't regret it a bit since I have overclocked my processor to 2.5ghz my socket 754 3000+ beats a socket 939 3500+ in benchies by about 10%. My specs are in sig.
 
Soldur said:
IMHO...

If you are going to spend the dough on a socket 939 wait until the newer boards come out with PCI express and DDR2 support. The performance of a stock 939 3500+ is less than asocket 754 3000+ CG revision with a good overclock.

I myself was in the same boat, I decided to jump in with a socket 754. Here's why:
The cost of the 3500+ and the cheapest socket 939 mobo I could find was around $470. I didn't have that kind of cash to spend only on a mobo and proc. I was able to buy my proc, mobo, memory, ps, and dvd burner for $520. I don't regret it a bit since I have overclocked my processor to 2.5ghz my socket 754 3000+ beats a socket 939 3500+ in benchies by about 10%. My specs are in sig.
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If you could Price it at 520 I would like to see it..I am not doubting u..just want to see it.
 
I wouldn't immediately buy the NF4 (or CK8-04 or whatever its called) b/c it would be an immature product.

Anyone who remembers the sound (hiss) problems with Soundstorm, or HD corruption on the early nf2 mobos (later fixed with BIOS updates) would certainly have some kind of hesistation jumping for CUTTING EDGE.

I can guarantee you that in Q2 or so, there will be a "V2.0" of a popular board (be it Abit, Asus, Epox, DFI, etc.) that will be far better than the v1.01 or whatever boards.

If you absolutely need a board, get a mature 754 board, and only as a temp solution (i.e. 3000+ with OC). I honestly haven't done any research but, considering the time that the 754's have been out, the odd bugs/quirks should be mostly worked out by now.
 
I was going to wait for NForce4 as well. however the more I read up on when the benefits of nforce4 (DDR-2 PCI-e) will actually be realized, I decided to go with nforce3-ultra.

Why?

well 1, I don't want to wait for glitches to be resolved.

2 - AGP still has a good 1-2 years before it reaches its full potential and hits a block, at which point PCI-e will have become the standard.

3 - DDR2, while faster, has a higher latency. This issue has caused many to be wary of the upgrade when it comes out. Not to mention the cost of the new ram when it becomes available. Again its an issue of waiting till all the kinks are worked out before jumping in.

4- Even if the Nforce4 chipset is 'released' in Q42004, how long do you think it will be before a) boards are made that are stable and b) availability and price are in range with the average consumer. i'm guessing about Q2-2005.

5- Half-life2 and Doom3 engine will probably be the technology powering most of the games for the next 1-1.5 years.

all of these things made me realize that getting a good, solid, proven system now will be better overall than playing the eternal waiting game. I can get a good 1.5-3 years out of solid nf3 ultra Athlon FX-53, 6800gt/ut and 2 gigs of DDR. 939 is a new chipset, so i'm guaranteed at least 1 GOOD CPU upgrade in that time. Not to mention at least 1 good video card upgrade.

That being said, there will always be the ' omg I should have waited' feeling after you pc is up and running. Its the nature of the world we live in.

well I spoke to soon:

Samples of the new cores are shipping now and should launch early September. In reality, we probably won't see working cores for a few weeks still, but definitely expect to see boards on the shelves before Q3 is out
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http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2175
 
K, thanks for the input. I think I have decided to go with a 754 SFF system for now, and then grab a 939 / PCI-E probably early 2005.
 
I had this same issue upgrading the rig in my sig, but I said screw it, I hate waiting, so I went with the 939 3500+ and the new msi neo2 plat with a gainward 6800GT. Gimme another week and I'll have it all set up and post some impressions.

Basically, waiting sux. And I did not want to try and wait for nforce4 and pci-e on 939 only to have to wait longer to work out the bugs...besdies, now it's just a mobo and vid card upgrade, not the whole thing ;-)
 
EdDoctor said:
2 - AGP still has a good 1-2 years before it reaches its full potential and hits a block, at which point PCI-e will have become the standard.

3 - DDR2, while faster, has a higher latency. This issue has caused many to be wary of the upgrade when it comes out. Not to mention the cost of the new ram when it becomes available. Again its an issue of waiting till all the kinks are worked out before jumping in.
Click to expand...

2. AGP may still be around, but ATI and nvidia will slowly but surely leave AGP out of the spotlight, and only make mid-range or low-end cards for it. (think PCI video cards just a year after AGP arrived). These video card companies aren't going to want the bother and headache of supporting multiple interfaces if they can help it. AGP will reach its end-of-life, moreso for business reasons rather than technical. (I draw a parallel to AMD no longer planning any S754 CPU's past 3700+). PCI express IS and will be the future of graphics cards... the sooner everybody adopts it, the better.

3. DDR2 will not be a reality with socket 939. As the memory controller is on-die of the CPU, it would take a new CPU and pin-count to support DDR2. Keep in mind that the Athlon platform doesn't have the same need for memory bandwidth as the Intel platform... hence DDR will be ok for a while.


With that said, if you can wait a few months for nf4, I would. Your motherboard should serve you well into the year 2007. :D
(assuming the PCI express standard stays static, thats really the gamble.)
 
If you keep waiting for new things you will never get your system together. Bear in mind that the chipset release does not necessarily coincide with the availability of motherboards using it. Add a month or two on there before they will be actually available in stores for purchase.
 
thecarguy said:
I NEED a Socket 939/PCI-E motherboard by late November.

Is that going to happen?
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Shaky. I kept hearing a lot of Q4 around xmas.
 
Not likely whatever Anand says (hold him in high regard) we just have to look at the lack of good MBs out there right now. If the nF4 arrives in time for a MB to be on the shelfes by end Nov. there will be a SUPER rush to get at them and the prices will be to high.

This means that you don't only need a huge budget but also a BIG portion of luck to get one of those babies. Also a small remider that it will be Rev 1.0 of both chiop & MB U'll pay a premium for. Well I wouldn't.

Personally I hope that DFI releases a 939 Lanparty based on the nF3 250Gb as the new LanpartyUT 250Gb for 754. That will work for the next year and then Ill upgrade to a mature MB and new graphics. (currently have a AIW 9800pro).

As for DDR2 support in AMD-64. Hornswoggler is absolutly right [a] U don't need it (which is why ->) AMD wont implement it at least not untill on the dual cores.
 
OK, change of plans again. I just got a sweet deal on a 9800 pro 128, so I'm just gonna upgrade my vid card and maybe snatch a P4 3.0 / 3.2 and OC it for now. that should handle hl2 decently. I'd rather get my vp201b instead of a new system at the moment.
 
odd, how many people are in the same boat now with their upgrades. I've been waiting to drop my 3.06 P4, FX5800 setup for an Athlon64/PCI-e setup since they first announced them 6 month ago, and still nothing in sight. But I know already that I have to break my old habit of upgrading whenever the new processors are double the speed of the old ones (the trick is to have two machines 50% apart to do regular upgrades ;) ), so I at least want new technology when I can't get real advantages in speed. So I keep waiting.
 
There will always be a next best thing... thats the beauty of it all. I've been waiting and waiting... I finally said heck with it and im just jumping in. I had to get a new system eventually... or I would have died waiting :D Whats the ETA on the new DFI NF3 Lanparty boards anyway?
 
My hardware upgrades almost ALWAYS coincide with major game releases.

I upgraded to a celeron 300a @ 450 and a TNT for Half-life

Upgraded to a Geforce 256 DDR and P3 600e (at 800) for quake3

went with a p4 1.6A (@2.14) and Ti4600 for UT2004

added a 3.06GHz for call of duty.

and now the x800 and 3500+ for Doom 3 (and HL2).


Just take a look at your "killer apps" or driving force, and plan your upgrades around that.
 
I'm in the process of upgrading now too.

After looking around, i've decided the best upgrade for me, while not top of the line extreme, a good solid upgrade is:

Amd 64 3400 w/1mb cache
1gb corsair 3200 XMS
geforce 6800 GT
MSI k8n neo plat.

The reason i went with the 3400 is because for games, it usually beats out the 3500+.

See the 3500+ only has 512kcache, whereas the 3400 can have 1mb cache, though the 3500 has dual piplines as the benefit. Both chips are the same clock speed, 2.2ghz. However for games, the 1mb cache over the 512 will see more difference then the dual piplines, for now at least.

http://tech-report.com/reviews/2004q3/athlon64-3500/index.x?pg=1

Also the other reason i did it was because more then likely, by the time I upgrade again, i'll have to get a new mobo and thing anyways for PCI-E and SLI and all those things, so i figured it was the best priced upgrade to do at the moment since the 3500+ and a 939mobo would be a little more yet wouldn't give me really any big extra performance boost.
 
Im running a 1.33 ghz thunderbird & geforce3 ti200. Think its time for me to upgrade? Nah I'm waiting another year for a mature nforce4 chipset and winxp 64, and the best graphics card thats out.
 
Cr@zZy said:
Im running a 1.33 ghz thunderbird & geforce3 ti200. Think its time for me to upgrade? Nah I'm waiting another year for a mature nforce4 chipset and winxp 64, and the best graphics card thats out.
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That should play counter-strike just fine. No need to upgrade! :p
 
Cr@zZy said:
Im running a 1.33 ghz thunderbird & geforce3 ti200. Think its time for me to upgrade? Nah I'm waiting another year for a mature nforce4 chipset and winxp 64, and the best graphics card thats out.
Click to expand...


and when this fellow upgrades his experience will have double the impact than if he had been upgrading all this time.
 
im not sure when I wanna upgrade. Im running a friggin' Celeron 600 lol.
I was thinking about a a64 3000+ , 1GB ram , 36GB Raptor , 6800 GT , 22" CRT
 
Cr@zZy said:
Im running a 1.33 ghz thunderbird & geforce3 ti200. Think its time for me to upgrade? Nah I'm waiting another year for a mature nforce4 chipset and winxp 64, and the best graphics card thats out.
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how can you hold out? :(

I look at games like Stalker and HL2, among others, and there's no way i am going to play those at anything less then the highest of details.
 
Koslov said:
im not sure when I wanna upgrade. Im running a friggin' Celeron 600 lol.
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Should be good enough for Tetris, Solitaire, and on-line chess! No need to upgrade, hah!
 
m1garand said:
I'm tired of my 3.0 P4 9700 pro box, I need something to revitalize my gaming experience. What I'm wondering is if I should just go with one of the current 939 setups w/ 3500+ & 6800 GT or wait for a PCI-E platform to be released. Has anyone heard any dates on this? I remember somebody was testing an epox board a while ago, but they were supposed to be released by now. Maybe not, I dunno... :confused:
Click to expand...

I hear ya man, im in the same dilema....so I finally said screw im waiting for NF4 and SLI 6800GT's :)

DASHlT
 
Stiler said:
how can you hold out? :(

I look at games like Stalker and HL2, among others, and there's no way i am going to play those at anything less then the highest of details.
Click to expand...

wont have much time to play games like that until summer 05 since I'm very busy with swimming 11 times per week and going to class.

And after all most the fun is when you first get the pc and put it together and go WHOoo!. I have definatly have my fair share of that since this summer I started my little computer buisness. I've built enough awsome pc's for ppl and had lots of whoos while I run "tests" for them. Best of all I get paid for it! I love it. see the in the wishlist bellow me s on the way to my house as we speak for someone with $ to blow. Cant wait.
 
The DFI Lanparty UT nF3 250Gb should be availeble (socket 754) on the second according to what they mailed me when I asked them (DFI that is).

As for the socket 939 they only confirmed that it's in the works. But if they dont have it out in good supply B4 early november Itll be to late for them to hit the Xmas rush and after that NOTHING will happen B4 nF4.
 
Regarding the "you can wait forever" argument, I usually like to get at least 2 processor generations out of a MB/memory combo. So buying either a 478 or a 754 board right now is not going to allow me to upgrade in a year when there are 4000+ processors in 775 or 939. Similar I tend to run gaphics cards about 12 - 18 month, and when the new one will be up for replacment it will be all PCI-E.
Plus I like the idea of a 939 board with SLI 6800 GT's.
 
There's a board available now from Asrock which has sockets for 939 and 754 along with two PCIe slots and includes a PCIe GB LAN card. :) Click on the picture to see it better.

Asrock Combo Board
 
Rockymt4vr said:
There's a board available now from Asrock which has sockets for 939 and 754 along with two PCIe slots and includes a PCIe GB LAN card. :) Click on the picture to see it better.

Asrock Combo Board
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That's a pretty weak board, considering pci-e slots are both 1x and there are only two...
 
True, but hey, it's available now and that's what he was sorta looking for. Better than nothing, I suppose.

ehZn said:
That's a pretty weak board, considering pci-e slots are both 1x and there are only two...
Click to expand...
 
if you're going to budget this system, dont wait for pci-e. however if youre like most here, you've money to burn, and enjoy doing it. if thats the case, wait for pci-e and spend away.
 
Rockymt4vr said:
True, but hey, it's available now and that's what he was sorta looking for. Better than nothing, I suppose.
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Somehow I can't imagine running a graphics card at pci-e 1x will work very well, considering it's meant for 16x? Those pci-e 1x slots are basically like normal PCI expansion slots...that is not an enthusiast board by any stretch of the imagination.
 
I might as well jump in and say I am in the same position as most of you guys here, maybe a little be worse as I have a P4 2.4B, 512DDR333, MSI 648 Max mainboard and a Radeon 9600 Pro

I too am torn between waiting for an AMD 939 DDR2 PCI-E board, first time I would have gone with AMD btw, or going for a AMD 64 3500, 1G DDR400, Asus A8V Deluxe mobo and BFG 6800 GT.

There is always something better around the bend in our hobby. It's worse when a whole new set of tech comes out to replace the old, as opposed to say, one or two new componets being introduced.

Also, with all the new tech coming, is it better to build your own box or buy one that has the same components? Depends on which is cheaper I guess?

Thoughts?

Thanks
 
why upgrade? your current system is good enough to handle doom3 or hl2.

i have a 2ghz xp mobile, 512mb hyperx, a shitty kt333 motherboard, an 80gb hdd, and a 9800se softmodded to pro. i can play doom 3 at 1280x1024 at medium details without noticing any drop in fps.
 
CaptCanada said:
I might as well jump in and say I am in the same position as most of you guys here, maybe a little be worse as I have a P4 2.4B, 512DDR333, MSI 648 Max mainboard and a Radeon 9600 Pro

I too am torn between waiting for an AMD 939 DDR2 PCI-E board, first time I would have gone with AMD btw, or going for a AMD 64 3500, 1G DDR400, Asus A8V Deluxe mobo and BFG 6800 GT.

There is always something better around the bend in our hobby. It's worse when a whole new set of tech comes out to replace the old, as opposed to say, one or two new componets being introduced.

Also, with all the new tech coming, is it better to build your own box or buy one that has the same components? Depends on which is cheaper I guess?

Thoughts?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Building has and ALWAYS will be cheaper. And even then, if you bought pre-built, how many sites actually tell you the PSU/RAM/Case/CPU HSF/Mobo brand name unless its one of the "high-end" retailers? While I believe iBuyPower (what my friend bought) tend to has "affordable" sub$1,000 models.

I guess if you're half informed/half-lazy (haha) then it may be ok. But the case they went with right now is ugly as hell--for the love of god don't buy it.
 
If you wait a couple of years then who's know what you could get. But it will be better than whats out now. :eek:

You can wait all you want there are always going tobe Predictions of Better and newer products on the Horizon.
Once the NF4/PCI-e hits the market and then NF5/PCI-ee ,better product releases is what it is all about.
You just need to made a decision and buy the stuff. :rolleyes:
 
Modular Motherboards, that's what we need. Just plug/unplug a component like we do with CPU's. Want a faster bus? Plug a new one in. More RAM slots? Plug a new one in. Another CPU socket? Plug a new one in. I'm tired of throwing out the baby with the bath water.
 
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