Hello all,
I am thinking about upgrading my system to an athlon 64. In the course of picking the components and looking at specs, a few questions popped into my head and I was hoping for some answers, insight, and recommendations. I appreciate your help in advance. At the moment, I am thinking about the following:
nforce4 motherboard
939 pin 3200 or 3500 (depends on price)
6600 gt / other main stream card
1gb (2x512mb) high quality memory (need recommendations)
1. When new athlong 64 processors come out, if they have a new memory controller, will there be any need for a motherboard upgrade? i.e. say in 3 months the cpus come with ddr500 controllers, will a motherboard upgrade be necessary?
2. How much does memory latency affect performance? i.e. is it worth it for me to get 2-2-2 memory that is significantly more expensive? What are some decent memory recommendations? This question is relevant to first question. If new controllers mean I can use memory faster, I would hope to get memory now that will be somewhat futureproof.
3. What is currently the best mainstream video card available on pci express? I dont play too many games. I mostly play the following:
unreal tournament 2004
hopefully some world of warcraft
far cry
probably HL2
I dont need everything at highest settings, I usually dont use much AA but do like AF.
4. What kind of prices should I be willing to pay for 1gb of good memory?
thanks again for any help/advice
I am thinking about upgrading my system to an athlon 64. In the course of picking the components and looking at specs, a few questions popped into my head and I was hoping for some answers, insight, and recommendations. I appreciate your help in advance. At the moment, I am thinking about the following:
nforce4 motherboard
939 pin 3200 or 3500 (depends on price)
6600 gt / other main stream card
1gb (2x512mb) high quality memory (need recommendations)
1. When new athlong 64 processors come out, if they have a new memory controller, will there be any need for a motherboard upgrade? i.e. say in 3 months the cpus come with ddr500 controllers, will a motherboard upgrade be necessary?
2. How much does memory latency affect performance? i.e. is it worth it for me to get 2-2-2 memory that is significantly more expensive? What are some decent memory recommendations? This question is relevant to first question. If new controllers mean I can use memory faster, I would hope to get memory now that will be somewhat futureproof.
3. What is currently the best mainstream video card available on pci express? I dont play too many games. I mostly play the following:
unreal tournament 2004
hopefully some world of warcraft
far cry
probably HL2
I dont need everything at highest settings, I usually dont use much AA but do like AF.
4. What kind of prices should I be willing to pay for 1gb of good memory?
thanks again for any help/advice