Buy A64 Socket 754 now, or wait for 939?

bnason

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Okay... so, I'm typing this on my girlfriend's powerbook!!! Needless to say, the sooner I can get my comp. going the better. I'm definitely going AMD (thus, the post in this forum), and my question is: do I go with an A64 3000+ or 3200+ NOW, or, bite the bullet and hold off 2 months for a 939 chip.

Problem is... I really wanna' play EQ2, and games in general now, and not have to say "honey, are you using your mac?" I sold my last comp before Christmas and have been lonely since without one.

I can hold off for another month or so, but EQ2 comes out soon... and, if the 939s come out in two months, they probably won't be affordable for me until another month or so after that.

If they'll be that much better than the 754 ClawHammers, I'll wait. If not, newegg, here I come!
 
Currently the 754 vs 940 is a damn close race. The additional memory bandwidth isn't really being used, plus registered DIMM's knock performance a bit as well.
754 is the better value right now.
With socket 939 coming into play, we'll have the expensive FX and cheaper 3xxx+ chips on the same board using the same regular DDR, rumor has it the A64 on the 939 chipset will be dual channel as well, the only difference then would be the L2 cache.

The problem with the 754 line right now is it appears AMD will drop it to the value line, move the A64 to socket 939 and 940 only, and ramp up the XP(a 32bit cut down A64, not the same core we have now) on socket 754. Again, rumors, nothing confirmed.
32bit Athlon's will still be fast as hell on the 754, but 64bit longevity is possibly an issue.

If you just can't wait, an A64 on 754 won't be slow, and there will be future processors, we just don't know for sure if they'll be 32bit or 64bit.

Keep in mind, with existing Athlon FX chips, the 939 chips and boards shouldn't be too high priced. Its hard enough introducing a relatively new chip on a different socket without cranking the prices too high.

At their release, I don't think the socket 939 Athlon's will be that much faster than the current 754's, longevity is my question. How far can you upgrade before a new board is required?
If that isn't an issue for you, grab the 754 now.
If I were in the market for a new PC right now, that is probably what I'd do.
 
I'd go for it now (and actually I did), look at the Fx 51 vs a64 3400+ benchmarks and you can see how little difference dual channel makes. That's the only real benefit to the s939 boards, and AMD will be supporting socket 754 for at least the next year, possibly longer if they sell a lot of them (which it appears they are, especially after the 3000+ came in at such a good price).
 
Originally posted by bobzdar
I'd go for it now (and actually I did), look at the Fx 51 vs a64 3400+ benchmarks and you can see how little difference dual channel makes. That's the only real benefit to the s939 boards, and AMD will be supporting socket 754 for at least the next year, possibly longer if they sell a lot of them (which it appears they are, especially after the 3000+ came in at such a good price).

The only problem is that the socket 754 pin 3700+ will probably be the last 64-bit processor on that socket. The rest will be 32-bit Athlon XP's. If you dont want 64-bit then thats fine. But if you buy it in hopes of upgradeing to faster 64-bit processor you'll be out of luck. A dual channel controller will help out more down the road also when games and applications are able to take advantage of more bandwidth. Right now 3.2GB/s is enough.
 
What all will utilize the 64bit part of the processor? An upgrade to windows xp64 would be required (or linux but I'm assuming general pc users), are any known in-development games going to use it, or is it something future games will move towards in the next year or two? I use win2k and really don't care for xp myself, and I'd rather not buy another os if it's not even going to do much.
 
Originally posted by freeloader1969
AMD has a 4000+ in it's socket 754 plans.

Where? According to what?

http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1947

As of now, the fastest Socket-754 CPU will be the Athlon 64 3700+; current motherboard owners looking for an upgrade path can look no further than the 3700+ running at 2.4GHz.

The updated roadmap shows a 4000+ on socket 939 pin but not 754 pin. There was rumors of a 4000+ on 754 but thats all they are to my knowledge.
 
Originally posted by TSx
What all will utilize the 64bit part of the processor? An upgrade to windows xp64 would be required (or linux but I'm assuming general pc users), are any known in-development games going to use it, or is it something future games will move towards in the next year or two? I use win2k and really don't care for xp myself, and I'd rather not buy another os if it's not even going to do much.

I just posted alot of information and links on this towards the end of this thread:

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=720413&perpage=20&pagenumber=4

It will be at least 1-2 years before any real advantage comes from 64-bit. Theres no guarantee consumers will even be able to buy it retail because from the sources i've read Microsoft doesn't plan to sell it retail.
 
Originally posted by TSx
What all will utilize the 64bit part of the processor? An upgrade to windows xp64 would be required (or linux but I'm assuming general pc users), are any known in-development games going to use it, or is it something future games will move towards in the next year or two? I use win2k and really don't care for xp myself, and I'd rather not buy another os if it's not even going to do much.

Thats the $375 question.
 
Ut2004 and Far Cry have both had announcements that there will be 64 bit versions. I have read in more than one place that the 4000+ will be available on s754, but to be perfectly honest I have only upgraded my processor once in my life without also getting a new board, so the longevity of s754 doesn't matter too much to me. Even if they release a 4200 or whatever in s754, most boards now probably won't support the faster bus or multiplier that it will most likely use, as is the case with most socket A boards. If you bought a kt333 or nf2 when they came out, you couldn't go to a 400fsb 3200 or 3000, if you bought a kt266a or nf1, you couldn't get a 333fsb barton etc. No matter what you buy, after around 1 year it will no longer have new processors available that will run optimally on it and you'll have to get a new motherboard anyway, so I think the fact that AMD is going to release up to at least the 3700+ for s754 is fine with me. Looking at the sales figures for s754 vs s940, you can pretty easily see which socket is likely to get more future support, opteron aside (as they don't use the higher fsb's of the FX processors). Look at all those people who bought the i865 and i875 boards a year ago, the fastest out was a p4 3.0 and all indications are that those boards will not be able to go higher than the prescott 3.4 due to added power requirements, so motherboard longevity is kind of a moot point no matter what you buy. If you wait until s939 hits, there will be something else on the horizon to wait for (new 1ghz HT boards etc), it's a never ending cycle.
 
Personally Im waiting for the A64 3700+ (marchish) and then I'm buying. Motherboards are one of the cheapests components in a pc, so if I want to buy a new cpu a year down the line a mb isnt much of an extra expense.

And to be frank, I'm not sure how happy I am about amd halving the cache on the 939 pin a64's. The difference between the A64 3000+ (2.0ghz 512k cache, single channel) and the 3200+ (2.0ghz + 1mb cache single channel) appears to be larger (generally) than the the difference between the 3400+ (2.2ghz + 1mb cache, single channel) and the FX-51 (2.2ghz + 1 mb cache, dual channel).

Actually knowing me I'll buy a 939 pin FX with dual channel, non registered memory AND the full 1 meg cache because I'm dumb.
 
Originally posted by Surly
Personally Im waiting for the A64 3700+ (marchish) and then I'm buying. Motherboards are one of the cheapests components in a pc, so if I want to buy a new cpu a year down the line a mb isnt much of an extra expense.

And to be frank, I'm not sure how happy I am about amd halving the cache on the 939 pin a64's. The difference between the A64 3000+ (2.0ghz 512k cache, single channel) and the 3200+ (2.0ghz + 1mb cache single channel) appears to be larger (generally) than the the difference between the 3400+ (2.2ghz + 1mb cache, single channel) and the FX-51 (2.2ghz + 1 mb cache, dual channel).

Actually knowing me I'll buy a 939 pin FX with dual channel, non registered memory AND the full 1 meg cache because I'm dumb.

I doubt halving the cache will make a huge difference. There is very little difference in the 3000+ and 3200+ performance wise. The 3200+ is marginally better in a few benchmarks but not enough to warrant its price as far as i can tell.

If you like buying new motherboards then it doesn't matter but the 3700+ is the only announced socket 754 pin A64 yet to be released and the 4000+ is shown on the 939 pin roadmap. After that they will probably start in with the Athlon XP's and continue production of the A64's on the 939 socket. Socket 939 has alot more longetivity as far as 64bit goes.
 
funny, just about everything you posted I summed up in the first response.
Do feel the need to make redundant comments? Is that how you got such a high post count in such a short amount of time?
 
Originally posted by 0ldman
funny, just about everything you posted I summed up in the first response.
Do feel the need to make redundant comments? Is that how you got such a high post count in such a short amount of time?

I didn't take the time to read through your entire post to make sure i didn't say anything twice. And if anyone else did that then there would only be about one or two replies per thread on this board.

Did you get such a high post count from making stupid comments like this that are unneccessary? I got my post count from replying to alot of threads in general hardware where noobs ask the same thing over and over again, day in and day out. There are alot with alot more posts then me in short periods.

Why dont you grow the hell up, its a forum on the internet lol.
 
I don't usually single people out, but I just find you incredibly irritating.

A few posts back you go off on how its not even 64bit, now you're this AMD expert.
From that single thread I can tell when and where you got any info you have. I'm not saying you're full of BS, but I don't like the condesending attitude when you are sitting there studying up on what we already know, then turn around and try to argue your misunderstandings.

Don't learn this because you have to know more than Bob, learn this because you want to, or you want to be the best. Just lay off the pisspoor attitude towards anyone and everyone that disagrees with you in any way.

That is why I don't like you.

ps: in being the best, you occasionally have to shut up, listen and just accept that you are wrong in order to learn something.
 
A few posts back? Try a few days back. We already cleared up the fact it works in 64-bit chunks and i admitted i was wrong about that and i found out i was wrong myself long before anyone said it but i didn't go back and change it. I hadn't looked up the AMD architecture so i believed the word of mouth and made a statement off that. Since then i have provided links to back up whatever i have said.

I may not know everything but i can tell you one thing and thats the fact that an A64 is not better then a Pentium 4 at equal speeds and they both have different strong points. The A64 is a better gaming processor and the Pentium 4 is better at other work like applications, encodeing, and rendering. They are both good processors and i just get tired of fanboys jumping off on assumptions without facts. FRom now on i'll back up anything someone doesn't believe with links cause i dont want to make another mistake like i did about the chunk size in the beginning from somebody else.

I really dont care if you like me ither. Whether or not someone on the internet likes me is my last of worries. I just think people should be sensible about these arguments about AMD and Intel processors and stop the bashing and name calling and unsupported opinions. I just dont want all these new people to have to come into these situations and get misled because enough fanboys turned him against one or the other. I know what its like to start from the beginning and i'm just trying to help others understand the truth while learning it myself.

I have nothing against AMD. I dont just use Intel processors. I like both and both are excellent manufacters. But bashing one or the other and supporting one or the other leads to lots of misconseptions that are not true.

With that i'll shut up now lol.
 
Thats a really nice bias review there. IMO Anandtech is every bit as bias towards AMD as Tomshardware is towards Intel. Just look at the few measly benchmarks that are AMD optimized they picked and used and then they declare the A64 the king of the world.

PS check the 9 different links i just posted and see for yourself how the Pentium 4 performs the same or better overall. The A64 is a gaming processor and thats where its best. The rest of the areas are usually led by Intel. Applications are usually heavily into bandwidth and Intel processors can supply it. Encodeing and rendering is Intels strong suit like AMD's is gaming. But even in the gaming benchmarks its usually less then a 5fps difference and even the intel processor wins in a few gaming benches.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=720413&perpage=20&pagenumber=5

WHY CAN'T YOU GUYS JUST AMDIT THEY ARE BOTH GOOD PROCESSORS!!!
 
Originally posted by burningrave101


WHY CAN'T YOU GUYS JUST AMDIT THEY ARE BOTH GOOD PROCESSORS!!!


Your the one who is insecure and has a complex over the AMD Athlon64 and you cant seem to make up your mind that you like it and its good :rolleyes:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1941&p=3

Go look at that link you two faced liar and then tell me which is the better CPU for the money!
Your what I call a hypocrite burningrave101.



you might wanna give this thread your attention... seems they threw you a party :D
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=722282
 
hey hey guys, can we chill out? they are only CPU's now probably a good time to reassess the situation, uh, if you cant wait, socket 754, if you cant, wait for more socket 939 boards, it will happen, kind of like having them go from single channel DDR to dual channel DDR, it may take a while, but im patient, it would help to be patient and I think that its a valuable quality to possess
 
I HIGHLY suggest several people chill out and stop personal attacks and Flaming in this forum. I've already had to close several threads because of it. However from here on out I'm going to start Banning accounts to ANYONE involved. I don't care about who started what. If you participate in it your gone.
 
I'm just going to get what I can when I'm ready to buy. I'd like to see how the new boards perform but other than that I don't think there is going to be much difference between s754 and s939 a64s. Maybe the s939's will clock higher, that's it.
 
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