Question About Sockets And Processors?

[Willtrax]

Question? Is there much difference in the 754 socket mobo and 939 socket mobo? LanParty UT nF3 250Gb Socket 754 mobo looks like a good board. Here is my project. I need to do a major upgrade on my system. My old computer is Athlon XP 1.7,512 mb,40 gig hdd,40x cdr and a Creative Labs 12x dvd player with mpeg card,Voodoo 3 videocard,NEC Speaker Amp. From the stats you can tell it's time to bring out the trash can. If anyone has some ideas for a new computer, please throw in. All I ask is two things,first stay to a $500 - $600 buck limit and second AMD all the way.
Thank you everyone.

 

[robberbaron]

There are more differences between the sockets that will matter to you than are technically there, heh. I'll break it down.

754:
64bit memory bus (3200MB/s peak bandwidth)
Supports Semprons, Early Athlon 64's, a few rare 90nm Athlon 64's, and Mobiles/Turions.
Typically a cheap platform, but is possible now to make a 939 system perform better than a 754 system at the same price
This socket is being phased out. 4000+ is the best chip that will ever be on it.
Few boards with 754 have PCI-e support (luckily DFI has one, as DFI is a godsend to AMD-using enthusiasts)

939:
128bit memory bus (6400MB/s peak bandwidth)
Will be supported with products until at least Nov2006
Supports Semprons, Athlon64's, Opterons, dual core K8's
Re-emphasis on DUAL CORES. 754 likely won't see a dual core, since the dual-core Turion will probably be on Socket S1.
Supports four sticks of RAM, versus 754 only supporting 3 sticks max.

 

[Willtrax]

Thanx robberbaron. I've some thinking to do now.

 

[/dev/null]

There are more differences between the sockets that will matter to you than are technically there, heh. I'll break it down.

754:
64bit memory bus (3200MB/s peak bandwidth)
Supports Semprons, Early Athlon 64's, a few rare 90nm Athlon 64's, and Mobiles/Turions.
Typically a cheap platform, but is possible now to make a 939 system perform better than a 754 system at the same price
This socket is being phased out. 4000+ is the best chip that will ever be on it.
Few boards with 754 have PCI-e support (luckily DFI has one, as DFI is a godsend to AMD-using enthusiasts)

939:
128bit memory bus (6400MB/s peak bandwidth)
Will be supported with products until at least Nov2006
Supports Semprons, Athlon64's, Opterons, dual core K8's
Re-emphasis on DUAL CORES. 754 likely won't see a dual core, since the dual-core Turion will probably be on Socket S1.
Supports four sticks of RAM, versus 754 only supporting 3 sticks max.

Don't forget 940:
128bit memory bus up to x 2 (12.8G/second) or x 4 (25.6G/second) depending on how many sockets/processors you are running.
Supports 100/200/800 series opterons, including dual core.
negatives: requires registered memory, motherboards more expensive (but generally more features).
940 pricing has generally come down pretty well. Just look at the K8N-DL
or the K8N Master2