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Time for a new socket 939?

M

Mike Armstrong

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 26, 2005
Messages
197
I built my rig about 3yrs ago. At the time the 3700+ San Diego was considered a pretty good CPU, 'at the time'. My MB is a really nice DFI, socket 939, SLI, ect, with 2gigs Ballistix. Nowadays I know 939 is on it's way out and I keep seeing great deals come up for AMD 939 CPU'S. So, I thought I would take advantage of the 939 clearance sales and get the best one I could at a now very cheap price.

My question is, what is the fastest socket 939 CPU out there? If I could snag one for a couple hundred bucks do you think it would be worth getting rid of my perfectly good 3700+ for a more pwerful but just as outdated 939 CPU? Thanks


Mike
 
Look at it this way, you can spend the $200 on a new S939 CPU or you can spend a little more and get yourself a nice AM2 or C2D setup, its really up to you. S939 is really getting hard to find for a decent price now due to them cutting the production line and quite frankly, I can understand why. The AM2 or C2D are vastly more powerful and at the same price if you were to do just a simple CPU and Ram upgrade on your current sys, weather or not you decide to go the little extra for the new sys is up to you.
 
Thanks Wolf. I knew right well when I built my PC back then that as usual technology would make it practically obsolete within a short time. But I decided to spend the money only if I could stand to use it as is for 5yrs. Well, thats tuff to do especially when you see that bitchen CPU you spent $600 on is now costing 1/6th of that:eek: My system runs flawless (probably because I never did screw with overclocking the crap out of it like I had planned to:D) and all the parts still look shiny new in there so it's hard to yank any of it out because it's now 'old'. That DFI board is a beauty but it's also 939 so I'm limited unless I can stomach getting rid of it. I'd feel better to just get a now 'cheap' top o the line 939 CPU and perhaps another 7800gtx for SLI or A single 8 series graphics card for DX10.

Oh, heres my specs...

DFI LP NF4 SLI-DR (BIOS 623-3)
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ 939 90nm 1mb L2 cache
2GB (2x1GB) Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC4000
1-BFG GeForce 7800 GTX OC 256mb
WD 74 Gb SATA 10,000 rpm Raptor
NEC 3540A DVD RW
Mitsumi Floppy 7 in 1 USB Card Reader/Smart Media
Creative X-FI Fatality
PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 510 SLI
Lian Li PC-60B Plus case
XP x64 Pro
 
You do know that DFI makes an AM2 board and the Opti for the board goes for around $150 so going that route would be pretty good so long as you know what your doing with the DFI board.
 
From what I have seen the only readily available S939 chips are the 4400 +X2. I think that they are around $85-100. You will see a difference adding the second core to your system if you multi task, but going from a 3700 to a 4400 likely wouldn't blow you away. A few seconds here or there...

Personally I am still running a 3800+ X2 and have also been tempted by the allure of upgrading. I was close to hopping on a 4800+ when they were available for $119 but shied away due to the cheap AM2 CPU costs, the dirt cheap DDR2 RAM costs. SO I vacillate and say I'll just upgrade all three components. That should run around $350-500. And then I think a few minutes more about going C2D for just a bit more then that, and finally do nothing but save a cart at the 'Egg. I think I go through this a few times a week.
 
Don't we all when a looming upgrade has been sitting over our heads for so long.
 
SliWolf said:
Don't we all when a looming upgrade has been sitting over our heads for so long.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. It's exciting to upgrade but I also dread getting rid of perfectly good, previously expensive but now outdated components. Oh well, such is life in the world of technology.
 
I keep filling carts all the time lol

I have a DFI SLi-D and an AMD 64 3000+ Venice @ 2.4Ghz

I decided to go with a 4200+ X2 and the Arctic Freezer 64 cooler for $19.99 ...I'll try to OC it to like 2.8 Ghz ...maybe get one of those 8800gt cards next year or so ?

this will keep me alright for some time to go and see what will happen later on, cause seriously all I do is play CCS, and my 3000+ does it just fine, all I have is a bug to upgrade...

Last time I felt the same and I ended up buying a vga cooler, lol...
 
SliWolf said:
You know as well as I do that S939 is dead so why bother with old technology when these probably won't be able to run all those games and programs that are in the near future.
Click to expand...

Wolf,

I'm not convinced that my S939 is dead, it isn't the fastest kid on the block any longer, but I still run Oblivion, BioShock, HL2Ep2 at widescreen resolutions without much issue. I am pumping graphics through a 7950GX2 so maybe I'm cheating a little bit. But in my case, OC'd from 3800 stock of 2GHz to 2.16GHz (voltage to bring up RAM also) and a good cooler I'm content. DX10? Not a big deal to me - haven't seen anything to WOW me.

For the rest of the week.

Next build I'm going to way over the top to avoid feeling this in 2-3 years. I know I am kidding myself, but maybe I can convince the Mrs?
 
frappe33 said:
Wolf,

I'm not convinced that my S939 is dead, it isn't the fastest kid on the block any longer, but I still run Oblivion, BioShock, HL2Ep2 at widescreen resolutions without much issue. I am pumping graphics through a 7950GX2 so maybe I'm cheating a little bit. But in my case, OC'd from 3800 stock of 2GHz to 2.16GHz (voltage to bring up RAM also) and a good cooler I'm content. DX10? Not a big deal to me - haven't seen anything to WOW me.

For the rest of the week.

Next build I'm going to way over the top to avoid feeling this in 2-3 years. I know I am kidding myself, but maybe I can convince the Mrs?
Click to expand...

Oh come on, you can get your 3800 faster than that! :D

To the OP: You can replace that 3700 for a much more powerful processor for very cheap now on 939!
 
polive said:
Oh come on, you can get your 3800 faster than that! :D
Click to expand...

LoL.....I had it up to 3.2 GHz but wouldn't load into windows, I guess my ram just isn't fast enough to do it, I know my CPU and mobo will take it that far but getting it stable that high, thats another problem altogether.
 
SliWolf said:
The AM2 or C2D are vastly more powerful and at the same price if you were to do just a simple CPU and Ram upgrade on your current sys, weather or not you decide to go the little extra for the new sys is up to you.
Click to expand...
O rly? So if I get a 2.2 GHz K8 AM2, and pit it against my 2.6 GHz K8 AM2, the AM2 chip will win?
SliWolf said:
You know as well as I do that S939 is dead so why bother with old technology when these probably won't be able to run all those games and programs that are in the near future.
Click to expand...
Funny, I just gave a system to a friend of mine with (gasp!) a single core Pentium 4 and (cry of terror!) AGP. I know for a fact that it will play even the latest Source engine games.

Don't fall into the trap of acting like older hardware won't even run a new game just because newer hardware beats it by a few percentage points or enables flashier graphics.

OP: Personally, I'd pick up the fastest dual-core you could find for a reasonable price. If you want to drop 939 entirely, now is a Bad Time(TM) to upgrade. Penryn, Phenom, and new graphics cards are all around the corner. Intel should have Pernyn out before Christmas, so it's not that long a wait now.
 
with a sub $200 penryn dual core 3ghz coming out within the next few months it would be a horrible time to upgrade a socket 939 board. put that money to better use elsewhere.
 
SliWolf said:
You know as well as I do that S939 is dead so why bother with old technology when these probably won't be able to run all those games and programs that are in the near future.
Click to expand...

Puh-lease.

Just because the C2D is so awesome, it doesn't make the Athlon X2 bad. The Athlon's performance didn't just go magically lower when the C2D was released, it's the same CPU that everyone used to go wow over.

My 4200 does very very well running anything I play. Go read [H]'s article about how having a super fast CPU only brings up the frame rate a small amount. It's still all about the GPU and his 7800GTX would be very happy being paired up with a 4200.

And just because a platform is dead, it doesn't make it obsolete performance wise nor a bad deal, especially at these prices. $70 for that CPU upgrade is a pretty good deal considering the alternative of pretty much a total system rebuild.

Links to [H]'s articles about CPU and game scaling.
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTEwOCwxMSwsaG5ld3M=

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTAwMiwsLGhlbnRodXNpYXN0
 
Thanks guys. I know my socket 939 3700+ is considered old news, and it is to a point, but it sure seems to handle most of what I've thrown at it and thats with the single 7800gtx. I'm just seeing some pretty cheap prices for 939 CPU's that could easily double the brain power of what I currently have (without overclocking) amd then to SLI my 7800 or stick an 8 series card in seems to be not too crazy of an expenditure/upgrade while keeping my 'ol PC chugging along. I cant see building another 'top o the line' comp again for quite awhile. I couldn't take watching my Ferrari turning into a VW again:D, at least not for a couple of years or so.
 
Ethug said:
with a sub $200 penryn dual core 3ghz coming out within the next few months it would be a horrible time to upgrade a socket 939 board. put that money to better use elsewhere.
Click to expand...

Jeezes! I musta missed that news. I better look into that first.
 
Mike Armstrong said:
Thanks guys. I know my socket 939 3700+ is considered old news, and it is to a point, but it sure seems to handle most of what I've thrown at it and thats with the single 7800gtx. I'm just seeing some pretty cheap prices for 939 CPU's that could easily double the brain power of what I currently have (without overclocking) amd then to SLI my 7800 or stick an 8 series card in seems to be not too crazy of an expenditure/upgrade while keeping my 'ol PC chugging along. I cant see building another 'top o the line' comp again for quite awhile. I couldn't take watching my Ferrari turning into a VW again:D, at least not for a couple of years or so.
Click to expand...

Well if you can afford the $70 CPU and it will be enough performance for you, I would go for it. I for sure wouldn't pay $200 for a 939 CPU like the Opty 185 is going for. At that price, new build is far more worthwhile.
 
Met-AL said:
Puh-lease.

Just because the C2D is so awesome, it doesn't make the Athlon X2 bad. The Athlon's performance didn't just go magically lower when the C2D was released, it's the same CPU that everyone used to go wow over.

My 4200 does very very well running anything I play. Go read [H]'s article about how having a super fast CPU only brings up the frame rate a small amount. It's still all about the GPU and his 7800GTX would be very happy being paired up with a 4200.

And just because a platform is dead, it doesn't make it obsolete performance wise nor a bad deal, especially at these prices. $70 for that CPU upgrade is a pretty good deal considering the alternative of pretty much a total system rebuild.

Links to [H]'s articles about CPU and game scaling.
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTEwOCwxMSwsaG5ld3M=

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTAwMiwsLGhlbnRodXNpYXN0
Click to expand...


Interesting stuff, I wonder if 'multicore' CPU's are now being utilized by games or are they still simply for multitasking home PC stuff. Maybe maxing out my 939 CPU will indeeed be plenty of power for the near future, that is, if it can 'drive' a powerful video card. But then again, I'm not willing to buy a top of the line video card for this older PC.
 
Mike Armstrong said:
Jeezes! I musta missed that news. I better look into that first.
Click to expand...

2000100057337412596_rs.jpg
 
My Opty 170 pushes my 8800 just fine you wont get the 3dmark scores of the C2D. The Opty 175s are pretty reasonable and would be a good upgrade if you don't want to rebuild your whole system.
 
DeChache said:
My Opty 170 pushes my 8800 just fine you wont get the 3dmark scores of the C2D. The Opty 175s are pretty reasonable and would be a good upgrade if you don't want to rebuild your whole system.
Click to expand...

Thanks I'll look into it.

Is there a chart somewhere that shows all 939 CPU's from weakest to strongest so to speak.
 
back in the begining of september i upgraded my 939 system to an = spec am2 system for $340ish. due to limited money and the reason for my upgrade (unable to install an os) i stayed with the same clock cpu (4200 = 2.2) and for the board had a slight down grade (a8n32 sli deluxe to m2n sli deluxe) and 2gb ram (ddr 400 -> ddr2 800). my 1M superpi time at stock on both systems dropped 1.5 seconds, 939 system was 39.5 seconds and the am2 is 38seconds. when OC'ed the 939 system at 2.55 = my am2 at 2.4
 
I upgraded from a A64 3800+ single to an Opteron 180 dual core and love it. I can tell a very nice increase in performance and it idles between 34-36c. Not a bad chip for the cost...I highly advise getting one.
 
polive said:
Oh come on, you can get your 3800 faster than that! :D

To the OP: You can replace that 3700 for a much more powerful processor for very cheap now on 939!
Click to expand...

Polive: I am not overly experienced/patient when it comes to OC. I should play around and bump the multiplier up from a 10x and back down the 8% volt
 
I just swapped out a 3800 X2 for an Opty 180 running at @ 2640. Swapped out two 7800GT's in SLI for a single 8800GTS 640. I'm enjoying it. I get good playable frames for CoD2/CoD4 (which is all I play), so i'm happy. No reinstallation of the o/s and all my programs, and I did the switch in about 20 minutes. This system will keep me good for another year or so. Might even get another 8800GTS for SLI.
 
polive said:
Oh come on, you can get your 3800 faster than that! :D

To the OP: You can replace that 3700 for a much more powerful processor for very cheap now on 939!
Click to expand...

Polive: I am not overly experienced/patient when it comes to OC. I should play around and bump the multiplier up from a 10x and back down the 8% volt
 
I have a x2 3800 toledo @t 3.0ghz. 300fsb is the max for my nforce3 chipset k8n neo2. Got the dfi lanparty nf4 sli motherboard for cheap so most likely it'll stop around 3.1-3.2 since i can run almost on stock voltage here @3.0ghz. Just get one of these if you want your system to last alittle longer. AM2 isn't even worth it yet since am2+ and am3 are coming out with ddr3. socket 939 is more than enough right now. Not much speed increase from the am2s at all barelly. I cpu benched against am2 x2 6000 and it was just about the same in cpu speed but only that the am2 had some more memory bandwidth pretty much. Not too much faster to justify a full blown upgrade.
 
Honestly. I would just wait if I were you. Overclock that puppy a little maybe. There arent to many 939s left on the market. Granted a dual core would bump up your multi tasking performance. If you don't do much of that I would wait.

I love my 939 Opty 165 (3.0gHz) and liked the 939 series but it is the end of the road.

Save the $150 you would spend on a new processor and buy a new combo. Wait save up some cash and buy an AM2 or C2D, mobo, and memory.

It also depends on how much you want to spend. I would say that is the big factor. If you have $400-500 you could upgrade big time.
 
I would just put an opty in there and wait for the 5ghz stuff comming out next year.

There are plenty of 175 opty's out there for $80 to $90 used and working fine.:eek:
 
Mike Armstrong said:
Interesting stuff, I wonder if 'multicore' CPU's are now being utilized by games or are they still simply for multitasking home PC stuff. Maybe maxing out my 939 CPU will indeeed be plenty of power for the near future, that is, if it can 'drive' a powerful video card. But then again, I'm not willing to buy a top of the line video card for this older PC.
Click to expand...

Yes a lot of new games coming out are using dual core, don't know if quad is being used much though yet. Definitely can't hurt to have at least a dual for current and upcoming games. Quick list from tomshardware: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/94969-13-dual-core-supported-games

And some of these are older games.
 
I just bought an x2 4200+ skt 939 and contrary to a few opinions the fact is it will
be more than capable of handling most anything thrown at it for quite awhile yet.

Alot of people fail to realise that buying a cheap skt 939 x2 or Opteron (if you've already
got the board & RAM) makes a helluva lot of sense as the time it buys translates to even bigger
savings when the time comes to the next upgrade. For instance if Penryn is sub $200 in a few months
can you imagine what the price will be in 10 months?

You'll probably be getting quads for that price then ... and thanking your pocketbook.
 
arcturus said:
I just bought an x2 4200+ skt 939 and contrary to a few opinions the fact is it will
be more than capable of handling most anything thrown at it for quite awhile yet.

Alot of people fail to realise that buying a cheap skt 939 x2 or Opteron (if you've already
got the board & RAM) makes a helluva lot of sense as the time it buys translates to even bigger
savings when the time comes to the next upgrade. For instance if Penryn is sub $200 in a few months
can you imagine what the price will be in 10 months?

You'll probably be getting quads for that price then ... and thanking your pocketbook.
Click to expand...

QFT
 
I think I'll keep my eyes open to see if there are any good deals on either a 44/4800+ X2 or 180/185 X2 Opti. I dont want to get rid of my nice DFI mobo and Ballistix ram for awhile but I do want to sqeeze another year (or two) out of them. As fae as my graphics card, that single 7800gtx will probably be the weak link. Another 7800 gtx for SLI will cost just as much as a single decent 8000 series card and still outperform the two 7800's. So, new X2 CPU and a single 8000 series card will probably take my 939 system to the end of it's useful service life.

If you had to choose, which one would you buy for gaming, 4800+ x2 or 185 X2 Opti?
 
Mike Armstrong said:
I think I'll keep my eyes open to see if there are any good deals on either a 44/4800+ X2 or 180/185 X2 Opti. I dont want to get rid of my nice DFI mobo and Ballistix ram for awhile but I do want to sqeeze another year (or two) out of them. As fae as my graphics card, that single 7800gtx will probably be the weak link. Another 7800 gtx for SLI will cost just as much as a single decent 8000 series card and still outperform the two 7800's. So, new X2 CPU and a single 8000 series card will probably take my 939 system to the end of it's useful service life.

If you had to choose, which one would you buy for gaming, 4800+ x2 or 185 X2 Opti?
Click to expand...

What ever is cheaper they are basically the same thing.
 
So let me try to apply "PC hardware mentality" to another technology...

Chevrolet has re-released the Camaro with a staggering 400 HP.

So that means that my 1996 Camaro Z-28, with a mere 285 HP is no longer capable of turning 13.5 1/4's or 157 MPH.

Furthermore, according to PC mentality, my 1996 Camaro isn't even worth putting the keys in the ignition, because it's so outdated.

:p

So what is the PC equivalent of comparing a 1966 Shelby Cobra 427 to say a 2007 Ferrari?
By PC standards, even the local landfill would be too good for the Cobra!

:p
 
I wouldn't wait very long. Jump on a 4200x2 for $65 at Newegg. You'll see more gain from going dual core than waiting for a good price on an 4800 or an Opty 185. I've watched the prices on the 185 for the last 4 monthes and they've remained stable within $10 or so of $240, I've also seen fewer vendors carrying them, Newegg was out of stock for a couple weeks in September. At that time I just decided to say screw it and get the most I could get out of my 3800x2, which is 2.5 using a Zalman cooler and I don't think I've pushed it as far as it can go. I thought I I was going to spend $230 on a 185 but not now I'm at 2.5ghz, I'm good to go, at least for another socket.
 
popgoestheweasel said:
I wouldn't wait very long. Jump on a 4200x2 for $65 at Newegg. You'll see more gain from going dual core than waiting for a good price on an 4800 or an Opty 185. I've watched the prices on the 185 for the last 4 monthes and they've remained stable within $10 or so of $240, I've also seen fewer vendors carrying them, Newegg was out of stock for a couple weeks in September. At that time I just decided to say screw it and get the most I could get out of my 3800x2, which is 2.5 using a Zalman cooler and I don't think I've pushed it as far as it can go. I thought I I was going to spend $230 on a 185 but not now I'm at 2.5ghz, I'm good to go, at least for another socket.
Click to expand...

I second the motion on the X-2 3800, staying with something simple and just overclocking it would be a great idea, just so long as it doesn't cost you any more than filling your tank in your car would.
 
This is almost the reverse of what was happening three or so years ago:

General Hardware: Any suggestions for my new build?

User1: Hi guys! I'd like to build a system for light gaming and heavy video encoding. Here's what I'm thinking of building, tell me what you guys think!
<Insert high-end Pentium 4 machine here>

User2: ZOMG WHY ARE YOU USING INTEL?????//

User3: Yeah, I mean, this machine might be fine for browsing the internet, and games like Minesweeper, but for anything more than that you should really go with AMD.

User4: Wait, Intel machines can handle Minesweeper? Since when?

User2: ZOMG intel sucks get a 3000+ and overclock it to 3 GHz with the stock cooler, even a noob can do that lololololololololol my friends mom bought him a P4 computer from Dell and it's soooooooooooo much slower even at stock my 3000+ totally pwns his 3.8 GHz P4

User1: Hold on a second guys! First of all, like I said before, I'm using this machine primarily for video encoding. According to these benchmarks, the P4 still has the upper hand in those applications. And if you go to the next page, it can also handle the latest games; it's only about 2% slower.

User2: LIES!!! YOUR "BENCHMARKS" ARE LIES!!!!111114one it FEELS faster 2 me!

User3: Wow, I really don't get why you'd want to use a slower product. I really can't help you, because I only buy good products. Maybe there are one or two guys on the forum who are still using P4s because they're too poor to upgrade. If so, they're the ones to help you, not me.

User4: Yeah, this definitely belongs in the Intel forum then.

<Mod moves thread to the Intel Forum>

<Two days pass. This thread is still on the top of the list.>

User1: Hello? Uh, bump? Anyone out there know whether I've chosen good parts or not?

User5: I wouldn't use that motherboard, I had problems with it. Try something from Asus.

User6: omg intel sucks use amd it's faster in every game ever written
 
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