Upgrade or wait?

[nk6600]

Hello,

I´m reading a lot of info, and i have a lot of doubts in what to do.

Cause of PCI EXPRESS and the new boards arriving this year.

Well, i´m using a P4 1700 Willamette with 512mb of ram, with a 9800 pro.

It´s clear that the cpu is a little slow for the 9800 pro, and the board and mems are more that 2 years old.

Well i´m thinking on doing an upgrade(cpu,board,mems,hard drive,and case):

CPU: 3.0(Prescott or Northwood)

Board:Asus P4P800 / Deluxe or C800E

Mems:Kingston 512 Mb PC3200 (2x256MB) Dual Channel

Hard drive:Seagate Barracuda Serial ATA 150 - 120 Gb Udma100 7,200 Rpm 8 Mb Buffer


I think at least waiting for Prescott, cause i dont think that current cpu is going to keep up with things until the 2Q of 2004!

Any suggestion in what to do!?

Will prescott be out in europe in Fev?

Thanks!

 

[burningrave101]

I dont know about Europe but in the US Prescott is due to release the first part of february. I would wait on Prescott for two reasons. First to see how well it performs against current processors, whether its just so so or beats the crap out of them. Prescott overclockability is going to be another issue. If prescott has SSE3 and improved hyperthreading with 64bit extensions and its able to overclock like the 2.4c and your seeing up to 1GHz overclocks there wont be a northwood or A64 that can touch it. Second Prescott will push down the current prices on northwoods and there are several nothwoods set to release soon also.

I would definately wait on motherboards too. Those asus boards are getting quite old now and there are alot of interesting new features going to be implemented in the new boards.

 

[Carnival Forces]

really, it depends on you, yes, you.

do you NEED an upgrade right now? or will you be willing to stick it out further?

some people just set a date, randomly, perhaps when they know they'll have enough spare cash, and swear to upgrade on that day, regardless of what's coming next (hehe, go willpower).

others prefer to analyze what tech is out and weigh the pros and cons of when to upgrade and how it fits their budget in their own mind, really personally, i would just upgrade when you have to.

 

[HRslammR]

bah just do it now. better to jump into the next wave until it's been proven and tested. that is at least a couple generations after it's initial release. wait until the product is perfected.

 

[rally9x]

waiting will only wait to more waiting. But I would consider looking for some good deals right now like 2.4's and 2.6 c's.

 

[skritch]

I'm waiting until BTX, Socket 775, PCI Express, and DDRII are available on the same motherboard. Then I'm upgrading everything -- CPU, RAM, GPU, case, power supply, hard drives (from IDE to SATA) and waterblock. And probably changing from my current serial Matrix Orbital VFD to one of their new USB ones.

Until then (which I predict will be late Q3 this year), my 9700Pro, 1Gb PC1066RDRAM, and 2.8GHz P4 will continue to do just fine.

 

[darktiger]

Just wait, your specs are fine for anything out there right now.

 

[JSClark]

I would wait, with all the BTX stuff flying around, your better off waiting, saving a bit more, and then buying something that will last you longer than whats out today.

 

[burningrave101]

I wouldn't suggest waiting on BTX. BTX form factor is going to take a long time to get into the mix of things and we aren't even supposed to be seeing it till towards the end of this year. It will take a while for it to replace ATX so you wont be seeing BTX motherboards and PSU's much this year i doubt.

I dont know how well DDR2 will perform but it will have bad latency like PC4000 and higher. Hopefully they can come up with something better then just more bandwidth.

 

[nk6600]

Hello, again!

Ok prescott is out and we have read the reviews...

What do you say, go with the P4 3.2(E or C) or with a A64 3200+.

What is the better solution for an upgrade for the next 18 months?

I have 2 systems in mind:

1st:

A64 3200+
K8V Deluxe
2*512 Mb DDR PC3200 TwinMos
Western Digital Serial ATA 120 Gb 7,200 Rpm 8 Mb Buffer
And a brand new case with a 420 PSU:
(what do you think about this?)
http://3rsystem.co.kr/english/product/case/air.asp

2st

P4 3200(E or C)
Asus Asus P4C800-E / Deluxe
TwinMos 1 Gb PC3200 (2x512MB) Dual Channel
Western Digital Serial ATA 120 Gb 7,200 Rpm 8 Mb Buffer
Same case....

Will use my current ATI9800 pro, audigy sound card,Pioneer DVD rom and CDRW liteon 52*32*52.

Thanks for your help!

 

[burningrave101]

My vote is for a Northwood setup. Prescotts release has shoved prices down even more. You can pick up a 3.0c for as little as $226 retail or less and its an easy overclock usually to 3.6Ghz. At 3.6Ghz it will outperform the 3200+ at 2.4Ghz (top speed you'll likely achieve) in the majority of benches. At 3.2Ghz and stock 3200+ speeds the benches usually fall 50/50. It all depends on what your using the computer for. Its not like the Pentium 4's are bad at gaming or the A64's are bad at applications its just one is a little better then the other sometimes. Encodeing and benchmarks that use alot of bandwidth is where the Pentium 4 shines. The A64 does best in benches that use timings into effect because of its much shorter 12 stage pipelines and its on-die memory controller.

Then with the money you save you can put that towards picking up a 939 socket A64 or socket 775 LGA Prescott. Prescott will definately start performing better as it ramps higher. Overclocks on Prescott though are showing up around 3.75Ghz on average on aircooling and stock voltages. So with a voltage increase 4Ghz should be nothing unheard of for the 3.2E prescott right now. Only problem is its current heat dissipation of around 103w so thats why i say maybe wait till its released on socket T cause that will help out alot with its heat issues.

 

[jamezzz122]

I always say...


If you can wait, then wait...

I usually don't upgrade unless I need to or have a lot fo extra money...