Upgrading help

L

l1zrdking

n00b
Joined
May 15, 2005
Messages
57
I hate like hell to start yet another thread about this however, there are just too many damned AMD chips to choose from at this point. Ive tried to read through all the threads and find the exact info I need as my hardware compaired to the hardware I'm looking at and frankly I'm still confused. This is my 6th build so I'm not a complete novice, but I'm still leary about the slower clocks speeds of the AMD chips. So this is what I'm running now, impressive almost 2 years ago when I got it, but now.. not so much.

P4 2.6c
Abit AI7
1 gig pc3200 (generic)
75 gig sata hd (brand escapes me atm)
radeon 9800 pro
Forton 530w psu

Now, this is what I'm looking at.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103529
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131540


The video card is in the air right now (i know this board has sli, I won't be going sli right now, but I'd like the option. But if theres a better board to suggest, thats fine, sli isnt a huge concern at this point. ) I'm torn between an Nvidia 6800 BFG overclock or, since thats damn near 400, just save a few more weeks and get the 7800 BFG.

Ram will be upgraded later, right now generic will do, I think the other stuff being upgraded is far more important. My 250 gig hd should be here in a day or two so thats covered.

My question is, will that processor be a big enough upgrade to justify the price? I know its 200mhz slower in clock speed and all but that can be overclocked to at least even with my 2.6.

The computer is used for mostly games, I do multitask, running world of warcraft and several chat programs and winamp (however this set up doesnt really like running all that)
so will the suggested processor easily handle switching from task to task?
 
Yikes! 4000+ means it is equivilent to 4Ghz on a not-as-good proc *cough*intel*couph*

You don't need that much power. Get a 3700+ San Diego, about $150 less, then get a 7800 GTX as soon as you can. The 3700+ will be very similar to the 4000+, and you can overclock it to be exactly the same quite easily.

Trust me, it will save you a lot of money, and a 3700+ with a 7800 in it is a LOT better than a 4000+ with a 6800 Ultra (or 6800GT, whichever one you were talking about).
 
do you overclock? :D

also.. you may want to consider an X2, even if your description doesn't seem like it really utilize the power dual core brings, it may be very handy in the somewhat near future
 
I dont overclock this p4, the damn thing runs too hot as it is. Even with this http://xoxide.com/tower112.html and a 92mm silent cat fan. I hit 50-54c while playin WOW. However, with the AMD chips, they're born to overclock so I'd have to oc it :D


As for dual core, thats alittle out of my price range, the 4000+ I posted was already pushing it rather far heh
 
ah, if you'll overclock, go with a 3200+ venice, save the money for a nice video card or something sometime in the future :D
 
why not go ahead and get the 3700+ and oc it? heh I'm already going to get the nvidia 7800 im sure that'll last me at least alittle while.
 
a few of the 3700+'s are oc'ing duds, being the slowest part in the san diego line :(
the 3200+ is the step up from the bottom of venice, so the 3000+ takes most of the hits

so that leaves you with the FX if you want the very highest mhz possible, the 4000+ if you have a bunch of money, or the 3200+/3500+

unless! you want to go X2.. but that's too expensive still. perhaps wait a few months? prices will drop a bit, and you can make a bit more money for a bigger budget :D
 
I've given it alot of thought, and I think I'm going to go ahead and go for the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Dual-Core. I dont plan on upgrading for awhile (usually 2 years i try to get out of a system) So the only concern left is RAM. I have 1g of pc3200, but they are generic and 2 are one kind, and 2 are another kind. So... do I HAVE to upgrade the ram or can I save that for a rainy day?
 
4x256mb (DDR 400) Newegg accually has every purchase I've made still on file and two of the sticks are "PanRam" brand aka the cheapest they had listed for 2x256mb ddr at the time lol

They even have my first purchase, my chieftec steel case 2002, which... I still use. ha
 
opps.. one sided. and I took one out to look now the system won't boot. I rather dislike this ABIT mb, I'm tooling around thier website looking for a fix. Its a ram issue, but no one has a true fix, something about the bios (which ive cleared w/ the jumper and removed the battery for awhile) but I'm ready to just chuck the mb, bah. I'm going to dig out my old ASUS and check to see if the ram is ok.
 
i don't think you can boot with 3 sticks of ram, but i might be wrong. i'm not really sure how intel did the memory controller on that thing.

and if it's one sided, a revE (san diego/venice) should be able to use all 4 at 200mhz, 1T

if you get new ram, jsut make sure you don't get 4 double sided sticks.. as it'll force the command rate down to 2T, not that it really matters for real world performance. i think it's just easier to go 2x1gb if you want the 2gb route
 
Heh, no.. I put them all back, but the system wont boot. I slapped my old AMD system back togeather to test em but nothing. I'm searching the abit site now, some strrrrange happenings w/ that motherboard.. which I hate anyhow.. so I'm not surprized. Anyhow, double sided = bad and AMD runs better on only 2 sticks?
 
I'd collect cash until you can snag a 7800. If you look at the price vs. performance, it's not a bad deal. Either that or get a less expensive CPU. CPU isn't nearly as important as it used to be. I've got a dual Opteron 246. Granted that's like having a "3300+" in most games (just an estimate I came up with comparing the clock speed, mem bus width, and cache to A64s), but I still constantly find myself vid card limited in 3D games.
OTOH, this is highly dependant on what sort of monitor you use. My 6800GT seems to chew through anything I've thrown at it (Doom 3, Far Cry, and HL2 being the most modern) with ease at 1280x960 or 1280x1024. I'm using a Sony GDM-FW900 though (24" widescreen CRT), so if possible I like to run 2304x1440 no AA/8x+ AF. Naturally this biases me towards more power.
 
As far as upgrading the plan is ...


nvidia 7800 (this is certian unless some crazy news comes out about them bursting into flames or something heh)

x2 4400+, it'll be a month or two before this gets going (waiting to sell my current system) so hopefully we'll see a little price dip. I'm going to go with the more expensive cpu because I dont want to upgrade for a long time, 2 years or more (I'm a cheap ass)

Ram- some of the faq's I've read suggest that sticking to just 2 chips is wise with AMD. So I'll get perhaps 2x 1gig chips depending on if I can not make any major purchases that long lol if not I'll go with 2x 512mb chips till I can afford it.

My psu should be fine, I have no worries from that side. HD's are covered. Case might change but thats not a huge deal either way. I'll also be sticking w/ my current heatsink and fans, they're listed as being compatable with socket 939 and it dropped my p4 temps by 10-12c so with the cooler AMD chips I should be nice and cool.

Anything anyone else can think of that I'm forgetting?
 
l1zrdking said:
Ram- some of the faq's I've read suggest that sticking to just 2 chips is wise with AMD. So I'll get perhaps 2x 1gig chips depending on if I can not make any major purchases that long lol if not I'll go with 2x 512mb chips till I can afford it.
Click to expand...
Just keep the generic stuff until you can afford 2x1GB. Even if it's just PC2700, with a proc like the ones you're looking at it'll be fine until you can upgrade properly.
 
Good, its pc3200, 4x256mb, since I wont HAVE to upgrade that makes my wallet happy. If i can get some money out of my radeon 9800 then I shouldnt have to save much more to get all the stuff I need. I am buying a new mb for my current system, something cheap and less problematic, my brother lives 7 hours away so if he gets this one up there and it starts acting goofy I don't want the constant calls tryin to walk him through fixing it heh. Its worth the 50-60 bucks to make my life easier.


Doh, motherboard for AMD, thats what I'm forgetting.
 
Nope, not with the decision to get the 7800. SLI takes a backseat. Im not sure if I'd try to OC the X2 or not.
 
i see, i'd look into a dfi nf4 ultra-d if you definitly will overclock

otherwise, save a bit of money and get the nf4 based epox mobo
 
the x2 runs at 2.2 correct? if so, sure id like to try and squeeze 2.6 out of it or close.. as long as it'll stay stable. But then again, not sure if I'd overclock till I accually USE the processor and see its performance. I guess the DFI would be the best route, if I decide to OC then id have the option. w00t 2 pages. heh


I'd just like to say, thanks for all the info and help. I didnt really expect so much of it, figured I'd get "USE SEARCH N00B" heh
 
4200+ = 2.2ghz, 512kb cache per core
4400+ = 2.2ghz, 1024kb cache per core
4600+ = 2.4ghz, 512kb cache per core
4800+ = 2.4ghz, 1024kb cache per core

:D

and i've given up on telling people to search long ago, it usually doesn't get as good answers ;)
 
heh yeah i searched and searched but nothing answered for me specifically. but, I have one more.

I only found one mb listed as ready to go support of the x2, the dfi's all need to be flashed. How would I flash it w/o having a cpu that accually workd first heh. Or.. would it just see it as a single core untill the bios was flashed.
 
if you were to buy a board now, i think a good number of them are shipping with a bios that supports X2
 
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