Want a new CPU and mainboard

[bcrew1375]

I've been considering buying a new CPU and mainboard. In the past I've leaned towards AMD's processors, but it seems recently Intel has been overtaking them. So, I want to know which company I should go with, which processor, and which mainboard would support it well.

[Doomulation]

AMD is leading right now. They consumes less power and perform better than any intel cpu on the market right now.
For the future, the cheapest X2 processor would do you well. A good motherboard, I suppose, is ones with the nForce 4 chipset.

[Clements]

I would buy an Athlon64 X2. Either the 3800+, the 4400+, 4800+ or FX-60 - whichever suits your budget. For dual core Opterons, the models that are decent are the 165, 170, 175 and the 180.

If you have a PCI-E graphics card, or have no graphics card but wish to buy one (no point in buying AGP now), then buy either an nForce4 SLi x16 chipset, an nForce4 Ultra chipset (if you don't plan on SLi), or for ATi chipsets the Xpress 3200 and Xpress 200. Good companies include DFI, MSI, Gigabyte, Asus and Abit and Sapphire among others.

In my case, I had an expensive AGP video card, so got an S939 nForce3 Ultra board instead of nForce4, but I could have bought the Asrock 939Dual-SATA2 based on the ULi chipset for both AGP/PCI-E, but I saw that it only had 100Mbit Ethernet and less features in general, and the company was bought out.

[vtnwesley]

I personally prefer the Intel side. AMD or Intel, as long as you have a high quality motherboard from a trusted brand, you should do fine. I personally would buy a higher end Pentium 4 (not Pentium D). Any of the Prescott or Cedar Mill CPUs are great, but I'd opt for the newer Cedar Mill products given the choice. At 3Ghz, 800mhz FSB, 2MB cache, single core they cost about $180.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819116004

All of the newer Intel boards are on Socket T (Look for "LGA 775" on the box). If you have older parts you want to reuse like video cards, you can on older Intel chipsets like the 865PE, but I recommend going with the newer stuff like the 945P/G series (consumer class, one has video on board for non-gamers), or the higher end 955X/975X. If you wanna get all the speed and power you can, and/or plan on doing SLI/Crossfire kinds of things, the intel 975X is a must.

I personally am a bit more conservative, so I'd probably concider a Asus, Intel, or Gigabyte board on the 945P series chipsets. Regardless of who you buy from (use your best judgement, I prefer Intel and Gigabyte), they usually run around $90-120. For the sake of perspective, the higher end (ECC enabled, yay) 955/975x boards run around $175-220. They all offer modern standards like PCIe x16 for video, Serial ATA, DDR2, and everything else you'd expect from a modern mobo. Boards by all of these companies on many diff chipsets can be found on Newegg.com . It's where I do most of my shopping, but be careful. Just because they sell it doesn't make it a good product.

As for the AMD vs Intel debates, both are fast. The Conroe based chips will be coming from Intel soon and for a while, Intel will be on top again. Right now, AMD is on top. I buy intel for the "complete package". When you are on an intel cpu with an intel chipset, things tend to run smoother than say... ANY CPU on a Via chipset lol. AMD has no first party anything, but Nvidia seems to be doing a great job. If you do go AMD, get one of the latest and greatest Nvidia based Gigabyte or Asus boards.

[Doomulation]

And these conroe will be very expensive when they hit the market. Amd is the best way to go, for now. Pentium 4's are kinda pathetic processors. High energy consumption at a low processing speed, so deffinetly no P4.
With AMD's integrated memory controller (Athlon 64), many boards run equally due to it not being limited by the north bridge chipset (because memory handling is in the cpu now).

Intel or AMD is up to you, but I definetly recommend AMD. Ready for the future with 64-bit support!

[kallileo]

I dont think that Conroe CPUs are expensive.
So the best you can do is to buy mobo with Intel 975 chipset and a cheap Cpu(like Pentium 630) and for Conroe to be availiable in July.


http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/1023_large_conroe_pricing.jpg

[Doomulation]

Pffft, I shall not argue, but the Athlon64 X2 3800+ is highly overclockable to my knowledge, so it might still have a huge gain over Intel.
EDIT: The 3800+ overclocked from its 2.1 GHz store clock to a whopping 2.9 GHz! Beat that!

[vtnwesley]

All new CPUs are a little over priced (although those prices posted don't look bad at all). Thats what happens when you buy new technology of any kind from any company. I wouldn't call Intel chips pathetic. It kind of overstating the issue. Intel chips do seem to run a bit (not a lot) hotter, and the highest AMD chips out there do technically run faster than Intel CPUs. That is a good thing for AMD and something to concider. AMD also does have the northbridge integrated into their CPUs, which isn't terrible either (promises some level of performance, but dictates the feature set of every mobo). Mind you, a bad mobo can still effect performance, but not as much.

While every AMD fanboy loves spouting off about how great it is to have 64-bit support, and how Intel isn't ready for the future. Intel is on all the new standards, and AMD isn't AMD has 64-bit support first (which is going to be all but useless for the next 4-10 yrs in my opinion). Intel got into it quickly because the industry followed. Since both have the EXACT same 64-bit extensions, the same way both offer SSE1, 2, and 3 (AMD took years to support SSE3!). Both sets of CPUs have minor pluses and minuses. Don't let a polarized opinions fool you. Basically, 64-bit hardware is pedestrian at this point. It's not a selling point, especially since it won't do anything for you.

To check for sure which Intel CPUs support 64-bit, check out intel.com or newegg.com. Almost all of them do at this point, including the latest Celeron D chips. If you need that 10 frames per second higher in a theoretical number you can't see with the naked eye, then go for that Athlon whatever definitely. Otherwise concider both options, and make your own choice. As long as you get a nice solid mobo by a trusted company (i.e. NOT ECS/PC Chips, MSI, ASRock, etc), you will probably be happy on either CPU. I know I am happy with my Celeron D 2.66Ghz, and my friends Pentium 4 3.2Ghz.

[kallileo]

Pffft, I shall not argue, but the Athlon64 X2 3800+ is highly overclockable to my knowledge, so it might still have a huge gain over Intel.
EDIT: The 3800+ overclocked from its 2.1 GHz store clock to a whopping 2.9 GHz! Beat that!

I had a x2 3800+ and it hadrly overclocked from stock 2.0 Ghz to 2.4 GHz with watercooling:( . I sold it and I bought an Opteron 165(dual core, 1.8 GHz stock). It clocks to 2,75 Ghz. There very few CPUs that can overclock to 2900GHz on air. Believe me.

Any new AMD or Intel CPU fully support 64bit technology.Even Sempron and Celeron CPU.

[Doomulation]

I wouldn't call Intel chips pathetic. It kind of overstating the issue.
Don't get me wrong. I am calling the pentium 4 architecture pathetic. But the new, coming, is nowhere near pathetic--a worthy chip of honor! Pentium M isn't pathetic; only Pentium 4 is. They performed less, drew more power, ran hotter, etc, than athlon.

@kallileo:
There are many factors in overclocking. You need a good motherboard, first of all, and you also need to make sure memory or other things aren't holding you back. This is a number that the processor CAN reach, if done right. Yes, there was benchmarks showing this!

[kallileo]

Don't get me wrong. I am calling the pentium 4 architecture pathetic. But the new, coming, is nowhere near pathetic--a worthy chip of honor! Pentium M isn't pathetic; only Pentium 4 is. They performed less, drew more power, ran hotter, etc, than athlon.

@kallileo:
There are many factors in overclocking. You need a good motherboard, first of all, and you also need to make sure memory or other things aren't holding you back. This is a number that the processor CAN reach, if done right. Yes, there was benchmarks showing this!

I have the best mobo, very good memory and watercooling but you can nothing if your CPU is like shit.:bouncy:

[arnalion]

All new CPUs are a little over priced (although those prices posted don't look bad at all). Thats what happens when you buy new technology of any kind from any company. I wouldn't call Intel chips pathetic. It kind of overstating the issue. Intel chips do seem to run a bit (not a lot) hotter, and the highest AMD chips out there do technically run faster than Intel CPUs. That is a good thing for AMD and something to concider. AMD also does have the northbridge integrated into their CPUs, which isn't terrible either (promises some level of performance, but dictates the feature set of every mobo). Mind you, a bad mobo can still effect performance, but not as much.

While every AMD fanboy loves spouting off about how great it is to have 64-bit support, and how Intel isn't ready for the future. Intel is on all the new standards, and AMD isn't AMD has 64-bit support first (which is going to be all but useless for the next 4-10 yrs in my opinion). Intel got into it quickly because the industry followed. Since both have the EXACT same 64-bit extensions, the same way both offer SSE1, 2, and 3 (AMD took years to support SSE3!). Both sets of CPUs have minor pluses and minuses. Don't let a polarized opinions fool you. Basically, 64-bit hardware is pedestrian at this point. It's not a selling point, especially since it won't do anything for you.

To check for sure which Intel CPUs support 64-bit, check out intel.com or newegg.com. Almost all of them do at this point, including the latest Celeron D chips. If you need that 10 frames per second higher in a theoretical number you can't see with the naked eye, then go for that Athlon whatever definitely. Otherwise concider both options, and make your own choice. As long as you get a nice solid mobo by a trusted company (i.e. NOT ECS/PC Chips, MSI, ASRock, etc), you will probably be happy on either CPU. I know I am happy with my Celeron D 2.66Ghz, and my friends Pentium 4 3.2Ghz.

No they ain't got exactly the same instructions. A P4 especially the prescott runs 20-30 degrees warmer then a Amd 64 with stock cooler. There's nothing wrong with the MSI motherboards. Asrock is a sister company to Asus and only makes budget motherboards (crappy). You can gain up to 20 fps more in some games by choosing an Amd. The 64-bit architecture won't be useless, XP64, Vista and many UNIX operatings systems supports 64-bits achitecture. The games of tomorrow will have support for it.


I have the best mobo, very good memory and watercooling but you can nothing if your CPU is like shit.:bouncy:

What motherboard, which memory?

[Doomulation]

I have the best mobo, very good memory and watercooling but you can nothing if your CPU is like shit.:bouncy:
That can be argued. It is really hard to say what is "best."
Besides that, it depends on what you want. Features or overclocking or price? The best motherboard with features may not overclock best.

Btw, they managed to hit 2.9 GHz with a DFI motherboard with socket 939. DFI motherboards are known to overclock very, very well.

[arnalion]

DFI is the shit :P

[bcrew1375]

Wow, I think it's been too long since I've built a computer. My current desktop has an AMD Thunderbird @ 1.33 GHz. I got it plus a DFI mobo for around $200. The chip was around $99 and the mobo around $89. I think $500 would be the absolute maximum budget for both the chip and the mobo. Any suggestions in this price range? Also, how much would decent cooling cost? I don't like the idea of buying a chip for several hundred dollars to have it fry in a few seconds.

[Doomulation]

Then, get an athlon 64 x2 3800+ (or better) and a DFI motherboard, perhaps. Great for overclocking. You'd need a better cooler, but I don't know about those - I don't have one but the stock yet. That is my best suggestion if you want to overclock. If you don't need to overclock, a stock cooler will do just fine.

[kallileo]

Wow, I think it's been too long since I've built a computer. My current desktop has an AMD Thunderbird @ 1.33 GHz. I got it plus a DFI mobo for around $200. The chip was around $99 and the mobo around $89. I think $500 would be the absolute maximum budget for both the chip and the mobo. Any suggestions in this price range? Also, how much would decent cooling cost? I don't like the idea of buying a chip for several hundred dollars to have it fry in a few seconds.


I suggest you a x2 3800+ and a DFI mobo too. The best buy at the moment.
The problem is that you will also need a PCI-E Graphic Card.

I have DFI Nf4 lanparty and 2x512 BH5 chips running at 245 Mhz 2-2-2-5 3.4V.
But there is no guaranty that every X2 CPU will overclock till 2.9GHz on air. I have tried at least 3 and noone overclocked above 2.6 Ghz.

[BoggyB]

It varies. I think AMD chips tend to run cooler and faster than the same clocked Intels, but the Pentium M chips are nice pieces of kit and I think (not sure about this, I'm a bit out of date with this stuff) at least the equal of AMD. When I do my major desktop upgrade I'm considering a Pentium M, as they run very cool and give a fair amount of power.

I think the general rule of thumb has always been AMD rules for gaming machines, but Intel wins hands down with office apps and some number-crunching ones (e.g. Photoshop). When it gets down to it, it depends on what you want to use the system for and if you're planning on overclocking to get every last little bit of performance out. My current desktop (AMD Thunderbird 1.3GHz, 768MB of PC100 RAM, 128MB GeForce Ti4600 (golden sample, no less) and a VIA KT133A-based motherboard) works perfectly for programming and playing the games I like (UT, Darwinia (just about), Armagetron, Project Eden), but is hopeless for the new super-uber-ultimate-mega-better-than-life-graphics games. The only reason for me to upgrade is a little more power would be handy, and the motherboard sucks.

Edit: with cooling: don't worry about recent Pentiums - they throttle down if they get too hot and are pratically impossible to kill. Tom's Hardware did an experiment a while back with taking the heatsink off a running processor, and the P4 just throttled down to something like a 5-10% duty cycle. AMDs you need to be more careful with, though they may have improved the thermal protection in the last year - as I said, it's been a while since I looked at this.

[Doomulation]

Pentium M is for laptops, and are not really built for high-end gaming or working with apps or desktop computers.
The latest AMD is pretty much better at anything that the intel counterparts. Yes, that includes office apps. But that will change with the new intel processor.

[bcrew1375]

Hmm, so an Athlon 3800+? This is probably a laughable comparison, but how would an Athlon 3800+ hold up to a 2.4 GHz Celeron? To my knowledge, Celeron's are cheap crap. I know I shouldn't base everything on GHz, but would a 2.4 GHz Celeron beat an Athlon 3800+ at stock speed? Also, how much can I expect to pay for a good PCI-E graphics card?

[Clements]

Pentium M is for laptops, and are not really built for high-end gaming or working with apps or desktop computers.

In fact, P-M are really good at gaming and number crunching, but really poor at content creation and media encoding compared to desktop chips.


Hmm, so an Athlon 3800+? This is probably a laughable comparison, but how would an Athlon 3800+ hold up to a 2.4 GHz Celeron? To my knowledge, Celeron's are cheap crap. I know I shouldn't base everything on GHz, but would a 2.4 GHz Celeron beat an Athlon 3800+ at stock speed?

Heh. Not even in the same league. It is like comparing a 6200 Turbocache with a 7800GTX. The Athlon64 X2 will obliterate it in every single benchmark by several fold. It also beat the P4 3.73GHz Extreme Edition in any truely multithreaded app, and almost all games.


Also, how much can I expect to pay for a good PCI-E graphics card?

If you don't want to spend too much, a 6600GT is around $120 or $69 can get you a plain 6600.

[TerraPhantm]

I'd go with an X2 3800 or Opteron 165 with the DFI Ultra-D (or SLI-D/DR). I have the Ultra-D and its probably the best OCing board for S939, the SLI-D and the SLI-DR are different versions of the Ultra-D which like their name suggests, feature SLI. The SLI-DR also sports 8 SATA ports instead of 4. On water, I got my X2 4400+ to 2.8GHz.

[Toasty]

I know I shouldn't base everything on GHz, but would a 2.4 GHz Celeron beat an Athlon 3800+ at stock speed?
It's not a perfect means of comparison, but the 3800+ on the Athlon 3800+ means that the processor is roughly comparable to a 3800MHz (3.8GHz) Intel P4 counterpart (though, sometimes it's not quite as good). They perform differently depending on the application, but you can get a fair estimate of how AMD's will compare to Intel's that way. Also, for a much more accurate way to gauge processor performance, head over to Tom's Hardware (http://www.tomshardware.com/). In their CPU section (http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/index.html) they have reviews of major processors, AMD and Intel, and every few months they release CPU charts, complete with benchmarks in a handful of applications.

[Doomulation]

Hmm, so an Athlon 3800+? This is probably a laughable comparison, but how would an Athlon 3800+ hold up to a 2.4 GHz Celeron? To my knowledge, Celeron's are cheap crap. I know I shouldn't base everything on GHz, but would a 2.4 GHz Celeron beat an Athlon 3800+ at stock speed? Also, how much can I expect to pay for a good PCI-E graphics card?
Now that is one stupid question :happy:
Not to mention Celeron != Athlon. Celeron is, as you know, a budget version of Pentiums. In other words, if anything, compare them to Durons.
And, as mentioned, 3800+ could be compared to roughly a 3.8GHz Pentium CPU. But it varies, of course...

[arnalion]

It varies. I think AMD chips tend to run cooler and faster than the same clocked Intels, but the Pentium M chips are nice pieces of kit and I think (not sure about this, I'm a bit out of date with this stuff) at least the equal of AMD. When I do my major desktop upgrade I'm considering a Pentium M, as they run very cool and give a fair amount of power.

I think the general rule of thumb has always been AMD rules for gaming machines, but Intel wins hands down with office apps and some number-crunching ones (e.g. Photoshop). When it gets down to it, it depends on what you want to use the system for and if you're planning on overclocking to get every last little bit of performance out. My current desktop (AMD Thunderbird 1.3GHz, 768MB of PC100 RAM, 128MB GeForce Ti4600 (golden sample, no less) and a VIA KT133A-based motherboard) works perfectly for programming and playing the games I like (UT, Darwinia (just about), Armagetron, Project Eden), but is hopeless for the new super-uber-ultimate-mega-better-than-life-graphics games. The only reason for me to upgrade is a little more power would be handy, and the motherboard sucks.

Edit: with cooling: don't worry about recent Pentiums - they throttle down if they get too hot and are pratically impossible to kill. Tom's Hardware did an experiment a while back with taking the heatsink off a running processor, and the P4 just throttled down to something like a 5-10% duty cycle. AMDs you need to be more careful with, though they may have improved the thermal protection in the last year - as I said, it's been a while since I looked at this.

Pentium-M is a greate cpu. If the cpu starts throttling will it get slower. Amd 3700+ lies around 33C idle temperature with the stock cooler, so theirs no worries of overheating. Tom's Hardware shouldn't be trusted since they have mixtured with tests (earlier). Intel paid them to show better results on their cpu's.

[bcrew1375]

Now that is one stupid question :happy:
Not to mention Celeron != Athlon. Celeron is, as you know, a budget version of Pentiums. In other words, if anything, compare them to Durons.
And, as mentioned, 3800+ could be compared to roughly a 3.8GHz Pentium CPU. But it varies, of course...

Well, I did say it was probably laughable :P. The first Celeron I had was 533 MHz, and it got beat down by a 266 MHz Pentium. BTW, Any suggestions on where to buy?

[bcrew1375]

No suggestions on where to buy?

[Clements]

http://newegg.com/ is normally the cheapest in the US for Computer Hardware. I've only heard good things about it, although I cannot shop there myself being in Europe.

[bcrew1375]

Clements, thanks for the suggestion. I looked up NewEgg on ResellerRatings and they still have a 9.63 Lifetime rating even with 1470 pages of reviews!

Hmm, as for the two CPUs that TerraPhantm suggested, NewEgg has this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103588, and this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103562. I'm assuming the Opteron is better since it costs more, but the only difference I can find is the size of the L2 cache. Is that the only thing that separates these two? Terraphantm, is this the mainboard you were talking about?: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136152

[shadow dragon64]

hey do any of you no how i can get pictures under my user name if so can some one tell me

[bcrew1375]

Well, first of all, you could have made a thread instead of posting a message in one that has nothing to do with your question :plain:. It's called an avatar, you should be able to change it from the User CP in the upper left of the forums.

[arnalion]

Opreton is Amd's server processor like Intel got Xeon. It's less good for gaming

[BoggyB]

No suggestions on where to buy?
In the UK, Overclockers (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/) and eBuyer (http://www.ebuyer.co.uk/) are pretty good. You could also try Scan (http://www.scan.co.uk/), Insight (http://uk.insight.com/index.php) and Dabs (http://www.dabs.com/). I don't know if any will ship outside the UK though.

[bcrew1375]

Opreton is Amd's server processor like Intel got Xeon. It's less good for gaming

Ah, so I should go with the 3800+ then? Also, I've never actually bought a CPU from anywhere except computer shows. So, do they come with the fan and heatsink, or do I have to buy that separately? Also, I'm probably going to need a new case. Which would go good with the mainboard I linked earlier?

[Clements]

It's less good for gaming

Nonsense.

Opterons perform identically with equivalent Athlon64/X2 since they are virtually identical chips. In fact, Opterons overclock much better, at a small price premium. That's why 1xx Opterons have been selling like hot cakes in the enthusiast sector.

[bcrew1375]

I just found a comparison of the two. The Opteron has more L2 cache, but less speed. According to what I read, the difference in cache is not enough to make the Opteron faster, but it has more OC potential. Does that sound right?

[Clements]

Here is a GREAT comparison of Opterons, dual-core Opterons, Athlon64s and Athlon64 X2 processors in the budget range, with Intel processors thrown in. You can see that Opterons have no issue keeping up with Athlon64s in gaming.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2736&p=9

The Opteron 144 is a single core, and 165 is a dual-core CPU.


I just found a comparison of the two. The Opteron has more L2 cache, but less speed. According to what I read, the difference in cache is not enough to make the Opteron faster, but it has more OC potential. Does that sound right?

All dual-core Opterons come with 1MB cache, therefore there is no equivalent Opteron to the Athlon64 X2 3800/4200/4600+. The Opteron 165 runs at 1.8GHz, and the Opteron 170 runs at 2.0GHz. The performance of the Athlon64 X2 3800+ will lie somewhere between the two on average.

The Opteron 165 has more overclocking potential over stock than the 3800+. If you are not overclocking, the performance of the two are roughly equivalent, as the Opteron 165 has double the cache, but the X2 3800+ is 200MHz faster.

[Doomulation]

Ah, so I should go with the 3800+ then? Also, I've never actually bought a CPU from anywhere except computer shows. So, do they come with the fan and heatsink, or do I have to buy that separately? Also, I'm probably going to need a new case. Which would go good with the mainboard I linked earlier?
CPUs come with a stock heatsink if it not OEM. As far as cases go, they really have little to do with the mainbord. What they should have, though, is good air cooling.

[cooliscool]

(AMD took years to support SSE3!).

Um, they have a licensing agreement with Intel which states that they can use Intel's instruction sets (SSEx is one of them), after a year of introduction. SSE3 was introduced in 2004, and AMD released Venice in 2005 (which has SSE3).

Pentium 4 is a dead end. Conroe is badass, but P4 would be an idiotic buying decision right now.

[bcrew1375]

CPUs come with a stock heatsink if it not OEM. As far as cases go, they really have little to do with the mainbord. What they should have, though, is good air cooling.

What I'm saying is will all mainboards fit in all cases? The case I have now is fairly old and I doubt it would hold a newer mainboard.

[Clements]

What I'm saying is will all mainboards fit in all cases? The case I have now is fairly old and I doubt it would hold a newer mainboard.

You'll need a Full ATX case if you wish to buy a standard S939 motherboard, such as a DFI. Midi Towers and the like are a bit too small for the motherboard to fit.

[Doomulation]

As long as they are built for ATX, the motherboard will fit. I have midi tower myself and the motherboard fits perfectly. I mean, hey, the case is even a little too big for the motherboard, so it definetly fits.

[BoggyB]

If the back of the computer has a rectangular metal plate with all the sockets (PS/2, USB, sound, etc.) on it, then it's probably ATX. Next, check the number of expansion slots. If you've only got 3 or 4 slots for expansion (PCI/AGP) cards, then it's probably only Mini-ATX and full-size ATX baords won't fit.

There's a couple of newer standards like BTX and ITX, so watch out for them when you look for a motherboard as I don't think they're compatible with ATX.

[Doomulation]

When shopping for a case, just make it sure it supports ATX. It should be listed. If not, then ask, or look for another case. Doesn't matter if it supports multiple standard, just it needs to support the standard of your motherboard, which usually is ATX. You can check that, too.

[arnalion]

Here is a GREAT comparison of Opterons, dual-core Opterons, Athlon64s and Athlon64 X2 processors in the budget range, with Intel processors thrown in. You can see that Opterons have no issue keeping up with Athlon64s in gaming.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2736&p=9

The Opteron 144 is a single core, and 165 is a dual-core CPU.



All dual-core Opterons come with 1MB cache, therefore there is no equivalent Opteron to the Athlon64 X2 3800/4200/4600+. The Opteron 165 runs at 1.8GHz, and the Opteron 170 runs at 2.0GHz. The performance of the Athlon64 X2 3800+ will lie somewhere between the two on average.

The Opteron 165 has more overclocking potential over stock than the 3800+. If you are not overclocking, the performance of the two are roughly equivalent, as the Opteron 165 has double the cache, but the X2 3800+ is 200MHz faster.

I've seen other tests where the opty got beaten...

[Clements]

I've seen other tests where the opty got beaten...

Well, you must have misinterpreted the data. They perform identically at the same clocks+cache sizes since they are virtually identical processors. This is an undisputable fact. If you look at the Anandtech bench, they perform in the same range, which is to be expected.

[arnalion]

http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2006q1/opteron-165-180/index.x?pg=1

[Clements]

That benchmark does not show that Opterons are slower at all. A single frame difference does not mean faster of slower, they are within the margins of error.

Opteron 165 is not directly equivalent to the Athlon64 3800+. Different clockspeeds and different amounts of cache. Not comparable.

Opteron 180 is equivalent to the X2 4800+. The perform exactly the same in pretty much every test Tech Report did. Battlefield 2 minimum framerate is the only anomally.

Saying that the performance of Opterons and X2/Athlon64's are different at equivalent speeds/cache is a complete and utter myth. The architecture is the same, the only significant difference is that Opterons undergo a tougher selection process so are higher quality, and that they have 3 coherent HT links instead of 1 like the Athlon64/X2. This actually works in the Opterons favour.

[bcrew1375]

I've been looking through alot of the mainboards on NewEgg, and I'm wondering if I might just be able to use my old case. Unfortunately, it only has a 300W power supply, and I'm thinking that might not be enough :/. However, my case has about 7 expansion slots and looks like it could hold those boards. I don't really care about overclocking. I'd prefer a board that can support the Athlon X2 and has 4 PCI slots. I saw a few from companies like MSI and Foxconn, but I didn't much like the reviews they got, I heard they are picky or burn out quickly. I might be asking for too much. Any help is appreciated.

[Doomulation]

I have no idea how old your case is, or if it supports the new standard, like ATX. Your BEST bet would be to get a new one. A 300W power supply is not enough for today's high end systems. You should have a 400W minimum. Although you should be able to change it in your case.
When buying a new case, if you must, you can also choose one without a PSU and get a good PSU on the side.

[arnalion]

That benchmark does not show that Opterons are slower at all. A single frame difference does not mean faster of slower, they are within the margins of error.

Opteron 165 is not directly equivalent to the Athlon64 3800+. Different clockspeeds and different amounts of cache. Not comparable.

Opteron 180 is equivalent to the X2 4800+. The perform exactly the same in pretty much every test Tech Report did. Battlefield 2 minimum framerate is the only anomally.

Saying that the performance of Opterons and X2/Athlon64's are different at equivalent speeds/cache is a complete and utter myth. The architecture is the same, the only significant difference is that Opterons undergo a tougher selection process so are higher quality, and that they have 3 coherent HT links instead of 1 like the Athlon64/X2. This actually works in the Opterons favour.

I just wanted to show that the 180 got beaten with 0-2 FPS :P in some games, compared to the 4800+.

[Clements]

Single digit (0-2fps or under 3%) 'victories' are within the margins of error for this type of bench, and so are counted as ties. Afterall, a benchmark is a scientific test.

[t0rek]

I have no idea how old your case is, or if it supports the new standard, like ATX. Your BEST bet would be to get a new one. A 300W power supply is not enough for today's high end systems. You should have a 400W minimum. Although you should be able to change it in your case.
When buying a new case, if you must, you can also choose one without a PSU and get a good PSU on the side.

Well Doom, I know that my PC is not so good as yours, but it runs pretty fine with a 350 Watts PSU without any problems, 400 Watts is required for a very high-end PC like Doomulation one

[Doomulation]

Perhaps... but it isn't necessarily a bad thing to have either in case you upgrade later. Then you could state that the power supply should be 350W+.

[bcrew1375]

Ugh, I am really reluctant to buy any of these boards. Is there any purpose to PCI-E x16 other than video cards?

Edit: Actually, it seems this board suits what I need pretty well. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813136160 It doesn't have 4 PCI slots like I wanted, but looks like a nice board otherwise. The only thing making me uneasy is some people stating it doesn't support some older HDs. I'm hoping a BIOS update would fix that if it's true. Now I need a case. Just something with no frills that can hold the board. Is that board considered a Full ATX?

[Clements]

Is there any purpose to PCI-E x16 other than video cards?

Not really, but I'm pretty sure it supports any PCI-E device (only a few exist though, such as RAID/LAN cards which a mobo would generally have built-in).


Edit: Actually, it seems this board suits what I need pretty well. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813136160 It doesn't have 4 PCI slots like I wanted, but looks like a nice board otherwise. The only thing making me uneasy is some people stating it doesn't support some older HDs. I'm hoping a BIOS update would fix that if it's true.

Yah. It looks like it doesn't support ATA133 IDE hard drives (odd, my nForce2 and current nForce3 board supported those). Not an issue if your existing drives are ATA100 and you want SATA drives if you want to upgrade further down the line. I personally would avoid this board and get an DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D if you don't want SLi.

[zAlbee]

I have no idea how old your case is, or if it supports the new standard, like ATX. Your BEST bet would be to get a new one. A 300W power supply is not enough for today's high end systems. You should have a 400W minimum. Although you should be able to change it in your case.
When buying a new case, if you must, you can also choose one without a PSU and get a good PSU on the side.
If by 'new standard' you mean like 8 years old ;). ATX has been around for a looong time. The new style is BTX form-factor but there aren't a lot of those (motherboards and cases) out. Your case should be fine. Just get a new, reliable powersupply from Enermax/Antec/etc -- don't buy a cheap no-name one. A good 350W brand-name PSU > no-name 450W PSU.

[bcrew1375]

Not really, but I'm pretty sure it supports any PCI-E device (only a few exist though, such as RAID/LAN cards which a mobo would generally have built-in).



Yah. It looks like it doesn't support ATA133 IDE hard drives (odd, my nForce2 and current nForce3 board supported those). Not an issue if your existing drives are ATA100 and you want SATA drives if you want to upgrade further down the line. I personally would avoid this board and get an DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D if you don't want SLi.

The main reason I was looking at this one was price, and I want at least 3 PCI slots. I wanted 4, but it looks like I'll have to go with 3. Here's the DFI page for it: http://us.dfi.com.tw/Product/xx_product_spec_details_r_us.jsp?PRODUCT _ID=3510&CATEGORY_TYPE=LP&SITE=US
It claims to support ATA133. I was worried about it not supporting older hard disks.

[Doomulation]

If by 'new standard' you mean like 8 years old ;). ATX has been around for a looong time. The new style is BTX form-factor but there aren't a lot of those (motherboards and cases) out. Your case should be fine. Just get a new, reliable powersupply from Enermax/Antec/etc -- don't buy a cheap no-name one. A good 350W brand-name PSU > no-name 450W PSU.
Indeed, but there is older than ATX and BTX has not really had a breakthrough yet.

[bcrew1375]

Can anyone recommend a cheap case that would go well with that board? Also, what kind of video card should I get? I was thinking of going with Nvidia.

[t0rek]

Any ATX case with a 350 or 400 Watts PSU will be fine. There a lot of case styles, so pick up one you like, it is a good idea to get one that has USB ports in front of it, or Firewire if you need them. A videocard... it should be ATI or nvidia based card, but the model depends upond your budgte and needs, because they range from, let's say $50 and $500

[redking15ca]

This is what im getting 'cuz all i have is $130 and it seams better than what i have now ( 5 year old 1.69ghz pentium 4)...

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1819509&CatId=1631

but the cache size makes me want to cry :( 533 FSB doesnt seam too horrible though....

[bcrew1375]

Hmm, having trouble deciding which case to get. I really don't want to buy something and find out I can't use it. I guess I'll just have to take a deep breath and choose one :(

[Doomulation]

It shouldn't be hard. As long as the case supports the standard that the motherboard uses (in this case, probably ATX), then it will do fine. You can also buy a PSU seperatly if you want to have a little control over that.
A good thing to note is also air circulation inside the case. A case with many fans is better than a case with few fans.

As for video cards... for nVidia, you would want something like Geforce 6600 GT or something like 7600. I think those are the current budget cards.

[bcrew1375]

Okay, right now I am set to get these three:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16811166015(Would get black, but they're out of stock :()
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813136160
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16819103562

Does anyone see any conflicts with these? Anything that might keep them from working together? I am probably going to get a video card from a local dealer.

[Flash]

Okay, right now I am set to get these three:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16811166015(Would get black, but they're out of stock :()

To tell you the truth, i don't like it. $90 for a case with mediocre PSU ? And it (PSU) sounds like jet fighter. :plain:

It's better to get this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811166005 (w/o PSU)

And this PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103932

Expensive, i know :) But it's the best PSU you can get.

[bcrew1375]

Does the brand of PSU affect anything aside from lifespan? I don't much like the idea of spending $200 on a case and PSU. I think $90 is bad enough. The case I have now only costed me $35 when I got it and it's still running strong with no power problems whatsoever. Would I actually even need a full case for the motherboard I linked?

[arnalion]

You don't need a fulltower. If the case supports ATX and the motherboard is ATX would there be no problem. Fulltowers are extremely big.

[bcrew1375]

Okay, I've placed my order. Hopefully everything will fit together nicely :). Thanks for all the suggestions. BTW, is eVGA a good video card manufacturer?

[Clements]

Definitely. eVGA is very good right now, especially if you can use their step up scheme.

[bcrew1375]

Good, that's who I decided to buy my video card from :).

[bcrew1375]

Got my parts yesterday. I put everything together, and turned it on. It powered on fine, all the fans were spinning, everything seems okay so far. I had planned on using the RAM from my desktop, which I thought used 2100. Unfortunately, I realized too late that I was thinking about my notebook, and my desktop actually had some much older RAM(but still 184 pins). So, I guess I'll have to go out and buy a stick or two tomorrow. Is K-Byte a good brand? I really wanted to use it tonight, but I'm just happy it didn't blow up in my face :). Let's see... I think this makes the 4th computer I've built, and I'm still a little shaky and over-cautious when putting them together :P.

[TerraPhantm]

How much are you willing to spend? I personally like TCCD based memory, because they tend to be able to get really high clocks for DDR 1. My sticks can go to about 330 before I start having ram related problems.

[bcrew1375]

Meh, I just bought a 1 gig stick of Kingston PC2700. Everything is up and running now. I had to reinstall Windows naturally, so I'm in the process of restoring everything. I have yet to push the system.

[Doomulation]

PC2700? Why? AMD systems can support PC3200, which is much better than PC2700 and Intel systems can support DDR2. A high memory speed is a good thing.

[bcrew1375]

Good question. I was in a rush when I bought it, and didn't really think about it. I wonder if I can return it? :/

[bcrew1375]

I've encountered my first problem. It's a sound card issue. I would use the onboard audio, but it's a Realtek AC97, and I've heard nothing but bad things about them, and it wouldn't work when I did try it. So, I made sure to disable it in the BIOS and I planned on using my old ESS Canyon 3D 2. It served me well with my old desktop. It plays sound, but every once in a while, the sound will skip. When I try playing videos, the videos will freeze for a second, then play through at a really fast speed, then play normal for a few seconds. I've installed the same drivers I used before. All of Windows settings are the same as last time I used the card. The only thing I figure could really be affecting it is the change in motherboard. The motherboard is DFI NF4-DAGF. So, I looked for some motherboard problems. I found something I hadn't heard of before. I heard that some motherboards need to have the PCI clock locked, though this should only change anything if you do any overclocking, which I haven't. For a while I was thinking it might be a IRQ conflict, but I'm not so sure anymore. I checked my PCI speed with ClockGen and it tells me it is 33.49. Though that is a very small amount, I'm wondering if it could be the cause of the problem, and if so, how can I fix it? BTW, I'm 99% certain this is a sound card issue because if I uninstall the card in Device Manager, videos play fine.

[Doomulation]

There is nothing wrong with onboard sound. Realtek AC97 isn't a bad sound card either. Those who say that either live in the past or are just plain stupid. I, myself, have a Realtek AC97 and my sound is just fine!

[bcrew1375]

Either way, I can't get it to play sound. :/

[Doomulation]

Basic troubleshooting: is it enabled in BIOS? Do you have correct drivers installed for the sound card on your motherboard? I hope other basic things such as volume is muted or turned down to minimum isn't there.

[bcrew1375]

No, believe me, I've checked all those things.

[bcrew1375]

Eh, screw it. I just bought a new sound card. That seems to have fixed the problem.

[BoggyB]

I've encountered my first problem. It's a sound card issue. I would use the onboard audio, but it's a Realtek AC97, and I've heard nothing but bad things about them, and it wouldn't work when I did try it. So, I made sure to disable it in the BIOS and I planned on using my old ESS Canyon 3D 2. It served me well with my old desktop. It plays sound, but every once in a while, the sound will skip. When I try playing videos, the videos will freeze for a second, then play through at a really fast speed, then play normal for a few seconds. I've installed the same drivers I used before. All of Windows settings are the same as last time I used the card. The only thing I figure could really be affecting it is the change in motherboard. The motherboard is DFI NF4-DAGF. So, I looked for some motherboard problems. I found something I hadn't heard of before. I heard that some motherboards need to have the PCI clock locked, though this should only change anything if you do any overclocking, which I haven't. For a while I was thinking it might be a IRQ conflict, but I'm not so sure anymore. I checked my PCI speed with ClockGen and it tells me it is 33.49. Though that is a very small amount, I'm wondering if it could be the cause of the problem, and if so, how can I fix it? BTW, I'm 99% certain this is a sound card issue because if I uninstall the card in Device Manager, videos play fine.

I had related problems at one time. In my case it turned out that the sound card (SB 4.1 Live) and the motherboard chipset (VIA KT133A/686B) just don't get along. If you're unlucky, that's the sort of situation you're in.

The PCI clock should be 33MHz, so 33.49 is close enough (the error's on the order of 1 or 2%, which can be put down to inaccuracies in measuring it). IRQ conflicts are unlikely in this day and age - the problems of multiple devices sharing one IRQ was solved many years ago. You could try changing the order of PCI cards in your case - as a rule of thumb you should avoid the first PCI slot as it generally shares resources with the AGP one. Your BIOS may list "INT pin assignments" or similar, which will show you which cards are sharing request lines (related to IRQs) - there can be as few as 4 and it can help to spread the cards out across them. You could also try changing the PCI Latency setting in the BIOS (if present), but I suggest you do more research before changing that as it can cause problems if you set it wrong.

*reads latest post*

Or you could do what I eventually did, which was to give up and stick a different sound card in :P