Socket 939 - When?

[Helevitia]

I know it is soon, but I am itching to upgrade my system and I am trying to find out when exactly. Anybody know when the NDA is lifted? Are we still months away? Weeks? Days? What about the new CPUs from AMD? Is BTX part of the equation when these new mobo's come out or is BTX still towards the end of the year? Thanks in advance to whomever might know the answers to my questions.

Dave

 

[Gnep]

Hey Dave - I was literally just now thinking of posting the exact same question over at MURC Would ideally like to build a new system around socket 939 and PCI Express... but if it's going to be > 6 months then might spend some money on the current rig instead.

Gnep

 

[PatrickL]

Last time i checked, 939 was due 25 may. But i don t really follow that.

 

[Helevitia]

BTW, how likely am I to have a system with the following by end of summer?

A64(FX55 or 3600+)
BTX Mobo(939-pin)
BTX Case
PCIE Radeon X800 XT PE
2GB DDR(DDR2?)
Dual Layer DVD Burner(atleast 8x)
2 x 74GB WD Raptors

What else should I add? I want to make this the badest system available when it comes out.

 

[Helevitia]

Hey Dave - I was literally just now thinking of posting the exact same question over at MURC Would ideally like to build a new system around socket 939 and PCI Express... but if it's going to be > 6 months then might spend some money on the current rig instead.

Gnep

Hey Gnep!

I don't think it is going to be 6 months, but I just want to make sure. I am currently running a 2000+ 266FSB. With the 9700 Pro and Farcry, I am really starting to see it slowdown. It lasted for 2 years so I think I can wait a little while longer

 

[Helevitia]

Last time i checked, 939 was due 25 may. But i don t really follow that.

Thanks Patrick! If that is true, then I am a happy camper. Are both the mobos and CPU's coming out at the same time?

 

[incurable]

BTW, how likely am I to have a system with the following by end of summer?

A64(FX55 or 3600+)
BTX Mobo(939-pin)
BTX Case
PCIE Radeon X800 XT PE
2GB DDR(DDR2?)
Dual Layer DVD Burner(atleast 8x)
2 x 74GB WD Raptors

What else should I add? I want to make this the badest system available when it comes out.

Very unlikely, I don't think we'll see many BTX designs in the market this year, let alone this summer.

The first batch of Socket 939 designs are still ATX, and employ AGP slots. I'd be surprised to see S939/PEG boards available before Aug/Sep.

cu

incurable

 

[mczak]

BTW, how likely am I to have a system with the following by end of summer?

A64(FX55 or 3600+)
BTX Mobo(939-pin)
BTX Case
PCIE Radeon X800 XT PE
2GB DDR(DDR2?)
Dual Layer DVD Burner(atleast 8x)
2 x 74GB WD Raptors

What else should I add? I want to make this the badest system available when it comes out.

Forget DDR2, AMD will not integrate a DDR2 interface before it's reaching 667Mhz and is a lot cheaper (sometime next year) - that's official. And chances are a 3600+ will not be available in socket 939 format, latest rumours say the 2.4Ghz A64 will have name 3700+. And the DVD dual layer burner will likely not be able to burn dual layer DVDs at 8x speed, the early dual layer burners will burn 8x but only single layer, restricted to 2.4x for dual layer. I have some doubts about socket 939 btx boards too, AMD isn't exactly pushing that standard - might need some more time.
You will likely have to pay a hefty "early adopter tax" for some of the items though, but if you want to have the most powerful system, you could also upgrade the ram to 4GB (4x1GB) as well .

 

[Tahir2]

I thought DDR2 will come when 533MHz is available and not 667MHz.

Also AMD have stated their thermal projections for Opteron mean there is no need for BTX at all with this generation so I would think that means there will be no BTX format until K9 (dual core Opteron).

Market trends may of course vary your mileage

 

[Tim]

BTW, how likely am I to have a system with the following by end of summer?

A64(FX55 or 3600+)

You won't have a 3600+, you might have a 3500+ or 3800+ thou. If you rich you might have a FX55.

BTX Mobo(939-pin)
BTX Case

No chance. AMD based motherboards will stay at ATX for some time after Intels transsition.

PCIE Radeon X800 XT PE

You might have a X880 XT PE (the PCI-Express version is named 880 not 800).

2GB DDR(DDR2?)

No DDR2 from AMD this year.

Dual Layer DVD Burner(atleast 8x)

The first dual layer burners might be availeble but you will not be able to burn dual layer disks at 8x.

2 x 74GB WD Raptors

Sure, why not.

What else should I add? I want to make this the badest system available when it comes out.

Raid 5

Edit misplaced [/quote]

 

[Helevitia]

Thanks for all of your input.

Revised system:

A64 3700/3800/FX-xx or whatever is the best bang for the buck in the high end.
ATX MOBO w/ or w/o PCIE
2GB DDR(what speed will I need?)
Dual Layer DVD
Radeon X800 or X880 depending on benchmarks and if it really matters.

Do they have RAID 5 for SATA?

What about SATA DVD and CD burners?

 

[Tahir2]

3700+ scheduled for June (its an A64 S754 as well)....leaked by Time Computers by accident IIRC.

 

[ninelven]

edited

 

[incurable]

I thought DDR2 will come when 533MHz is available and not 667MHz.

Not on the AMD side of things, I think they even went as far and stated publically that the 90nm shrink wont support DDR2 either. (until sometimes in '05, IIRC)

Also AMD have stated their thermal projections for Opteron mean there is no need for BTX at all with this generation so I would think that means there will be no BTX format until K9 (dual core Opteron).

dual core K8 != K9

cu

incurable

 

[incurable]

Do they have RAID 5 for SATA?

AFAIK, there are no native SATA, hardware-accelerated XOR, RAID 5 cards available yet. (some using PATA-SATA bridges are, though)

cu

incurable

 

[mczak]

I thought DDR2 will come when 533MHz is available and not 667MHz.

I got that from here:
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=2006

Also AMD have stated their thermal projections for Opteron mean there is no need for BTX at all with this generation so I would think that means there will be no BTX format until K9 (dual core Opteron).

Even if AMD thinks it's not needed, board makers could still easily produce btx boards.

Market trends may of course vary your mileage

I would expect that A64-based BTX boards will only be available after a significant amount of the PC market already uses it, the early adopter tax is gone and BTX cases cost about the same as ATX cases. No idea on the timeframe though...

Of course, this also means that for full buzzword-compliance by the end of summer or even end of year (ddr2, PCI-E, BTX) you need to go the intel route - you'd even get a nice heater (with REAL 3600MHz!) included in the package too .

 

[Sxotty]

The promise cards use a bridge? I did not know that kinda lame.

 

[Tahir2]

dual core K8 != K9

Yep. I know that
Unlikely it will be BTX either unless BTX becomes the de facto standard and motherboard manufacturers, OEM's put pressure on AMD to go BTX (me thinks this is unlikely but you never know).

BTX on K8 is a definite no-no at this time though.

I didn't realise AMD were looking beyond 533MHz DDR2 before commiting to the standard. As it stands DDR2 looks late and erm late and hmm late and absolutely pointless at 400MHz, so yea AMD definitely made the right decision as far as support for DDR2 goes.

 

[Gnep]

25th May according to The Register, but only in limited quantities until late 2004:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/25/amd_socket_939_chip_launch/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/05/amd_90nm/

Gnep

 

[Thowllly]

Unlikely it will be BTX either unless BTX becomes the de facto standard and motherboard manufacturers, OEM's put pressure on AMD to go BTX (me thinks this is unlikely but you never know).

BTX on K8 is a definite no-no at this time though.

Motherboard manufacturers can start making K8 BTX motherboards anytime they like, they do not need AMDs permission or support to do that. (Unless AMD went to court to stop them or something, but why would they do that?)