New system - advice...

M

mito

beyond noob
Veteran
Greetings dear friends.

I'm looking forward to buying a new system.

I'm abit outdated with regards to cpu technology. I'd like to go for an amd 64, but which one? 939, fx, 937??? My interest is for gaming (fear, q4, cod 2, etc.)

Another thing, is the bfg 7800gt 256mb a good card? In Canada I've seen it for approx. $450...

So, what motherboard and CPU should I be looking for?

Thanks again!!!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I'd be researching socket 939 motherboards. You can run an AMD Venice 3000+ thru an FX57 or a dual core on an awful lot of them, that way you could get a cheaper CPU now and upgrade down the road when the current top-enders become cheap.

I have one like that now with a Venice 3000+ in it at about 2.5Ghz that I love, but it's AGP so sort of useless to ya. (And I didn't plan it or know it supported FX & dual core, I just got lucky. :oops: )

Also, with the AMD64's make sure you get some good quality OCing ram...you'll need it to OC.
 
yeah the mistake i made last time (4 years ago) was betting a mboard at end of it's life cycle. nowhere to go for cpu upgrade. course i wasn't gaming at the time, so it wasn't much of a priority...ram and gpu upgrades got me through 4 years.

i'll probably go single core 64 with upgrade ability to dual core 64 when situations warrant.


based on folks running games today on seemingly heavyhitter systems, having trouble runing all bells and whistles, im wondering if it's possible to build a machine today that's capable of running everything enabled in games coming out in the next year or two.
 
Cartoon Corpse said:
based on folks running games today on seemingly heavyhitter systems, having trouble runing all bells and whistles, im wondering if it's possible to build a machine today that's capable of running everything enabled in games coming out in the next year or two.
Click to expand...
My prediction; next year yes, two years no. :)
 
DiGuru said:
Whatever you do: buy lots of RAM! 2GB is not too much.
Click to expand...
Highlighted for importance. We are now in the 2GB era. Don't pretend we are not.

A Ferrari without fuel gets beaten by Ford with gasoline in the tank every time. Every time. Every time. (echo echo echo)
 
Well, it would help if you provided an approximate price of what you are willing to spend. Since you're going A64 s939 is the only real option as it affords you a wide selection and long upgrade path.

I would personally recommend something like the 3200+, 3500+ or 3700+ and then overclock. You can get as much bang out of them this way as you would out of an FX while saving alot of money in the process. Make sure you get either a Venice or a San Diego core. The SD is basically a Venice with twice as much L2 cache.

On video, I would recommend the X1800 XL as it's about as fast as the 7800 GT with more features. It does cost more as well atm but the prices are dropping fairly rapidly and I suspect they will be at or near 7800 GT prices in another week or two. Of course I'm sure you'd be happy with the GT as well if you are not willing to wait.
 
I would advise a 939 board with the cheapest AMD Venice you can get. In general, you pay twice as much for a 10% speed improvement. The amount of RAM is a bigger factor in the overall speed of the system.
 
DiGuru said:
I would advise a 939 board with the cheapest AMD Venice you can get. In general, you pay twice as much for a 10% speed improvement. The amount of RAM is a bigger factor in the overall speed of the system.
Click to expand...
I agree. I got the 3000+ Venice after doing the math on the numbers and my lil 3000+ OCs as well as about any A64 I've been seeing. :)
 
Cartoon Corpse said:
would that board normally allow a dual core upgrade down the road?
Click to expand...
Who's, mine? Yup, dual core or FX...but it's AGP.

My X800 TT still has way too many legs in it for me to pass it down yet, she's still the pride of me fleet. :)
 
Is the following a good rig for gaming?

Pentium 4 630 (3Ghz, 2mb L2 cache, 800mhz fsb)
1gb shared dual channel ddr2
intel 945 motherboard
radeon x300
17" 1704FP Dell Ultra Sharp Flat Panel Display
price: canadian $1200
www.mdg.ca
Click to expand...

replace the x300 with a geforce 7800... Is the CPU poweful enough to handle the physics engine used in games nowadays?

Thanks again...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
It is probably fine for the price, I would not personally reccomend anything from Intel except for the pentium M currently.

I realize neither vendor is spectacular now, but it seems to me buying anything from Intel is shooting yourself in the foot (except on price grounds) b/c Intel themselves realize they went up a blind alley and everything will likely be changing dramatically in the near future making everything obsolete.

Of course the same could be said for AMD as they are going to change to socket M2 next spring/summer, but I think they have demonstrated greater stability recently in their CPU upgrade path.

Unless you plan to do lots of multimedia encoding there is no grounds besides price to make that decision.
 
2 GB RAM is probably a better idea than a 7800 or faster processor to get the most out of it. An 7800 instead of a cheaper one mostly allows higher resolutions and/or more AA.
 
if you got a 64bit AMD PCIe board (with PPU slot) and either SLI/crossfire...with say a single 256 or 512M ATI/NVIDIA card.

would you be in good shape for everything (upgradablewise) some in the next couple years?

eg vista comes out, you get 2 512M GPU cards with dx10 compat. and you're good to go

plus you go x2 on your 64 as the need arises.

has that covered the foreseeable bases?

(lol i can't even get newegg to find me a motherboard, when i just put in asus/abit and amd fx and no agp!)
 
i'll toss my vote into the "more ram is better" circle. having an obcine amount of memory (say 4GB) will probably outlast both your CPU and GPU purchase, especialy if you invest in something like an iRAM (or similar solid state storage device) down the road.
 
athlon x2 3800+ $340
ECS Nforce4-a939 $73
2GB Corsair $221
Radeon x1800 XL $440
Thermaltake 480w PSU $65

system kicks rear and it was pretty cheap upgrade IMHO for $1142
 
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