Did you every get your motherboard straightened out? If not... You're wasting it!!! (to be read in the exasperated Space Ghost voice at the thought of his cable being wasted) If so, how's it performing?
So, a patch came out for Quake IV today to take advantage of multiple cores. Performance boosts between 15% and 85% Wooooooot!!!! Going to give it a try when I get home. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
Admiral... [AMD Upgradin']
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spidermonkey
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enderzero
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I have suggested McNevin RMA the board to his parents and then it will be waiting for him when he arrives in a few weeks. Then hopefully I can buy the non-SLI one from him. Damn I need to figure out how to get me into an AMD. I'll have to get video too. oy...
Any HW floatin around in the near future? Bout time for an upgrade?
Any HW floatin around in the near future? Bout time for an upgrade?
No upgrades here. I'm set for a while. I have a gig of DDR-2 here, but that's not going to help in an AMD system. I could sell it to you for half price though, and you could turn it around for a bit more, and buy some 3200 with it or something.
For video, I recommend picking up one of the new 6800 GS cards. They have less pipelines than the 6800 GT, but they clock much higher, and have been outperforming the GTs in most instances. They are also only $200 each. SLI NF4 boards are VERY cheap too if you don't go for one of the deluxo-platinimium-90000-mkII models. You can pick up an MSI for $100. The processor is the place to spend a bit of extra cash on. I'm starting to see a lot more reasons for my dual core purchase. Grab an X2 3800+ and clock it at 2400-2500 and you're all set. Quake IV just got a huge boost from dual core, and other games are certain to follow. (especially because of all the consoles using multi-core) and also any game on the D3 engine will work with it now.
For video, I recommend picking up one of the new 6800 GS cards. They have less pipelines than the 6800 GT, but they clock much higher, and have been outperforming the GTs in most instances. They are also only $200 each. SLI NF4 boards are VERY cheap too if you don't go for one of the deluxo-platinimium-90000-mkII models. You can pick up an MSI for $100. The processor is the place to spend a bit of extra cash on. I'm starting to see a lot more reasons for my dual core purchase. Grab an X2 3800+ and clock it at 2400-2500 and you're all set. Quake IV just got a huge boost from dual core, and other games are certain to follow. (especially because of all the consoles using multi-core) and also any game on the D3 engine will work with it now.
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enderzero
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...so, wait for what? It sounds like DDR2 will make minimum impact and the chipset support will be identical. Upgradability? Phooey. I just bought new DDR and am fine with socket 939 fer a while (I mean as soon as I get it).As we already mentioned in our evaluation of ULi's M1697 chipset, there is no need for new chipsets for AM2, and it won't affect the chipset development of 3rd party manufacturers either. Basically, every core logic product that supports the current AMD64 processor family will also support the Socket AM2 generation, because the communication path between the processor and the system is HyperTransport.
For the time being, Nvidia's nForce4 will remain the dominant product in the Athlon 64 retail market, thanks to its broad feature set.
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McNevin
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Yeah, that’s pretty much what everyone is saying. Even with the addition of DDR2-800, the performance boost will be minor. Especially since DDR RAM is at an all time low right now.
It will possibly be worth switching once the 65-nanometer socket AM2 chips start coming out. Those are expected in the 2nd half of 2006.
Lots of cool things on the PC horizon this year.
It will possibly be worth switching once the 65-nanometer socket AM2 chips start coming out. Those are expected in the 2nd half of 2006.
Lots of cool things on the PC horizon this year.
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enderzero
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If we can all accept that AM2 is not the best idea for a new system (let alone the need to buy new RAM) - then what to do about a CPU...
Check out this Newegg CPU Comparison I whipped up.
6 CPUs between 2.0 and 2.4GHZ with an over $300 price gap between the $150 Venice 3800 (3.4GHz) and the $460 X2 Toledo 4400. Aside from showing just how versatile the Socket939 will be for years to come, this also means I can upgrade a bit sooner than I thought if I only have to spend $150 on a rather decent CPU.
Beeeph asked about it in the benchmarking thread - but what are current X2 thoughts like? Seems like there is plenty of room to upgrade as X2 939 price move on down.
Check out this Newegg CPU Comparison I whipped up.
6 CPUs between 2.0 and 2.4GHZ with an over $300 price gap between the $150 Venice 3800 (3.4GHz) and the $460 X2 Toledo 4400. Aside from showing just how versatile the Socket939 will be for years to come, this also means I can upgrade a bit sooner than I thought if I only have to spend $150 on a rather decent CPU.
Beeeph asked about it in the benchmarking thread - but what are current X2 thoughts like? Seems like there is plenty of room to upgrade as X2 939 price move on down.
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spidermonkey
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AM2 is pointless until the process shrink occurs. In the meantime, I have found the Opteron 170 to be the absolute best processor per dollar available. It's dual core, with 1MB L2 per core, has all the same SSE modes as the X2s, overclocks better and more consistently, and as I've found out, is just plain FAST. I HIGHLY recommend it. It sits right around the $300 mark. I've got mine clocked at 2500MHz with plenty of headroom. I actually had it running stable higher, but backed it down for a nice comfortable OC. It has zero problems feeding my X1900XT with enough data.enderzero wrote:If we can all accept that AM2 is not the best idea for a new system (let alone the need to buy new RAM) - then what to do about a CPU...
I've recently switched to an ATI based motherboard too. It's the A8R32-MVP Deluxe. This is an excellent board. The layout is perfect, it supports Crossfire, (if I ever get antsy for a graphics upgrade,) it's stable, has more OCing and tweaking settings than I've ever seen (though I've never used a modern DFI board,) and it looks cool.
I'm of the opinion that it's a cool thing to match your chipsets, so if you go with Nvidia for graphics, grab a nice NForce board. If you go ATI, get this board, or the DFI equivalent.-
enderzero
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Big price drops of AMD Procs. The 3800 I just bought only went down $10 at newegg - but the X2 3800 is down to $169. I might grab that X2 4200 when it drops below 2 bills. What is the Opeteron equiv. and what are the benefits you think it offers?
Not sure what the exact equivalent is, but you'll be looking at the 165, 170, 175. (The 170 seems to have had the best perf per $.) The only advantages are that they are much more consistent for overclocking (better yields,) and you get 1MB caches for a similar price to the 512K cache 3800 X2. I'm not sure if the latter is still true after the price drops though. When I bought mine the X2 3800+ was similarly priced to the 170 (give or take a little,) and I wanted the extra cache.
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McNevin
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Goodbye 1Meg Cache...
AMD has also confirmed that it will be phasing out its current Athlon 64 X2 models featuring 2x1MB of Level 2 cache...
The same thing will happen to the single-core Athlon 64 models that use a 1MB L2 cache...
The most obvious reason for this move is to lower manufacturing costs, as 2x1MB cores are more expensive to produce and deliver a lower yield per silicon wafer...
AMD has also confirmed that it will be phasing out its current Athlon 64 X2 models featuring 2x1MB of Level 2 cache...
The same thing will happen to the single-core Athlon 64 models that use a 1MB L2 cache...
The most obvious reason for this move is to lower manufacturing costs, as 2x1MB cores are more expensive to produce and deliver a lower yield per silicon wafer...