The Official PC building thread!

What makes a Socket 939 so much better than a socket 754?? I've noticed looking at MoboProcessor combo's the 939's start about $50 higher, and I'm having difficulty finding a 939 MOBO with AGP?? I know PCI 16x is "the latest, but comeon... just adandon our good ole AGP slot??
I found one.. For $400.. is a dual core, but still way beyond my price range.. The one I think I'm set on is $189.00

 

Abit 3rdeye is an AGP 939 mobo and quite cheap.

Socket 754 only supports old A64s and semprons, exclusively semprons from now on. S939 supports new processor designs, and allows for FX and dual core processors to be used, not to mentiom the faster graphics interface. Graphics cards are much cheaper for PCI express as well.

 

I am constructing a computer in the range of $900-1000. This is what I plan on buying.

I am building a new pc and need to know what type of psu I will need. I currently have a Antec Smartpower 2.0 350w ATX12V v2.0. Will this be sufficient for what I am building?

Processor: AMD 64 4000+
Mobo: ABIT KN8 Ultra Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD

HDD: Maxtor DiamondMax 10 6V250F0 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

GPU: Radeon X800 XL DVD Edition 256MB PCIE

RAM: DDR400 - 1gb

Thankx

 

Personally I think you'd be better off with an X2 3800+ instead. It'll really take over when dual core apps become widespread. With total dual core optimisation you'll be looking at a 6400+. Everything else is pretty good, but you'll need to up your PSU. Look for an Antec Smartpower 480W that should suffice.

 

I found a decent 939 MOBO, an Abit UL8 Uli M1689 Athlon 64(FX) Skt939 DDR ATX Motherboard, but I'm interested in PCI express, I just bought a brand new AGP video card that I am putting in my new computer, but I would like to be able to "expand" to PCI express later without swapping MOBO's... Does anyone know of a MOBO that has both AGP 8x, and PCI 16X???
And on this mobo that I picked out, will I be able to upgrade my processor at a leater date without swapping mobo's if the processor is a 939??
Oh and this is my new comp, $525.34, free shipping.
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB Serial ATA II 7200RPM Hard Drive w/16MB Buffer 1 $96.00
Logisys CS602SL Dracula Mid Tower Case w/Special Designed Arcylic LED Lit-Up Window (Silver) 1 $80.00
Logitech Cordless Click! Optical Mouse Retail 1 $23.00
Logitech Office Pro Keyboard (Sea Gray) 1 $13.99
Abit UL8 Uli M1689 Athlon 64(FX) Skt939 DDR ATX Motherboard w/Audio, LAN, RAID/Serial 1 $69.75
Corsair VS1GB400C3 1GB DDR400 PC3200 CAS3 Value Select Memory Retail 1 $66.60
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Processor (Winchester) Socket 939 Retail 1 $176.00

 

The only mobos I believe that will do that are the ASRock Dual SATA 2 boards, and they're not the best in the world. Ideally you should try and sell the AGP card and buy a PCI express version. Oh and if you do, go K8N Ultra, not UL8, that's not a very good chipset and hence not a very good board. Good manufacturer but poor chipset. The K8N ultra is much better since it uses the nForce4 chipset.
You'd be surprised how much second hand PC stuff makes on ebay, especially if its still new. A friend of mine managed to sell a two year old Athlon XP 2000+ for nearly the same price he bought it for.

 

Yea I found a Biostar K8T890-A9 Via K8T890 Athlon 64(FX)/Sempron Skt939 DDR ATX Motherbaord w/Audio, LAN, RAID/Serial ATA Retail, that has PCI 16x, and Biostar's XGP, which I don't knw if I trust, the spec page http://www.biostar-usa.com/mbdetails.asp?model=k8t890-a9 says

I think it's the "limited" AGP graphics card support that kinda makes me squirm. I wouldn't mind buying a PCI 16x graphics card, but I JUST bought my new card like 3 weeks ago! The only reason I had gone with the UL8 instead of the K8N, is the AGP support, apparently the new NVIDIA chipsets don't support AGP8X. I'm just overwhelmed right now, I can't get what I want unless I step down to an "old" board, or step up to a crazy expensive board.. HMMMM..

 

Seriously if you're cards under a month old,you should be able to get AT LEAST 80% of the money back by selling it. It does happen. If you can temporarily overdraw somewhat, buy a PCIe version of the card you have (or better) and then sell the AGP version. The list of cards that that board works with is very limited, and notably most of them are old It's probably a 4x slot as well.

 

Is it worth the extra money for the X2 4400?

 

It's up to you. If you want to squeeze a bit more performance out of a stock CPU then yes, but really, the 4200 is a better value chip. Whilst it's not quite as fast, there's very little difference.

 

Alright, this is a noob questions but does dual core mean that there is two cpus running a 2.0Ghz(raw total of 4.0Ghz) or that the two cores add up to combined speed of 2.0Ghz. Also is it possible to overclock the X2 4200+?

If I would OC the 4200, what memory/motherboard would you suggest?

 

2x2.0Ghz = essentially 4.0Ghz, when dual core optimisatiions are fully in place, at the moment it'll act like a 2.4Ghz on average, some programs more, others less. But you can be sure that as more dual core programs and games appear, that CPU will take off with its performance. Who'd have thought a CPU would get faster with age!

The 4200 is one of those CPUs that could have been a 4600, but AMD weren't happy with it, so they decided to drop the speed and label it 4200. The good news for this means it should be very overclockable. You should be able to reach about 2.5Ghz with that, if not more.

A very good mobo for 939 all-round is an Asus A8N-SLi premium, it's about the best you can buy. As for RAM, go for something like Corsair XMS3200 or OCZ Platinum, it's good for overclocking. Above the 3200 speeds you do technically have more overclocking potential but it's rare to find higher speed low latency memory, so by making one thing faster, you'd make another thing slower. Stick with CAS 2 Latency PC3200 (400mhz) RAM and go reputable like the brands I've mentioned.

 

Dual core just caught my eye, I can get a X2 3800+ for $295, the processor that I had been set on, $206 In my sig, runs at 2.2. So is it really worth the extra 90 bucks?? I'm not a massive PC gamer, I backup DVD's, capture DV from my digital camcorder, and HD scan and print alot. Will it be any use to me??

 

If you often make DVD images, dual core will help. Bear in mind that with full optimisation the 3800+ is going to effectively be 4Ghz.

 

That helps, My new computer just keeps getting more and more expensive, I started out going to buy a MOBO/CPU combo for $188.99, it was a Gigabyte K8U ULi Socket 754 ATX Motherboard and an AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 2.0GHz OEM Processor, then I started researching 939's and realized I had much more of an option to upgrade.. well my eyes kept getting bigger, and now I'm at a $206 CPU, and a $70 mobo, but I also have to get a new video card, because all the new nForce chipsets have PCI 16x and not AGP8x, that costs me $65, I stayed cheap with eVGA. And now I think I might get that X2 3800+, @ $295... I have to just stop looking... I get my check on Monday... I have to make it to Monday without adding/changing anything... I went from a $400 system, to a $700 system just being greedy..

I went on and "teased" myself with a dream system, FX60 CPU, 6 Raptors, a PNY Quadro FX 4500 PCI Express 512MB DDR3 Memory w/Dual DVI ($1729.00 video card, who would pay that???) 6 GBs RAM, the whole works.. came up to about 9 grand. Crazy.

 

Yep, crazy is exactly what it is, because not only is it only twice as powerful as a machine a tenth of the cost but its also completely unnecessary.

 

Which GPU is better, the Radeon® X800 Pro PCI Express® 256MB or the X800 XL DVD Edition PCIE 256MB?

 

The X800XL, loathed though I am to say it, is a newer card, and should perform better than the Pro.

 

On Ram Timing, what does it stand for and what is the difference between 2-3-3-6 and 2-3-2-5?

Thanks for your help

 

http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/fma/P4tweakRAM2.htm

That should answer all your questions, I'm too lazy to type it all out myself...

What I will say however, is that with all of them, LOWER IS BETTER.