The Official PC building thread!

As a matter of fact, with X2s, the speed is irrelevant, only for single cores does that hold true.

AMD have always followed the philosophy of getting a high level of performance out of a low clockspeed, hence saving energy.

The Athlon64 3200+ runs at 2.0Ghz, but will be equivalent to a 3.0Ghz traditional P4 (Northwood) or a 3.4Ghz later P4 (Prescott). Since it runs at 2Ghz, while it's just as fast, it's cooler and better! If you want to know why, it's due to innovations such as on-chip memory controllers, more efficient architecture, and hypertransport, all technologies that Intel COULD use, but don't.

X2s are two of normal Athlon64s. the 3800 is two 3200s (so although it's rated 3.8, it can effectively be up to 6.4) mine's two 3500s, the 44 is two 3700s, 46 is two 3800s, the 48 is two 4000s, the FX-60 is two FX-55 (4300)s, and the FX-62 is two FX-57s (4700s).

 

Ok that makes sense. So Whats a good mother board processer combo?

 

Any AMD Athlon64 X2 with any Asus A8N-SLi Series. I use a 4200+ with the basic SE version, and they rock!

 

Ok so I need a mother board that supports AMD 3800 x2 and a nivida card.

What card do you recomend? I really like nvida.

 

emachine ,this one ,NVIDIA Geforce-7800 GTX KO ACS-3 Edition{per my sig) is a very nice card. if you cant swing that one price wise go with the 7600

 

Is the new 7900 better? I can get a 512 for 450 on tiger direct.

 

Is the AM2 better then 939?

 

it is definitly future proof.. but performance wise.. it is below the 939 because it is more mature than the AM2. but overall i would go with the card sammorris has: X1900XT ! The pixel shaders help it greatly.. and a nice little duel'e like a 3800....

like.. look at my system.. i have the 3700 which is a 2.2 that has 1 mg of cache.. and i gig of ram is a must.. which you need PC3200 ram if you did not know..

they have a sell on the X1900XT going on a newegg for oa 1900 it is 350.00 sorry sammorris.. (arm and a leg later)... but with you i would prob go with the AM2 that was, you are not spending THAT much more 10.00- 20.00 between the 939 and AM2.. + it keeps you future proof.. or you can save the xtra and jsut overclock it.. uping the frequency.. like myne was a 2.2 but i overclocked it to a 2.6 400mgz for free..


you can get a cheap 3800 single core for 150.00 and a nice ASUS for like 100.00 and 1 gig of ram 100.00 plus the video 350.00 and the case which you said you did not really care about.. solid built cheap ones are like 50.00 and a good power supply.. 70.00

so you are looking at like 150.00
100.00
100.00
350.00
50.00
75.00
825.00 and u can go from their.. i helped my friend build his.. so i hope i helped..

btw: the reason the Netburst architecture sucks so much, is because it is sooo ineficient.. so they add the clocks FREQUENCY to keep it (not tooo slow... ) so they were just going to gigahertz lead on amd's performance per clock..


Thanx Guys,
FIHSNERD

 

Nice lil mini guide! Thanks for the help! so I guess I'm waiting untill next month for the 3800x2 and im getting am2 so wat mother board is right for me?

 

that CPU will drop like the 25th of this month so 3 three weeks away.

the ASUS A8N32-SLI mobo are the ones to go with and the CORSAIR XMS for the memorey

 

I can't seem to find a mother board like that with am2?

 

the X1900XT's good (well, fantastic) but it's very expensive, unless you're after hardcore or serious futureproofing, you may want to go cheaper. 939 is better than AM2 at the moment as it is more experienced and has more technology out for it.

Go socket 939 with An Asus A8N-Sli series. The SE or premium are the better ones to have, the SE is good value and the Premium is well featured. For AM2, Asus make the M2N-SLi series, but considering how much they are for what you get, you want 939.

 

And is the 7900 512 better than the 7800?

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131013

How about that? I kinda of like the idea of the am2 so I can just put a more powerfull processer in. But the vid cards and ram all change so is it worth it?

 

yeah thats a good mobo. the 7900 is better because of the 512mb compared to the 256mb with the 7800 but theres very few games that will run with the 512mb and there more pricey .you wont notice a difference beween the cards with the naked eye

 

By the time you want a new processor, AM2 will also be dead and buried I should think. There's nowt to be gained by going AM2 at the moment, you may as well just get AM3 when it comes out later on. That mobo's $157 with delivery.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131524
this one's $118 and does just as good a job. Newegg don't sell the SE, but that is even better value. The 7900 is streets ahead of the 7800, but me, I like my X1900!

aabbccdd, there was a faster 512MB version of the 7800GTX, but for what it's worth you're better off with a cooler 7900GTX.

 

This has DDR 1 ram is that bad?

 

No it's expected, DDR1 and DDR2 have different slots so you need to choose by socket. DDR1 for 478,A,754, 939 and 940 and DDR2 for AM2 and 775. DDR1 is what my PC has and it's plenty good enough!

 

Cool so I'm actually saving money... And getting the better product! Thats what I like to hear! Now back to the graphix card. So 512 isn't the way to go?

 

It is, but not the 7800GTX version. 7900GTXs, X1800XTs and X1900XT/XT-Xs are a better use of 512MB of VRAM.