Author Topic: Tell Karnak why his likely upgrade path is right/wrong  (Read 1135 times)

Offline Karnak

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Tell Karnak why his likely upgrade path is right/wrong
« on: September 16, 2004, 06:09:01 PM »
OK, I am seriously thinking of upgrading soon.

Here is what I am looking at:

(1) AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 512K (939)          $339.00  $339.00          

(1) MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum Audio/GB-LAN/USB/IEEE/SATA/DDR-400/ATX 64 (939)          $141.00  $141.00  

(2) 512 MB DDR (400) PC-3200 Corsair w/Heatsink (CMX512 3200C2PT)          $113.00  $226.00  

(1) Thermaltake AMD K8 Venus 7+ Highest Performance Cooler for AMD Opteron  

Total: $726.00 as of 09/16/04

I have not decided on which 256mb video card to go with.


The motherboard is a nVidia nForce3.  I will not touch Via ever again.


Opinions?
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Offline Staga

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Tell Karnak why his likely upgrade path is right/wrong
« Reply #1 on: September 16, 2004, 06:55:11 PM »
Looks quite sweet setup. Look out for different CPU-coolers; This would be my choice if I'd decide to quit using water for CPU cooling.

Offline eagl

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« Reply #2 on: September 16, 2004, 07:28:50 PM »
Nvidia 6800GT seems to offers good bang for the buck if you're looking for a premium card.  The plain 6800 also seems to be decent and I've read reviews where a plain 6800 got great results in doom3 even though it is crippled compared to the 6800GT and ultra.  Where the sweet spot is between ATI and Nvidia seems to depend on which game you look at, but the 6800GT may be sitting in a good place.  The nvidia 6600 series is also filling a price-performance gap where it's competing directly against ATI's previous generation cards, and ATI just can't keep up in that price range (around $200).

Check the old reviews at http://www.hardocp.com for extensive real-world benchmarking efforts that compare image quality and playability in addition to raw framerates, including using microsoft flightsim for one test.  They seem really pleased with Nvidia's latest offerings after just drooling over ATI cards only a few months ago.

newegg.com has the nvidia 6800GT in stock for well under $400 so shop around.
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Offline jetb123

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Tell Karnak why his likely upgrade path is right/wrong
« Reply #3 on: September 16, 2004, 08:00:02 PM »
wathc out for that MSI they are picky about ram. Got to MSI check out the forums. They tell which ram will work and ram that doesnt work.

Offline qts

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Tell Karnak why his likely upgrade path is right/wrong
« Reply #4 on: September 17, 2004, 02:39:06 AM »
Is that motherboard capable of supporting SLI?

Offline acetnt367th

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Tell Karnak why his likely upgrade path is right/wrong
« Reply #5 on: September 17, 2004, 09:11:40 AM »
Make sure you have a good power supply - 400W plus

Offline Karnak

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« Reply #6 on: September 17, 2004, 10:16:02 AM »
Thanks for the tips guys.

jetb123,

Hmmm.  I've never had any trouble with MSI and memory, b ut I'll see what I can find out.

qts,

Probably.  It is the top of the line nVidia chipset right now.  I don't plan on doing SLI though.  I'm more concerned with the garbage fake onboard RAID that every modern MB seems to have on it.  It interfers with the actual, real SCSI RAID that I use.

acetnt367th,

I do.  400W or 450W.  Can't recall which off hand.
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Offline Balsy

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Tell Karnak why his likely upgrade path is right/wrong
« Reply #7 on: September 17, 2004, 01:29:38 PM »
Karnak,

Wet your hand, stick it in the box near the power supply.  If you hair smokes, but doesnt burn its 400watts.  If its 450.... well... dont plan a trip to the barber anytime soon.

Balsy

Offline Skyman

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Tell Karnak why his likely upgrade path is right/wrong
« Reply #8 on: September 17, 2004, 01:29:46 PM »
hiyas karnak

i have just put my system together and it has

1/amd athlon 64 3500 (939)

2/ msi k8n neo platinum 7.1 sound/sata/dual lan/etc etc

3/ 2 x 512 333hz ram (no brand name)

4/ 200 gig maxtor sata drive

5/ msi geforce 5900 256 ram

6/ msi dvd +- rewriter

7/ 400watt jarltech psu

just to give ya a idea this system runs AH2 at 29fps with full detail both on AA and AS and ingame settings at full (in tower)

one word of warning when i treid to do a clean install of xp.
The driver disk that comes with the board gave me probs when trying to load the sata drivers after hitting f6 in the first setup routine.
it looks like the disk is missing the txtsetup.oem file what i did was to make my own boot disk up on my other pc to get round it apart from that the install went flawlessly

ive zero probs and its been 2 weeks now theres 1 bios update and a few software updates since the board was released

hope this helps

Offline Karnak

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Tell Karnak why his likely upgrade path is right/wrong
« Reply #9 on: September 17, 2004, 02:08:26 PM »
Skyman,

Thanks, but XP supports my RAID card and I never use the drivers that come with motherboards or video cards.  I always use the chipset manufacturer's drivers.


You should be getting much better framerates.  My AlthlonXP 1800+ and GeForce4 4600 get better than yours.
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Offline oboe

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Tell Karnak why his likely upgrade path is right/wrong
« Reply #10 on: September 17, 2004, 02:16:04 PM »
Karnak,

You might want to think about upping to 1 Gb RAM.    I did recently and was surpised at the noticeable speed difference in general, not just AH.

Sounds like a great system though.

Offline Karnak

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Tell Karnak why his likely upgrade path is right/wrong
« Reply #11 on: September 17, 2004, 02:34:06 PM »
Oboe,

Yup. 1 gig is the plan.  Notice the "(2)" next to the memory line and the price doubling.
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Offline ChasR

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« Reply #12 on: September 18, 2004, 12:23:49 AM »
Acording to Anandtech, you should go with Crucial Balistic PC3200 or OCZ 3500EB or 3700EB.  To quote them:

"The overall best Athlon 64 performance that we have found was with Crucial Ballistix PC3200, and our alternative, OCZ 3700EB/3500EB. These two memories perform just as well on Intel DDR systems, but they stand alone in performing the same on the pickier Athlon 64 Socket 939 boards.
When Corsair 3200XL roared on the scene in May with a return of 2-2-2 timings to DDR400, we had no idea it was just the start of DDR400 2-2-2 from all the major memory makers. As you saw in our roundup of the new 2-2-2 memories, all of the new DDR400 2-2-2 performed well on the Intel test bed and all, but one, used Samsung memory chips. The exception was Crucial Ballistix, which used Micron memory chips and earned our Gold Editors Choice for best performance. Ballistix was also the only 2-2-2 memory tested in the roundup that performed just as well on Athlon 64 as it did on Intel, so it is a great match to the MSI K8N Neo2.

Crucial Ballistix also extends performance all the way to DDR500, with our test memory achieving the fastest timings that we have tested so far at DDR500. This will give you incredible headroom when you select this memory for your system. "

Offline Kev367th

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Tell Karnak why his likely upgrade path is right/wrong
« Reply #13 on: September 18, 2004, 06:19:18 AM »
DDR400 is all he needs.
I use Corsair TwinX LL memory because they are CAS2 and guarenteed to work at DDR400 as a pair.

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Offline ChasR

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Tell Karnak why his likely upgrade path is right/wrong
« Reply #14 on: September 18, 2004, 11:38:03 AM »
Kev,
Crucial Balistix is PC3200 (DDR400).  The real point is socket compatibility since, 939 is known to be picky.  The Micron based memory (used in Balistix and OCZ EB) is better suited to the socket 939 boards than Samsung based memory for whatever reason.  At $280/GB, Bailstix is nowhere near as pricey as the OCZ stuff.