Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: aztec on March 08, 2005, 07:59:00 AM
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Can anyone help educate me on this issue? Thx, aztec.
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If you did a search you'd find a lot of discussion over this.
To put it short - A64 is far better.
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AH2 works great with an AMD64.
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amd64 with 939 pinset for future growth
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Athlon XP 3000 will run AH2 just fine and is a bit cheaper.
Athlon 64 is faster and more performance per price, get a Athlon 64 Winchester (Socket 939) when possible price wise. Still have to decide if AGP or PCIe.
Athlon64 will run WinXP 64bit AND the usuall WinXP (32bit). Not an issue at the moment, but if your the kind of guy that keeps a comp for 6 years might be an issue in 2 or 3 years. I have no ideas how WinXP 64bit will impact games and how stable it is as of now.
A socket 939 system is faster and might be upgradeable, however i think in 3 years it will be outdated, i rate the upgrate possibility as rather low. Still possible though and when your cpu dies for whatever reason outside of guarantee chances are good to buy a new one that fits. AMD already anounced a new socket for next year, stating 939 will live on for a while but the newest CPUs will require another socket with diffrent RAM. BTW probably the same for intel.
Socket A, for Athlon XP is in the last year of production, cheaper but no upgrade option and more important if your cpu blows up its hard to replace. On top of it i dont think there is a pci express board for Athlon XPs, so youll have to go with AGP graphics.
You also have to decide if you want a AGP graphics slot or PCI express. AGP is the old standart, still lots of boards around and at the moment more products to choose from. PCI express is the new standard and by the middle of next year (thats a guess, might be sooner or later) pretty few AGP cards will be sold. Performance wise there is next to no diffrence between agp and pci graphics cards at the moment.
Since most people will upgrade the graphics card after 2 years this is a problem. On the other side i expect a lot of people to sell their used high end agp graphic board when they get a pci express motherboard. So it might be worth it, when your low on money to try get a AGP board and a used card.
So when you are a tech freak and want the newest definetly get a Athlon64. If you want best performance for the money get Athlon64, same if you want to be save and maybe upgrade some time. Still have to decide if AGP or PCI.
When you really want a budget system maybe athlonXP can get you a good deal somewhere.
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XP - speeds to 3400+, temps to 45C, at end of production line.
A64 - speeds to 4000+, temps in the 30's, currently in production.
Oh, and with an A64 the integrated northbridge provides a 7 - 15% boost. These A64's are arguably the best processors AMD
has ever made.
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Im waiting on my fat IRS check to come back. Gonna build me an AMD 64 system. Someone mentioned there is Win XP 64 bit? Never heard of that..is it out now?
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RC2 of XP64 is available from Microsoft free of charge. Lasts 365 days.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/evaluation/upgrade.mspx
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XP64 ran fine on my system, though I saw frame rates 60% of XP. This is due to immature drivers and RC2, plus 32bit emulation of the game engine.
Big issue is driver support for peripherals. Although many peripherals will work, some may not. Take my Nostromo N52 as an example. Furthermore, I called Belkin and they have no plans to create drivers for 64bit support. Maybe in a year or two will we see industry wide support for 64bit, but not now. Absolutely no point on installing XP64bit unless just for kicks.
In either case, can't go wrong with an AMD64 - - - UNLESS you plan to multitask heavily (surf the net, while defragging, and ripping a cd, and video editing). Then only a P4 will do.
OH. . . and there ARE PCI-E boards out now for the 939socket AMD's. Have been for a few months now. The Asus A8V-E Deluxe is a good example.
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As long as you aren't adding any little known cards or peripherals 64 bit dirvers for just about all major manufacturers are available.
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Well thx for all the replies, help and advice folks....have decided on the 64 and it should be here soon. Great thing about this place...someone always willing to help w/most anything.
! aztec:)
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Oh, you also may want to do what Im going to buy. Gonna get a board with SLI (allows two video cards in tandem). Only going to use one video card for now, but it gives you a great way of doing a cheap performance upgrade down the line instead of purchasing a whole new system in a couple years.