DescentBB

Well, I am sure I've asked this before but as time has passed on and technology is beginning to once again change.... I have to ask a second time on this one:



Should I go AM2 or 939? Let's think with a little bit of strategy here.



How is technology going to change 1.5 to even 2 years from now? We are now on the verge of the powerful GeForce 8 series. Right now they consume too much power and run far too hot, not to mention they cost a vast ammount more than other cards. The biggest feature is the capability to function with DX10, another new technology in the works. However, if you look at the GeForce 7 series and read the complaints about it, you will find that cards dating back to that series run far too hot, causing the on-board memory to fry. Just RMA it? RMA and receive another card that malfunctions. This is why it is wise to skip this generation. At least until mid-G80 cards. But how far off is this? Probably 1.5 to 2 years I'm guessing before the mid-generation cards drop down enough for me to purchase. Thus, why I am thinking that it is best to purchase a GeForce 7600GT for $109 and then purchase a 7950GT when it drops to the same price. Though the question there will be stability. if I purchase the 7600GT from Newegg and it is defective, can I refund it and invest a little more to up it to a 7950GT?

But back to the AM2 vs. 939 socket issue...

From what I have read, AM2 is supposedly compatible with AM3. This seems to be the only plausible reason to take an AM2 board over a 939 at this point. AM2 boards, from the reviews I have read, tend to be very unstable. Supposedly AM2 was designed for DDR2 RAM which was supposed to be faster and cheaper but ended up being a bit slower and more expensive, being that to get an X2 processor for an AM2 board, the AM2 board will require the most expensive RAM you can get. The other point is that we don't even know if AM3 will end up being more trouble than it is worth when installing it on an AM2 board. But, putting off a new system, while using an almost dead system that is phased out for another year and a half to even two years, is a bit of an annoyance when I have already waited a year for this. I will also be making a LOT more money within a year and a half to two years.

So on one hand, I could get an AM2 but run the risk of having an unstable board and pay more for it, but end up with faster RAM and \"possibly\" be able to add an AM3 processor and DDR3 RAM to the board down the road and save money, or I could just plan to get a cheaper 939 system with less features but upgrade it again to a newer system in a year or two.


The question is, is an AM2 system worth the risk and how stable is it?

M,

Socket 939 is not supported anymore. AMD will cease s939 CPU production by the end of the year. It is already difficult (here in Germany) to get good s939 motherboards.

AM2 supports DDR2 RAM and is the way to go if you are determined to stick with AMD.

If you are however going to get new hardware, do yourself a favor and get an Intel Core Duo system. They are not (significantly) more expensive than AMD systems, and they leave Athlons in the dust.

Whether you go Intel or AMD, you will have to purchase new RAM anyway, as the AM2 and Core Duo boards usually do not support DDR RAM. You will need DDR2.

DDR2 was rather slow in the beginning, but meanwhile the technology has matured and DDR2 is taking off speed-wise.

If you can afford it to wait for another year, you will be able to get a PCI Express 2 board and a quad core CPU, plus eventually benefit from lower RAM prices.

You will also have a greater choice among DX10 hardware in 6 or 12 months from now. ATIs R600 architecture sure looks promising and is even more powerful than the GF 8800, judging from some previews I have read. In a year, there will even be 2nd generation DX10 silicon available.

As I have a lot of DDR RAM, I went the route of getting a s939 PCIe board (I was lucky to get a really good ASUS Crossfire mobo) and a s939 X2 AMD CPU (I got a CPU with 1 MB cache per core). That will do for at least another two years for me (maybe longer), and saved me the cost of new RAM. As this technology is deemed to die out, I got it for pretty good prices. Currently, there is hardly any software making use of multiple cores anyway (apart from the OS). HL2 will support it, but the release date has been pushed back. The bigger cache per core will give me some speed boost anyway. The PCIe board is halfway future proof in regard of gfx hardware. 2 GB of DDR RAM might prove faster than let's say 1 GB of DDR2 (at least in my personal, memory intensive use cases).

So that's what you could also do too to bridge the time until PC technology makes another big leap forward.

Hmmmm, so DDR2 speeds have actually improved? I remember reading about the fact that they were slightly slower than DDR1. Of course, that was when they first came out too. The Core Duo is pretty expensive right now. The only way I can afford such an upgrade is to go X2 as they run cheap and fairly decent right now. My figures show about $1500 with all the perks if I go with an AM2 X2 system right now. Just over $1000 if I go a bit lower. But this is with a really nice case that I can re-use down the road, an LCD monitor and a battery backup. I can't afford to spend $2000 to $3000 on a PC. My car costs about $1500. However, I do have a better job right now.


My current PC is falling apart at the seams and it has been so for a year now and it is only getting worse every single day. I am currently on an Athlon 2000+, GeForce 4 Ti4200 128MB card with a dead fan, 512MB of RAM on an MSI motherboard with one dead memory slot.



In the shop here, we sell plenty of 939 machines for about $400-$500.


As for the AM2 boards being so much more well supported, I've been watching newegg and I still can't see one board that I am fully satisfied with purchasing. They all look pretty unreliable other than ASUS.


But, I also have to consider that I don't buy top-end gear as it is overpriced. I buy mid-ranged generally. So, even though AM3's will be out late 2007 to possibly 2008, I may be waiting a half a year to a year after that for the prices to drop enough to make them affordable.


Right now, I can't even run Blender with mid-poly models without it flaking out on me. It barely handles D3.

I don't know about your prices, but I got an Athlon X2 4400 for 250 Euros, ASUS A8R32 MVP Deluxe for 120 Euros, Sapphire X1900 XT for 240 Euros, Audigy X-Fi (bulk) for 100 Euros, Tagan Easyconn PCIe 430W PSU for 70 Euros, kept all my other stuff. All in all that's 780 Euros (WHAT? 780?! Ack - that was way more than I wanted to spend ... ). The stuff I replaced is pretty good though (you'd probably be happy to have it ), so I can sell it for a good price.

There's a new gamer's case (dubbed 'Nine Hundred') from Antec which looks pretty good to me (110 Euros). DVD ROMs are really cheap now (20 Euros), HDs too (Samsung S-ATA 2, 300 GB ~100 Euros). 1 GB of quality DDR (1 or 2) RAM is about 130 Euros here.

That's about 1150 Euros for a good system.

I am still using a 19\" CRT, which is very good quality though (Sony flat black Trinitron), and I also have a good sound system + headphones, keyboard and mouse, so that's something I will not have to replace all too soon.

I'd have to pay another 300 Euros for a quality, gaming-proof 19\" TFT.

Btw, I wouldn't go for another mobo brand than ASUS (imo good price/performance ratio) or DFI (insanely expensive).

I could sell you a system with a good case (Arctic Cooling Silentium T2), ASUS A8N deluxe mobo (WiFi, GB LAN, 8xUSB, Firewire, etc. etc.), Athlon XP 3500+ s939, 1 GB of RAM (PC3200), 160 GB HD, DVD ROM, Radeon 9800 pro gfx for 550 Euros, OpenSUSE 10.1 installed ... but unfortunately you do not exactly live right around the corner ...

the performance difference between a s939 and a AM2 chip of the same speed is negligible.

But you do get several other benefits, like hardware virtualzation support, and better energy savings.

having a good grasp of the memory timings for your modules would be a good first step with A64 chips.

AMD Athlon AM2 X2 2.2GHz 4200+ runs about: $182
The 4600+ 2.4GHz is about $266.99


Intel Core 2 Duo T5600 Merom 1.83GHz Socket M: $241.99

Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe 1.86GHz Socket 775: $180


Remember that when the C2D's came out, there was a HUGE Athlon price drop to compete with the C2Ds.


BTW Flip: what I'm seeing there, are the Pentium D processors. I want to see the C2D's vs. X2's.


It looks like the lower to mid-ranged Athlons still have a better clock speed, where C2D's have better power savings. However, I think there was a newer X2 4200 that came out that was supposed to improve on the power consumption.

Another question to pose is this:


When AM3 comes out, will the AM3 Quadcores, work on an AM2 board. I would imagine not. Maybe an AM3 X2 would work. So I would have to upgrade anyway when those come out.


Most likely the same thing with Intel.

C2D, as Diedel said, beats the snot out of what AMD offers currently.

AM3 CPUs will work with AM2 motherboards, but not the other way around.

BUT, still, the X2's run cheaper and I don't know if I will need that much more power for the cost within the next couple years. Mind you, I also don't like to OC either.



Also, I'm seeing that the C2D's run at 1.83GHz per core, while the AMD's run at 2.2GHz to 2.4GHz per core for a little less money.


What is the big difference between Socket M and 747? I'm guessing M is the equivalent or greater to AM2 for Intel?


From the clock speeds you showed me Flip, it looks like performance for either Intel or AMD depends on what your doing.


Yes, I know that AM2 boards will be compatible with AM3 CPU's. I already discussed that above. That is the whole of what attracts me about AM2 in the first place.


The flaw with this, is that 2 years down the road, when new, next generation, stable hardware and software become affordable for me, I will probably want to upgrade anyway. My point is, that YES, it is compatible with AM3 CPU's BUT, is it worth it anyway? By then, we will be into AMD Quad Core technology. Will a Quad Core work with an AM2 X2 board? I doubt it. Probably the best I could get would be an AM3 high end X2 with a better clock speed anyway. So the upgrade wouldn't be that big anyway. I would also imagine that it won't run as a fully functional AM3 processor either, because it is on an AM2 socket. But, this is all speculation. I like a medium upgrade, every 2-3 years. The only reason I'm upgrading now, is because my current system is beyond obsolete, is in a state of practically melting down and is too out of date to run the software that I need to run.


What it all comes down it, is 1. how much does it cost. 2. What do I need? (not what would be the top end.)


I want to make my purchase before Monday if possible as I don't want this dragging into the Holidays. My family can't even buy me anything right now for X-Mas because there is nothing that I want other than a new PC right now. And I mean nothing, because I need that PC. There are no X-Box games, no movies, no music that I even remotely want to own (save for BSG Season 2.5). I just want to have a new PC so that I can run some of the programs and games I already own and can't even use.


I'll do some more reading up on the C2D systems. But they still look more expensive to me. I would have to go with the LOWEST end C2D. Not even a medium end C2D processor.


Mind you, I don't have anything against Intel. I've seen a lot of PC's come in that I've repaired in the shop with Intels. Most of them are in fact Intels. BUT, I have used an Athlon 2000+ and have been perfectly content with it for 4-5 years now. But now I can't run new games and/or programs on it.


So, I'm open to either direction, I just want to know what C2D processor to get that is at least as powerful as the AM2 X2 4200+, runs on the most recent socket, and costs around $180 or lower.


I don't even plan on updating to Vista for a long time until all the bugs are worked out and I can afford a mid-generation G80 or even a G90.


BTW, I see what you are talking about with the 939 boards. I figured they were phased out but most systems I've seen in the shop that are bought brand new are 939 systems. I haven't seen one AM2 system purchased this year. Not even the companies or rich clients have purchased an AM2 system. So 939 is still fairly popular, though not supported anymore. Also, price range-wise, I looked it up last night and I think you mentioned that it isn't that big of a difference for an AM2. You are correct in this sense. I thought that since 939's aren't supported anymore and people have been purchasing a lot around here and there are a lot of good deals going down on 939 systems with X2 processors locally, that they must be cheaper. My assumption was incorrect when it comes down to receiving the processor I want. I would actually have to dish out more money for a 4800+ and the RAM is just as expensive. I would only save about $100. It would be better to spend the $100 extra and have a few more options and possibilities down the road. Just a risk that I'll have to take.

Socket M is intel's mobile socket.

The memory controller is on the CPU die for AM2 chips, so the number of cores has no relation to the socket - intel has 4 core chips using 775 LGAs sockets for sale now.

thats right, if you have already have a recent P4, you can get yours C2D now.

Stability is a non-issue with all platforms now, its best to think of the money you spend on a new machine now as gone, and just optimize for whatever you feel like, or don't bother buying till you have more saved up.

So the quad core and dual core run on the same socket?


I'm starting to see your point here. I thought Athlons were supposed to be so much more efficient per cycle. Sounds like Intel is pulling ahead.



The good thing about Intel Core Duo is that I could get a fairly decent processor and on the same board, I could up it to a quad core when they come down in price, which actually looks like it will be a lot sooner than Athlon.


How's this processor look?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819115004

It looks to be a little slower than Athlon's 2.2GHz BUT, I may be wrong since I don't know as much about Intel processors and I CAN upgrade to something a LOT better down the road.

The C2D architecture is completely different from the Pentium architecture and rather similar to the Athlon architecture. The C2D's are *very* efficient and faster than the Athlons. Even the slowest one is a good choice.

AMD will stop s939 CPU production by the end of the year, and so will probably s939 mobo manufacturers. On the one side this means, their availability will get worse. On the other side you could get some good s939 hardware for a low price.

Well, I think I'm going C2D, BUT, the problem is finding a good mobo to support it.



I read about the top ASUS board but apparently, the board supports C2D but the Bios doesn't. I read a number of reviews on Newegg where people said that the board wouldn't support it and that they had to send the board to ASUS to get the BIOS flashed. The only way to do it, is to use an old processor on the board to flash it. Something, I don't have.

MSI? DFI?