It has come to my attention that my PC is very out of date.
It has further come to my attention that I have lost track of whats hot and whats not
I am looking to go to a single chip, dual core solution with 2GB of RAM and moderate but not stellar graphics power.
my current line of thinking is something like:
Asus M2NPV-VM with Athy X2 3800
or some sort of similar mATX mobo with a P4 805D on it
Both these need DDR2 I know, but what speed rating is sensible? Is there even any real benefit of DDR2 with the Athy X2 (for mostly photo editing) or should I be looking at Sok939 boards to save some cash? Is there a better value idea in the AMD dual core route?
The CPU will be water cooled, is it feasable to water cool the chipset on the above mobo? Which waterblocks are good in AM2 flavour?
all suggestions are more than welcome.
Going DDR2 would be more "futureproof" (God, saying that makes me want to spit) but provides very little benefit other than that. The main advantage of it would be that it would make it easier or cheaper to upgrade your memory in a year to 18months time.
PC2-4200 or PC2-5300 would probably be adequate in terms of speed, I would avoid PC2-3200 as that would most likely be slower than PC3200 DDR.
There are AMD price cuts on the horizon apparently, up to 50% off. This is all due to Intel Conroe which is currently handing the Athlon its arse back in everything.
Normal overclocks for the 805 are 3.4GHz, unless you splash out Ã,£300 on memory and motherboard (possibly gfx card as well if you dont have PCI Express card).
If you are planning on overclocking you will want at least DDR2-800.
There will be some good Socket 939 deals to be had but with then new socket here its pretty much going to be a dead end upgrade.
thanks for the replies so far guys,
I am planning to overclock, especially if I go down the P4 805 route. From the look of it Im not going to be able to stretch to DDR2-800 RAM though (I want 2GB for photo editing as 1GB just isnt enough anymore, and 2GB of DDR800 is Ã,£250 on Crucial!). Can I run the RAM asyncronously and clock the CPU without pushing the RAM? Am I actually better off with a Sok939 system and fast DDR RAM? (say PC4000?). Upgrades for me are few and far between (Chimaera has retained more or less the same spec for 4 years), so "futureproof" is not a word I worry about much.
The mATX board mentioned above has integrated GeForce graphics which I anticipate will be enough for my needs. I play almost no games anymore so my GFX card is almost never stretched.
This machine is going to be something of a project in terms of maximum speed, minimum noise and size. I am willing to sacrefice some speed (read, overclockability) to keep things small(er) and quiet. Funds are by no means infinite, Id like to stay around the Ã,£500 mark but its flexible to an extent. Unfortunatly with Chimaera being so out of date, all that is recoverable is the water-cooling and drives.
Personal preference would be to wait a few months until those new chips come out, you will either get more power for the same dosh or it will cost less.
Unless your present compy is <2500+ level then on most things you wont notice much improvement.
Go for a 4 memory slot mobo and a pair of 1GB dimms to give you room to up it to 4GB just in case you need it. TBH AMD have said they were not going in for DDR2 as the performance gain is minimal, I dont know if anything has changed in that area.
Wait for the conroe chips, they overclock extremely well and like Deaths Head said, hands the Athlons arse back in everything!
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=101421
With Conroe chips, Intel have gone the other way, extreme efficiency.
Whatever you do dont touch a P4 with a barge pole. Go with an Athlon X2 at the very least.
mmm dont think I can really wait for the Conroe, I want to get this build done during my summer break which only lasts until October 1st at which point I start a PhD and would like to have a working PC.
My current machine is a twin AthyMP 1900+, its not slow but my Dads A64 3000+ is quicker in a straight line for photo editing.
Looks like Athlon X2 with DDR then.
I thought Conroe was due in July? Hence the AMD price cuts.
Quote from: Deaths HeadI thought Conroe was due in July? Hence the AMD price cuts.
oooo that is more interesting, sorry I didnt realise it was due out that soon. Is it looking likely to actually be on time though?
Intel arent exactly straining at the leash to shut down all these previews of how good Conroe is...
Who nows, it may come out and then a problem is found, ala P3 1.13GHz
I dont blame them, SP1M in 10 seconds! my poor old twin athlon is lucky to do it in less than 60.
Ill probably still go for taking advantage of cheaper X2s though, never been much of an early adopter. Ive seen too many 386, Pentium FDIV, K6-III 500, P3-1.13 etc etc early bugs to fall for that one.