Hi all, it's been a while since I posted here before, but I'm getting back into computers since I'm actually getting money from a job now! Anyways, my current PC: AMD XP 1900+ (1.667 GHz) Gigabyte 7VRX mobo 768MB PC2700 RAM GeForce 4 Ti-4600 Audigy 2 Windows XP (SP2) 2 Harddrives (66 and 133? ATA, both 40 gig each) I have a couple of questions for you all... I've read other people's comments on forums out on the net saying that the Gigabyte 7VRX and the GeForce 4 cards don't like each other very much. Mine's been running okay, but can it be offering any small problems with system lag? Secondly, would having 2 different ATA speeds affect the system speed greatly? Would it be wise to ditch the slower driver and upgrade? What about SATA? I don't know too much about it right now. And my main question for this thread, would it be a nice little upgrade to go from the AMD XP 1900+ to the AMD XP 3200+ with a new motherboard? I play World of WarCraft a lot and I have a ton of Firefox browsers running in the background when I have downtime in the game. It's been pretty laggy lately and I've had quite a few system lock ups. I was thinking about the 64 bit processors but I've been told to wait until the actual 64bit operating system comes out for it and wait for all the kinks to be fixed before switching over. Edit: BTW, I have an eagle eye over what goes on with my computer, so viruses, spyware, and defragmentation are always taken care of. :good:
You will get a substantial gain from changing to 3200 yes. Its a cheap upgrade now (around £70) with a new mobo. However, 64bit is still a viable option. You can still run 32bit OSs with an Athlon 64 and Windows x64 is out, albeit probably with bugs. Theres no harm in going 64bit now.
Start by ditching the AMD....only joking If your heart is set on ATA, try at least to go for the IDE133 ones rather that 66 100. Your mobo will have to support 133 though to take full advantage. Also look at seek time and buffer. the lower the better for seek time and higher is better for buffer. I was looking at 120GB IDE drives and realised that for a few more pennies I could get a SATA drive. No prises for the guess which one I went for. There is really no comparison in performance. These are so quite and the band is wider so more data in less time. 150MB/s in SATA compared to 100-133 Mb/second in IDE. With the mobo look for the highest bus speed. and as addis said, spot on, you cannot go wrong with going higher with the CPU. Going 64bit is the way forward. P4 or AMD, everyone is heading that way. AMD 64 is backward compatible running windows 32 with no problems. Then you will be ready for the new windows 64 (god only help us.....) when it eventualy comes out. For a serious gamer, aren't you better to go for a 256MB G card? Good luck and keep it cool (you will have to with an AMD 64 playing games....)... :good:
So you would recommend something like the Athlon 64 3200+ AMD (2200MHz) 512K Socket 754? What motherboards would you recommend to get for something like this? So SATA is definitely a step up for data transfer huh? Does it matter if I get one big drive or two smaller but equal sizes? Is data transfer/performance affected much between the two? I currently have one 40gig partitioned into 2 drives, C is for OS, D is for mp3's programs. My other drive is a full 40gig and I use that just to hold files. Oh I'll keep it cool alright. I'm looking to get a cpu fan that has a lower noise level than my current Thermaltake Volcano 7. I'm currently looking at the Thermaltake Big Typhoon. Have you heard anything about these? Supposed to have 16dBa, while my Volcano 7 is 34dBa at load temps.
These are BURST rates (66, 100, 133, 150), not sustained. While the drive technology has gotten better and improved speed, you're not going to find that much of a difference between the speeds. What does make a difference is cache size (bigger is better) and spindle speed. Western Digital makes a SATA drive that runs at 10,000 RPM which is only otherwise seen on SCSI hard drives. WD doesn't have a SCSI division any more, so they can afford to do this unlike other hard drive companies. That Typhoon seems to hang in well with Thermalright's XP-120, one of the best heatsinks on the market. In otherwords, the reviews seem to give it high marks. For S754 motherboards, MSI's K8N Neo2 is supposed to be a pretty good board. DFI's LanPartyUT NF3 250GB is another option, but DFI's motherboards are a bit strict when it comes to the memory and PSU you use. They're great motherboards, you just need to take a little bit of time to research them. You also might see what Chaintech offers. I'm not sure if the VNF3 Ultra is Socket 754 or Socket 939...but if it's the S754, that might be another one to check out.
Just to explain - I made a leap from 15GB 5400RPM IDE100 to 120GB SATA. There is no noise what so ever from this drive. I can still hear my older drive clicking and churning away while the new drive just sits there doing its thang. It is mega quick comparing to the old one. As to two Vs one..... hah: No idea.. hah: I have one large drive and one ol' crapy one for rubbish stuff . Two SATA's will allow you to benefit from RAID if you are planning to use it. My loacl shop techys keep going on about the 939 boards. Me I have me a P4 so not relevant to me. However, MSI Neo's have a very good name both for AMD and P4's. A point which I think can be relevant - try and get a board which has a cooler for the chipset (Neo 2, I think has one - http://geek.pricegrabber.com/search_attrib.php/page_id=40/vendors[]=MRW/popup3[]=25:276) . Good idea that..... Otherwise costs £5-£10 to add later on.
As Big B said, go for skt 939, it'll be around for awhile and going with 754 is stepping only a little bit foward, not a major upgrade. The skt 939 Athlon 3200 will out do an 3200 XP anyday, and the mobo will let you use dual-channel ram with further boosts performance about 10%. For the drives I'd go with SATA myself, it's speedy, hot swapable (take it out as you please almost) and the prices are just fine, I got an 80gig serial ATA drive for about $65 or so, and that was a few months ago. I'd go with one big drive, like 160-250gigs or so, this will cut down on a little lag with searches and all. If you want to go with multiple drives put the biggest, or more importantly fastest as the master if you opt for IDE. I recommend the Silencer 64 Ultra from Arcitc Cooling, it's pretty quiet, has changable speeds from 1300rpm to 2500rpm and keeps thing really cool, like <30 degrees. Just my opinions anyway.
Oh, and for the graphics WoW needs about a ATI 9700 to max the settings and get decent fps assuming you have DSL or Cable. So I suggest going with at least that, but depending on your budget buy yourself a 6800GT, or even better yet wait for nVidia's new line-up later this june.
What I have planned so far: CPU: AMD 64 3200+ (socket 939) What are the differences between the different cores like Winchester/Venice/Clawhammer? Which one should I go for? Mobo: MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum (socket 939) CPU Fan: Thermaltake Big Typhoon Harddrive: WesternDigital or (Edit)Seagate 120GB (SATA150 / 7200rpm) Case: Leaning towards this one or maybe this one. Thoughts on these two?
For the love of everything holy, don't get a Maxtor. I recommend Seagate or Western Digital. Seagate is IMHO currently makes the best SATA HDD you can buy, so I'd go that route. Besides, Seagate quality is good enough to warrant a 5-year warranty on all of their HDDs (Western Digital offers 3 years). All the best, -AT
k, I'll take that into consideration then, thanks. Do you have something against Maxtor? Like personal bad experiences with the drives or just from what you've heard/read?
I've never had a *good* experience with maxtor in about a decade of building and repairing PCs. OTOH, I've never had a problem with Seagate or WD.
Yep totally agree. I've read countless bad experiences from Maxtor. Seagate also use a better liquid ball bearing technology which makes them much more quiest than others. Maybe the newer maxtor drives are different, but Seagate are still the best for quiet and high performance drives.
Your choices look good dude, go with the venice core, on the 3200, I don't belive that the 3200 is available in San Diego as of yet but if it is, get it, it's the newest and will offer a boost in performance over the others, just like venice did over winchester, and winchester did over newcastle/clawhammer etc. The venice and San D. cores overclock like there's no tomorrow and they're both fabricated to a 90 nanometer die size so they run nice and cool. The San D. however pumps up the L2 cache to 1MB compaired to the usual 512k. As for the cases the first green/black one looks very nice and solid, the construction seems pretty good as well. The second one may look nice but the reviews I read seemed to say that the case was a little flimsy and cheap and was fine for a budget build but anyone serious may want to look elsewhere. I like it but I'd still go with the first. I see they both come with psu's, the wattage is nice but they're not going to be the most reliable or efficient psu's out there, generally speaking case/psu combo's seem like a good deal but the psu is usually no-name cheapo stuff. Try www.newegg.com for a nice psu from Thermaltake for example.
