i'm a mushkin fan and always will be. some of the best customer service around and rock solid memory. haven't had a problem yet.
Mushkin pc3200 DDR Level 1 (512x2)-$214
one thing to make sure of before you buy memory is if it works with the board you are going to get. mushkin has a mobo qualifications page on their site if you want to check it out. www.mushkin.com
Also, in response to Thrax, you can keep your pretty little benchmark numbers that prove AMD is better and faster than INTEL, but in my previous post i talked about REAL-WORLD experience. The fact of the matter is that any new AMD cpu is going to have noticeable slowdown if you are a heavy multi-tasker. Unless it's dual opterons, the p4 w/ HT offers a smoother experience. Personally, i wouldn't go AMD b/c of this. As a web designer, i usually have dreamweaver, photoshop, illustrator, and maybe acrobat running all at the same time. Not to mention my tv tuner and about 10+ tabs in firefox. All of this with no noticeable slowdown. Sure an AMD system might be able to load photoshop a few seconds faster than my INTEL system, but who cares---it's about not slowing down between apps for me.
That's all well and good, but the example you cited in the part I've quoted is true of any sufficiently powerful desktop computer. Hyperthreading is meant to address the problem of sluggish application loading when the pipeline is filled to the max. You stated having Dreamweaver, photoshop, illustrator, acrobat, firefox and your TV tuner open all at one time.. Out of all of those programs, only photoshop and illustrator are capable of filling the pipeline, forcing the "Importance" of HT. The rest of the programs, once loaded into resident memory impact the CPU little more than making it keep the DLLs loaded and the executable alive. It's not filling the pipeline, and they don't require complex computations.
Any sufficiently powerful desktop computer wouldn't experience any slowdowns from having those programs loaded at one time. With the combination you cited, you're vastly more likely to have a slowdown as a result of an inadequate memory capacity.
So why push him towards AMD when any sufficiently powered machine will cut it?
Seriously, a p4 "feels" faster to me than an a64 when multi-tasking. Now i don't have two systems side by side for comparison, but i have played around on my friends a64 3000+ s754 system quite a bit, and i can tell you it just feels sluggish at times. Mostly we game on it though, and there have been no problems with that. He also doesn't multi-task like i do, so he doesn't really notice it. It could also be that his system is in need of some tweaking to get it running smoother. Or maybe i am just accustomed to how my pc works.
If you do go with the Asus board & AMD64 system, and i ain't gonna make a comment on Intel vs Amd, Corsair Value ram will work well if you're not overclocking.
I sold my mate my S754 Athlon64, Asus K8V Deluxe & Corsair value ram system & it runs sweet as nut. He put in a 6800gt graphics card & the whole system is very fast & never crashes. Its cooled with Thermalright cooler in a quiet and the whole thing runs very cool & very quiet.
Just my tu'pence
0
Geeky1University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
edited December 2004
ryko: I was actually thoroughly unimpressed with HT for multitasking in a real-world setting. It works great for folding, but I had PeerGuardian and Morpheus running on my laptop the other day (for a total CPU usage of ~70% including both the CPU and the HT "CPU"). It was unbearably slow. Frankly, it was not noticeably faster than running the same two apps on my old 2.4GHz P4 (non-HT) laptop. As far as multitasking goes, get a real dual CPU system or go home.
//EDIT:
The laptop has a 3.4GHz P4 & 1GB of dual channel DDR400
I have had the chance to use a p4 3.2 with HT, and 2 gigs of ram with an app called 3dsm 7. I have also used it side by side in a studio with an Athlon 3500+. The Mental Ray render takes advantage of HT. When rendering, the scene is broken down into rectangles sized at 64 by 48 pixels, called "buckets". We tested the p4 against the athlon, and even with two buckets working for the p4, the Althon was still able to render faster. We didn't recard any times, just based on on what was done first. HT seems as if it is a catch marketing ploy, rather than a useful tool.
-The Tricky one.
0
Straight_ManGeeky, in my own wayNaples, FLIcrontian
Can someone tell me why the LGA775 platform sucks? I don't plan on OCing or anything. Just an everyday computer and gaming.
What if I grab the Intel 3.2 Socket 478.... what's a good mobo for that? What type of RAM would be best? Low latency?
I really don't want AMD anymore... its time for a change.
I'll tell you what is wrong for the LGA775 right now where you want to game. Most games are NOT hyperthreaded or even very deeply multithreaded. AND, AMD at 2.8-3.0 GHZ TRUE speed beats the crap out of Intel P4s in gaming or 3D rendering. As far as general stuff, it is decent. BUT, my Northwood outfolds my Prescott. Both are within .1 GHz of each ohter right now. Let's look at why. First, very few WUs use SSE2 heavily. They mostly use SSE. OLD games use SSE and SSE2 adn frankly the Athlon FX 55 beats everything but a newest gen Prescott at 3.4 or better in most SSE2 or SSE benches.
I THINK I would stick with AMD for now, if you plan to game. I'd toss the money into a better HS for CPU, better video card, more RAM (I'd go a minimum of a Gig). My Prescott can run more things at once than my Northwood, but I do NOT game. Very few games are tuned for Prescott, and very few apps are. So the only advantage I have with Prescott is that I can run multiple non-HT apps at once. This does not help a game situation, worth beans, compared to an Athlon FX 55 or an Opteron.
Opteron and Northwood do better with older software than does Prescott, with LESS heat generated. It's only 71 degrees right now, in summer the room is 81 degrees with teh AC on. I live in Florida. Not a normal everyday heating scenario. To go to a 3.4 or better GHz P4 I would HAVE to watercool the computer. Think about where you live, and how to control the heat buildup in the case, before you jump into Prescott. IF you have to go to a P4, figure on not liking its gameability but for normal things a P4 at about 3.2 GHz that is not a Prescott will rock decently. When I tout the P4 Prescott, I do NOT have gaming in mind. Period.
I will NOT build a Prescott box for a gamer in the next year. Period. I started building boxes when the newest thing was a 386 computer, so you might say over a very long time I learned to cut through the hype. intel, for gaming, you need a 3.4 GHz to rock, have not seen those in non-Prescotts on commonly vailable boards yet. Most of the touted alternatives have not been out long enough for real good feedback to be gotten yet. Look for sponsorship of any site that touts Intel for gaming. I could say that for pure GHz P4 outshines an Athlon FX for m,any things, but gaming WILL be an exception.
Because of the "older code" thing, you will find an AMD chip is best for gaming. Period. IF you want TWO boxes, build one AMd and one Intel, but for one gaming plus everything else box, go AMD. No, I am not siding with Thrax, he simply is right as to gaming and folding. I have TWO 3 GHz P4 boxes here. I MIGHT catch up with him in about a month and a half-- probably will in fact-- BUT, I am NOT running one box folding only. did I make a mistake??? Um, I think when I bought the Prescott I made no mistake, but I do not game. For business, webdev other than motion video stuff, and for common things like word processing and surfing, the P4 is fine. For advanced gaming, NO.
In your case, you are thinking one box. I would say AMD now, maybe in a year or so, a second box for homework, math calcs, stuff you NEED that is not gaming. THEN, we will have to see what Intel has out and what the software dev climate is like. Unless you really want to jump into Linux, Linux likes Intel P4s and has a small amount of games. Then I would build a P4 box to run Linux on. My Northwood box runs Linux, and my Prescott box is in fact running XP. Linux runs more efficiently, sans (WITHOUT) games in the equation. WITH games, WELL the story changes. It's acceptable with what is available. But most is not, and Windows games, unless recoded (called PORTING) for *nix, generally do not run on Linux. The 64 bit versions of Linux CAN run on an Athlon FX 55 CPU system.
I'm not changing sides, gang, I'm saying gaming and everyday things can use different platforms and do better ON different platforms. So, if you want to game heavy, build an AMD box, and if you want to game older games than bleeding edge brand new (with some bugs) games, go AMD. For now and the next year or so minimum. EVEN assuming no OCing-- because of how games are coded. Normal game, on a Prescott, you will be using one core of the two, (in this case one of the processing pipes, both SHARE a common cache as far as what is out there and economical at all).
You will not get the performance you might expect from two pipes for gaming. Period. 100% guaranteed. For the next 12-18 months mimimum, and then we will have to see where software dev and hardware dev go (Intel WILL be releasing a real 2-core and two dedicated cache CPU, but it is not here yet. Prescott, given software, is a year ahead of its time. When manythreaded games appear, then it will be a contneder, at 3.4 to 3.8 GHz. For now, NOT, as far as gaming. I've said it ALL the ways I can, for emphasis.
ThermalTake Tsunami case instaed of the Lian Li - better cooling
Why 2 x 80gig drives ??? Raiding them ??? If so dont bother save a few bucks & get 1 x 160g drive, I doubt you'd notice the speed difference. You can always get another 160g drive later if you want to try raid or you need it for a specific application.
ho ya. I agree. Much much easier for lots of things
I try to run at least 2 drives in my systems as well, so I don't have an issue with that, but dude, you've gotta get rid of the LGA775 platform, the gigabyte board, and (unless you go with a PC-7x) the Lian Li case.
GrayFox: The 7000Cu is decent, and for quiet cooling it does an OK job, but the fan isn't going to be easy to replace when it dies, and there are heatsinks out there that are far better performing than the 7000... personally, I'd go with something like a Thermalright XP-90...
I love my 7000cu keeps my 2.4C @ a nice room tempature
once even the 12V+ got caught in the fan and it stoped but that zalman passively cooler my cpu and it peaked @ 52C acording to logs. I didnt relise the fan had stoped till i checked the temps
My problem with the thermalright is that most 120mm fans can be very noisy . also he said QUIET the zalman is in audiabe in my computer max fan speed too (excuse my spelling) mainly because my videocard cooler is loud :shakehead
AMD 3200+
Gigabyte GA-K8NS PRO
1gig Corsair pc3200 ddr400 (should i get valueram or XMS series)
ATI x800Pro
Hows that sound?
*points to gigabyte
Evil gigabyte
burn the gigabyte before the water in the cheep eletricite in the capasitors
turns into hydrogen and causes the capasitors to explode and cost a board
*points to abit too*
abit also suffers from this problem
I have heard of cheep asus boards doing this but havent seen it
0
Geeky1University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
edited December 2004
You know dude, I don't know where in the hell you get some of your info...
The 7000CU is an above average heatsink. It's not outstanding, but it's not bad. The fan is a proprietary unit though, and when it dies, you're gonna be SOL.
And I don't know where the hell you got the idea that "most 120mm fans can be very noisy". A 120mm fan pushing a given amount of air wil be quieter than a 92mm, 80mm, 70mm, 60mm, etc. fan pushing the same volume of air. Period.
Besides, the XP-90 doesn't take a 120mm fan anyhow. It takes a 92mm fan.
Oh, and about the capacitors: they're no longer an issue. It wasn't limited to ABIT and Gigabyte. Just about every manufacturer (including ASUS) had issues, but the problem was solved several years ago.
Alright here is what I plan on ordering tomorrow...
AMD 64 3400+
ASUS "K8V SE Deluxe" K8T800
ENERMAX Noisetaker Series 470W Power Supply
Corsair XMS 1GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200
Seagate 120gb and 80gb HDDs
ATI X800 PRO
Input?
0
Geeky1University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
edited December 2004
my only concern would be that S754 is pretty much a dead end at this point. Also, since you want quiet cooling, I'd suggest getting a Thermalright XP-90 and a Vantec Stealth 92mm fan.
Geeky1University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
edited December 2004
Nothing is WRONG with it per se, but it's a dead end from an upgrade standpoint. You remember the S423 P4s? That's basically what you've got with a S754 A64. It's a fine CPU... fast, runs cool, etc., but if you want to upgrade it in say, 18 months, you're probably gonna be SOL. S939 is gonna be around for a while... S754 probably isn't. As long as you can live with running a higher risk of having to buy a new motherboard and cpu the next time you upgrade, there's no problem.
Of course, you may have to do that even with S939 now too, because the PCI-Express transition seems to be going in a direction where the only way you'll have a relatively future-proof system right now is to buy a S939 system with the nForce4 chipset... which means buying a new graphics card too...
I'm curious as to why you're getting two different size HD's. If you're going for the 8MB cache version there is only $16 difference between the two at newegg. Why not two 120GB drives? An extra 40GB for $16 looks like a deal to me.
I don't plan on upgrading for another 2 years or so after this, and even if I choose to do so before then, I wouldn't mind buying another mobo, so i'll stick with the 754.
I really can't see myself filling up 240GBs... heck I can't see myself filling up 200. ... heh i'll see. Reason i'm getting two is because I had too many problems with my current comp with windows detecting my 200gb WD.. and i had to hook up a IDE2 PCI card for it to recognize it... i'm not gonna deal with that again.
Comments
Mushkin pc3200 DDR Level 1 (512x2)-$214
one thing to make sure of before you buy memory is if it works with the board you are going to get. mushkin has a mobo qualifications page on their site if you want to check it out. www.mushkin.com
good luck with your system
That's all well and good, but the example you cited in the part I've quoted is true of any sufficiently powerful desktop computer. Hyperthreading is meant to address the problem of sluggish application loading when the pipeline is filled to the max. You stated having Dreamweaver, photoshop, illustrator, acrobat, firefox and your TV tuner open all at one time.. Out of all of those programs, only photoshop and illustrator are capable of filling the pipeline, forcing the "Importance" of HT. The rest of the programs, once loaded into resident memory impact the CPU little more than making it keep the DLLs loaded and the executable alive. It's not filling the pipeline, and they don't require complex computations.
Any sufficiently powerful desktop computer wouldn't experience any slowdowns from having those programs loaded at one time. With the combination you cited, you're vastly more likely to have a slowdown as a result of an inadequate memory capacity.
Seriously, a p4 "feels" faster to me than an a64 when multi-tasking. Now i don't have two systems side by side for comparison, but i have played around on my friends a64 3000+ s754 system quite a bit, and i can tell you it just feels sluggish at times. Mostly we game on it though, and there have been no problems with that. He also doesn't multi-task like i do, so he doesn't really notice it. It could also be that his system is in need of some tweaking to get it running smoother. Or maybe i am just accustomed to how my pc works.
I was just offering a different opinion...
I sold my mate my S754 Athlon64, Asus K8V Deluxe & Corsair value ram system & it runs sweet as nut. He put in a 6800gt graphics card & the whole system is very fast & never crashes. Its cooled with Thermalright cooler in a quiet and the whole thing runs very cool & very quiet.
Just my tu'pence
//EDIT:
The laptop has a 3.4GHz P4 & 1GB of dual channel DDR400
-The Tricky one.
I'll tell you what is wrong for the LGA775 right now where you want to game. Most games are NOT hyperthreaded or even very deeply multithreaded. AND, AMD at 2.8-3.0 GHZ TRUE speed beats the crap out of Intel P4s in gaming or 3D rendering. As far as general stuff, it is decent. BUT, my Northwood outfolds my Prescott. Both are within .1 GHz of each ohter right now. Let's look at why. First, very few WUs use SSE2 heavily. They mostly use SSE. OLD games use SSE and SSE2 adn frankly the Athlon FX 55 beats everything but a newest gen Prescott at 3.4 or better in most SSE2 or SSE benches.
I THINK I would stick with AMD for now, if you plan to game. I'd toss the money into a better HS for CPU, better video card, more RAM (I'd go a minimum of a Gig). My Prescott can run more things at once than my Northwood, but I do NOT game. Very few games are tuned for Prescott, and very few apps are. So the only advantage I have with Prescott is that I can run multiple non-HT apps at once. This does not help a game situation, worth beans, compared to an Athlon FX 55 or an Opteron.
Opteron and Northwood do better with older software than does Prescott, with LESS heat generated. It's only 71 degrees right now, in summer the room is 81 degrees with teh AC on. I live in Florida. Not a normal everyday heating scenario. To go to a 3.4 or better GHz P4 I would HAVE to watercool the computer. Think about where you live, and how to control the heat buildup in the case, before you jump into Prescott. IF you have to go to a P4, figure on not liking its gameability but for normal things a P4 at about 3.2 GHz that is not a Prescott will rock decently. When I tout the P4 Prescott, I do NOT have gaming in mind. Period.
I will NOT build a Prescott box for a gamer in the next year. Period. I started building boxes when the newest thing was a 386 computer, so you might say over a very long time I learned to cut through the hype. intel, for gaming, you need a 3.4 GHz to rock, have not seen those in non-Prescotts on commonly vailable boards yet. Most of the touted alternatives have not been out long enough for real good feedback to be gotten yet. Look for sponsorship of any site that touts Intel for gaming. I could say that for pure GHz P4 outshines an Athlon FX for m,any things, but gaming WILL be an exception.
Because of the "older code" thing, you will find an AMD chip is best for gaming. Period. IF you want TWO boxes, build one AMd and one Intel, but for one gaming plus everything else box, go AMD. No, I am not siding with Thrax, he simply is right as to gaming and folding. I have TWO 3 GHz P4 boxes here. I MIGHT catch up with him in about a month and a half-- probably will in fact-- BUT, I am NOT running one box folding only. did I make a mistake??? Um, I think when I bought the Prescott I made no mistake, but I do not game. For business, webdev other than motion video stuff, and for common things like word processing and surfing, the P4 is fine. For advanced gaming, NO.
In your case, you are thinking one box. I would say AMD now, maybe in a year or so, a second box for homework, math calcs, stuff you NEED that is not gaming. THEN, we will have to see what Intel has out and what the software dev climate is like. Unless you really want to jump into Linux, Linux likes Intel P4s and has a small amount of games. Then I would build a P4 box to run Linux on. My Northwood box runs Linux, and my Prescott box is in fact running XP. Linux runs more efficiently, sans (WITHOUT) games in the equation. WITH games, WELL the story changes. It's acceptable with what is available. But most is not, and Windows games, unless recoded (called PORTING) for *nix, generally do not run on Linux. The 64 bit versions of Linux CAN run on an Athlon FX 55 CPU system.
I'm not changing sides, gang, I'm saying gaming and everyday things can use different platforms and do better ON different platforms. So, if you want to game heavy, build an AMD box, and if you want to game older games than bleeding edge brand new (with some bugs) games, go AMD. For now and the next year or so minimum. EVEN assuming no OCing-- because of how games are coded. Normal game, on a Prescott, you will be using one core of the two, (in this case one of the processing pipes, both SHARE a common cache as far as what is out there and economical at all).
You will not get the performance you might expect from two pipes for gaming. Period. 100% guaranteed. For the next 12-18 months mimimum, and then we will have to see where software dev and hardware dev go (Intel WILL be releasing a real 2-core and two dedicated cache CPU, but it is not here yet. Prescott, given software, is a year ahead of its time. When manythreaded games appear, then it will be a contneder, at 3.4 to 3.8 GHz. For now, NOT, as far as gaming. I've said it ALL the ways I can, for emphasis.
ho ya. I agree. Much much easier for lots of things
once even the 12V+ got caught in the fan and it stoped
My problem with the thermalright is that most 120mm fans can be very noisy
*points to gigabyte
Evil gigabyte
burn the gigabyte before the water in the cheep eletricite in the capasitors
turns into hydrogen and causes the capasitors to explode and cost a board
*points to abit too*
abit also suffers from this problem
I have heard of cheep asus boards doing this but havent seen it
The 7000CU is an above average heatsink. It's not outstanding, but it's not bad. The fan is a proprietary unit though, and when it dies, you're gonna be SOL.
And I don't know where the hell you got the idea that "most 120mm fans can be very noisy". A 120mm fan pushing a given amount of air wil be quieter than a 92mm, 80mm, 70mm, 60mm, etc. fan pushing the same volume of air. Period.
Besides, the XP-90 doesn't take a 120mm fan anyhow. It takes a 92mm fan.
Oh, and about the capacitors: they're no longer an issue. It wasn't limited to ABIT and Gigabyte. Just about every manufacturer (including ASUS) had issues, but the problem was solved several years ago.
AMD 64 3400+
ASUS "K8V SE Deluxe" K8T800
ENERMAX Noisetaker Series 470W Power Supply
Corsair XMS 1GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200
Seagate 120gb and 80gb HDDs
ATI X800 PRO
Input?
Of course, you may have to do that even with S939 now too, because the PCI-Express transition seems to be going in a direction where the only way you'll have a relatively future-proof system right now is to buy a S939 system with the nForce4 chipset... which means buying a new graphics card too...
I really can't see myself filling up 240GBs... heck I can't see myself filling up 200. ... heh i'll see. Reason i'm getting two is because I had too many problems with my current comp with windows detecting my 200gb WD.. and i had to hook up a IDE2 PCI card for it to recognize it... i'm not gonna deal with that again.