New Gaming Upgrades

NiGHTS

I'm looking at upgrading within the near future - by September - for the computer that serves as my primary gaming computer.

Currently running:
Barton 2500+
512MB RAM
R9800Pro

I'm really hung up on the direction in which to go. Conroe, 939, or AM2...they're all options as far as I'm concerned. I'm really not looking to break the bank, but I'm willing to shell out a bit of cash as far as money goes. Figure about 700-900 for the total upgrade of motherboard, RAM, proc., and videocard.

What are the advantages of AM2 over 939, specifically as far as future proofing goes. I know 939 is restricted to DDR modules, but will the price for the shoot up as more and more companies begin to focus on the DDR2 chips?

What's the advantages of Conroe over either AMD option, if at all? Everyone keeps saying Conroe, but I never know why.

1GB or 2GB of RAM?

Thanks, as always, for taking the time, guys.

rapture

If you buy a 939 board you are really going to restict your upgrade options. AM2 is probably a safe bet but I can see the conroe chips making a really big impact.

I'm waiting for conroe personally. I was really dissapointed with AM2, really didnt seem to bring anything new to the table.

1gb would be bare minimum for a new build. Games like BF2 and Oblivion are already seeing marked improvement on 2gb systems. Can only mean that games out in the next 12 months are going to expect the same amount.

NiGHTS

I don't see how it would restrict upgrade options, really. Could you expand on that?

Aside from DDR2 being the future, what will a AM2 board have that 939 wouldn't?

tmh88

I bet the conroes are going to be very nice, but I doubt theyre actually going to deserve all the hype that Intel has been giving them. As with any product, the manufacturer is going to make it seem 10x better than it really is. Im sure its a nice improvement over the current intel line of cpu's, but I dont think its going to completely change the computer as we know it. I would still wait to buy anything until they come out because you never know. Hey, I may be wrong, but just from observing how companies market their products its my guess that its not going to be ridiculously amazing.

GHoosdum

It's not Intel's marketing of Conroe that is making everyone salivate, it's the raw performance of the Core notebook chips that shows that Conroe has a very good potential to rip right through AMD's current offerings. You can play the waiting game for Conroe, but who knows what pricing is going to be like at that time...

rapture

I don't see how it would restrict upgrade options, really. Could you expand on that?
Aside from DDR2 being the future, what will a AM2 board have that 939 wouldn't?

I'm going off what AMD did with socket 754. They turned it into the budget Sempr0n platform. Unless you want your future upgrades to come with lower clock speeds and half the L2 cache of the AM2 processors I would go for an AM2 setup.

You're also not going to save much (if any) money by going for 939.

NiGHTS

I would strongly disagree there.

If I grab a 3500+ now, I'd have all the headroom above me for an X2 4800+ at a later date, would I not? At that point, the only thing holding me back would be finding DDR memory if the prices do infact start to increase.

The 754 option was a different beast alltogether, and making it the budget idea was ultimately the goal from the start I guess.

Along with that, I've heard that L2 cache on the AMD chips is negligible anyway, since they don't utilize it as much as an Intel counterpart would because they don't have to.

muddocktor

If you are going to hold off until September, then I would suggest that you go with either AM2 or Conroe. Personally, I can't wait to see official numbers on Conroe, but the unofficial stuff I've read on it's performance and overclocking potential so far have been impressive. Since it's not based on netburst, but rather on Core (which is a logical growth extention of P-M architecture more than netburst), Intel has managed to get power consumption and heat back to tolerable levels, plus a really nice looking performance improvement over netburst and A64/AM2. But until it's officially released in July, we won't have definite proof that production processors (as opposed to the ES stuff presently out) are tuly what they are being hyped up to be right now.

With that said, Conroe and Woodcrest have my attention and one of those platforms will probably be my next upgrade path.

rapture

I would strongly disagree there.

If you want to build a new gaming system on superseded kit then that’s your prerogative.

I can't see any reason to build a socket 939 system unless you already have a motherboard and memory you really need to use. The prices are so similar on everything but RAM. DDR2 is already cheaper at a lot of places.

NiGHTS

Superceded in what way? That's what I'm asking.

From what I can see, AM2 offers little to no performance gain in anything above a 939 system, and the only difference is the RAM pricing and usage. So, with that in hand, I'm asking why I should consider the chip when I have so much more to run with in 939 form in the coming months with a price gouging and a X2 chip for the future upgrade.

tmh88

If I were going to spend a few hundred, I would personally wait a few months just to see what conroe really has to offer.

rapture

Superceded in what way? That's what I'm asking.

How long do you think AMD are going to keep producing new socket 939 processors? How much money are you hoping to save by building a socket 939 machine?

The prices are practically identical and the roadmaps show a bright future for AM2 and mention nothing past the end of 2005 for socket 939. AM2 motherboards (lets face it motherboards have always been a massively important part of an AMD machine) are also looking a lot nicer.

Think about what you want to do with this machine in 6-12 months time. Think of the limitations you are going to enforce on yourself by building a 939 machine. Think of the advancements the industry will make in those 6-12 months.

Think about what AMD are going to do to compete with Conroe.

NiGHTS

I think that if I were to live in the technology world for 6-12 month periods, I'd be a broke man with the number of technological advances that come out. :smiles:

However, the question still stands, regardless of the end of the line for 939 processors, I have the ability to go from a 3500+ now to a X2 4800+ later, that would be about as far as the mileage would get. As far as saving money goes, I'm counting on saving a lot, as soon as AM2 gets popular 939's would continue to drop in price, would they not? Or will AM2 fall as fast and as often as the 939's are about to?

Quite honestly, I do not know which direction I should go in, Intel or AMD, AM2 or 939, Conroe or Pentium D. That's why I made this thread, to get some input. With prices and bang for the buck in mind, would current top of the line tech. be worth keeping in consideration, or should I grab the second revisions of AMD's or Intel's offerings...?:-/

muddocktor

I think the picture will get a little clearer for you by the end of July, with Conroe being formally released on July 23. BTW, PC Perspective has just done a totally independent test of a Conroe ES proc without Intel looking over their shoulders and it doesn't look too good for AMD at all. At stock speeds, Conroe routinely spanks an AM2 FX62 proc in most every benchmark thay ran. And this is with a non-EE Conroe too, which should sell for around half of what an FX sells for. They didn't do any overclocking though, so there is nothing to judge what Conroe's headroom is.

Here's a link to the article.

NiGHTS

Thanks Mud, what's the probable price for this wonderful piece of silicon?

muddocktor

If I remember right, the cheapest Conroe with the 4 MB cache will be right around $300 or so, from what I've read so far. Fully competitive with X2 and Opteron prices.