Would you get it?

airbornflghtairbornflght Houston, TX Icrontian
edited November 2006 in Hardware
Would you get this stuff?

Right now I have a S754 2800 Athlon 64 with 1 gig of ram, a 6800GT, and all the fixings.

I want to go dual core, but my video card is AGP, so I am sort of limited to these motherboard choices. That is what I came up with up above. That way all I have to buy is the motherboard and processor. Since I already have ram, hard drive, video card... If I go PCI-e, then the costs will go way up, and I dont want to have that.

Anyway, the only thing I'm worried about is the motherboard, since the arctic silver and processor really cant have much wrong with them. Would you get it, or another? Remember that I have to have an AGP slot; and would you get that heatsink, or a different one, I doubt I am going to be overclocking on that board, as much as I'd like to, so I don't really need a hot-shot heatsink.

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited November 2006
    I think anyone purchasing new hardware is foolish to buy something before they can fully afford to go PCIe. You're buying yourself $300 into a dead end.
  • miragemirage
    edited November 2006
    I have two of these motherboards, they are running A64X2-3800 (@2.6 GHz) and Opteron-165 (@2.8 GHz). It seems that this is everything you are asking.

    ASRock 939Dual-VSTA Socket 939 ULi M1695 ATX AMD Motherboard

    If you google "939Dual" you will see that it is a very popular board.
  • GargGarg Purveyor of Lincoln Nightmares Icrontian
    edited November 2006
    mirage wrote:
    I have two of these motherboards, they are running A64X2-3800 (@2.6 GHz) and Opteron-165 (@2.8 GHz). It seems that this is everything you are asking.

    ASRock 939Dual-VSTA Socket 939 ULi M1695 ATX AMD Motherboard

    If you google "939Dual" you will see that it is a very popular board.
    Looks like a good board at a great price. Almost enough to tempt me to go A64 instead of saving up for a Core2/PCI-E/DDR-2 platform. I'll have to think about that.
  • miragemirage
    edited November 2006
    Gargoyle wrote:
    Looks like a good board at a great price. Almost enough to tempt me to go A64 instead of saving up for a Core2/PCI-E/DDR-2 platform. I'll have to think about that.

    LOL, I felt the same .... twice !!

    Actually, this board was discussed before in a thread Leo had started about his plan for building an Athlon based system.
  • airbornflghtairbornflght Houston, TX Icrontian
    edited November 2006
    Thrax wrote:
    I think anyone purchasing new hardware is foolish to buy something before they can fully afford to go PCIe. You're buying yourself $300 into a dead end.

    That may be, but I can not afford to buy new ram, and a newvideo card at this time. I am thinking of this as an upgrade, and for the performance boost I think it will give me will be well worth it.

    Because right now I cant run my ram Dual channel even.

    So I will be getting two cores that are a lot faster than my single one, plus I will have dual channel ram, and I don't game a lot, so I'm not interested in. About the most abuse my video card gets is adobe premiere.

    But it all comes down to costs, I cant afford to buy a new system at this time, nor do I want too. I plan on going balls out next august/september, which I am saving for. right now I just need something to bring my back up to speed, because my current system (2yrs old) is starting to show its age, and doing things like running photoshop or trying to multitask kills me.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited November 2006
    Andy, I think this upgrade route is is smart, if:

    - you understand it's only a short-term stopgap
    - that your upgraded system will still be more or less a dead end for future upgrades
    - that future upgrades after this one will essentially be new systems

    In my opinion, if the upgrade will keep you happy until next August or September, you might as well do it. If it were, say $100 more than you plan to spend, I'd side with Thrax and recommend a thorough upgrade later on.

    Keep in mind that if you did decide to go PCI-e soon and didn't plan on doing any gaming, you can find low-end Nvidia Quadro PCI-e video cards for next to nothing on eBay. They have beautiful 2-D performance and superb driver support - about as good as it gets. Of course, DDR-2 is another matter. Now is not a good time to be purchasing DDR2, as the price cycle is at the top.

    I would consider a less expensive dual core CPU, since you will be using this system for less than a year. You'll be lucky to sell your prospective CPU for in a year for even 50% of what you'd pay for it now. Also consider a heatsink that's more universal. The 7700 is a bit dated. I wouldn't even consider it second tier these days. I would spend $10 more for an XP120, Scythe Ninja, or Big Typhoon, which have mounting hardware for nearly all sockets and are much superior performers to the 7700. A top notch heatsink will follow you on to future upgrades.
  • airbornflghtairbornflght Houston, TX Icrontian
    edited November 2006
    Yeh, I was planning on just getting this to use for a year or so, and then when I go off to college, I am going to build what I want, and I was going to leave this computer here, but let my brother use it.

    I have no plans to upgrade it past what it is now, I mean, what the 4400 is already behind the core 2, and what I have now is a couple stops behind that. I just wish that I would have bought a 939 board, because right when I bought this S939 came out, and I figured S754 will still be big.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited November 2006
    I think you could get very close to the same targeted performance with a lower frequency AMD dual core - save some money. $200 just seems likes too much money for that level of performance (X2 4400). But then, I'd like to hear from someone more knowledgeable about AMD dual core than I am. If it's not going to be overclocked, the 7700 will work just fine with that system. Heck, if it's not going to be overclocked, you might as well just get a retail processor and not pay for a third party heatsink.
  • airbornflghtairbornflght Houston, TX Icrontian
    edited November 2006
    Leonardo wrote:
    I think you could get very close to the same targeted performance with a lower frequency AMD dual core - save some money. $200 just seems likes too much money for that level of performance (X2 4400). But then, I'd like to hear from someone more knowledgeable about AMD dual core than I am. If it's not going to be overclocked, the 7700 will work just fine with that system. Heck, if it's not going to be overclocked, you might as well just get a retail processor and not pay for a third party heatsink.

    well, I was just wondering how well an oc'er this board is, that decides what I'm going to do.
  • airbornflghtairbornflght Houston, TX Icrontian
    edited November 2006
    that is actually the cheapest one on there:
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Submit=ENE&N=2010340343+50001028+1302820275+1051707439&Subcategory=343&description=&Ntk=&srchInDesc=

    though I may just pony up the extra $2 and get an open box Opty 170.

    They have some pretty good open box deals, would you get them? they have a refund only policy for 15 days, so I guess if it had bent pins or didnt post I could at least get my money back.
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