I was think of building a amd 64 3200+ since there 290 retail anyone think thats a good idea, or should I wait a little longer and see whats happens with amd and intel?
I was thinking of building the same system, but plans have changed. Looks like I'm getting a a barebones athlon for dedicated folding and then upgrading my current Wintel system with assorted hardware (Including SATA drives). Once prices come down (Mid '04?) I'll look into a new configuration and see if I can transfer any of this hardware over.
Personally I'd wait until the new socket 939 boards and CPU's came out because hopefully the new PCI-X video cards will be out by then as well.
DDR2 is going to be coming out soon as well and the new 939 CPU's will all run dual channel ram instead of single channel for the budget models which means a pretty big increase in performance even with the budget CPU's.
This is all supposed to happen within a couple of months or so.
Waiting could be of benefit to you.
The budget chips are supposed to be socket 939 as well as the FX line...the 3400 is going to be the end of the road for the 754 as far as the rumors I've read.
The budget chips are supposed to be socket 939 as well as the FX line...the 3400 is going to be the end of the road for the 754 as far as the rumors I've read.
Allegedly the Athlon64 3700+ will be the fastest 754 socket. AMD may also be EOL previous chips when they introduce new products...call it a sliding window. This may be a premptive strike on remarking which has both good and bad points for the consumer.
While CPU speeds will always be on the climb it will be, oddly enough, the performance ratings that come into play. Clockspeed does not always equal performance so it's important to look at the architecture such as Cache, memory controllers etc.
The next performance bump should come with PCI Express. It will again, most likely, give the standard 10-15% boost that evey significant technological innovation has given. IE: There was a 10-15% boost when Athlon64 came in, DDR333 from 266, and so on.
My advice?
Wait for the new boards. PCI Express combined with SATA RAID. That will give you a good growing platform. When are those boards coming out? Dunno...but it's not soon.
So you may have to think "Do I want it now and upgrade later? Or do I wait 6mos-1 year?"
There is a good little article about the AMD roadmap at anand today. http://anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1947
I am not sure what I would do. I am a lot further behind than you are. I would be tempted to buy a 754 mobo and a cpu. As the faster chips hit the market you could always upgrade it.
If it is Q204 before the 939's hit the market, it will be another 3-6 months before the prices become reasonable. That is a long time from now.
Comments
DDR2 is going to be coming out soon as well and the new 939 CPU's will all run dual channel ram instead of single channel for the budget models which means a pretty big increase in performance even with the budget CPU's.
This is all supposed to happen within a couple of months or so.
Waiting could be of benefit to you.
Allegedly the Athlon64 3700+ will be the fastest 754 socket. AMD may also be EOL previous chips when they introduce new products...call it a sliding window. This may be a premptive strike on remarking which has both good and bad points for the consumer.
While CPU speeds will always be on the climb it will be, oddly enough, the performance ratings that come into play. Clockspeed does not always equal performance so it's important to look at the architecture such as Cache, memory controllers etc.
The next performance bump should come with PCI Express. It will again, most likely, give the standard 10-15% boost that evey significant technological innovation has given. IE: There was a 10-15% boost when Athlon64 came in, DDR333 from 266, and so on.
My advice?
Wait for the new boards. PCI Express combined with SATA RAID. That will give you a good growing platform. When are those boards coming out? Dunno...but it's not soon.
So you may have to think "Do I want it now and upgrade later? Or do I wait 6mos-1 year?"
http://anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1947
I am not sure what I would do. I am a lot further behind than you are. I would be tempted to buy a 754 mobo and a cpu. As the faster chips hit the market you could always upgrade it.
If it is Q204 before the 939's hit the market, it will be another 3-6 months before the prices become reasonable. That is a long time from now.