2600+/Nforce 2 or P4 2.53/Granite Bay?

[Xernex]

I?m currently in the middle of working on building a new system, I have everything else worked out except for my CPU/Mobo combination.

My basic plan is to go a 2400 or 2600 with an Nforce 2(once available) or a P4 2.53 with granite bay (once available) and then in around June Next year upgrade to a 3000+ (if I go AMD) or a Faster P4 based on price/performance at that time. I will also upgrade my current 4200 at the same time as the planned CPU upgrade to either a NV30 or RV350 (or what ever else is out at the time)

Now my question is, for the sake of future upgrades, would it be safer to go P4 or AMD? Also is granite Bay worth waiting for, just for the DCDDR? Or should I go a current HT enabled Mobo with PC-1066? I?m really worried AMD?s XP CPU?s are going to lack big time, and that I will be wishing I went for a P4 system so I could easily upgrade to a faster P4 in the future. But then again I'm worried im going to have to wait quite a bit longer for Granite Bay boards to be well and truly available.

I should also mention I?m really sick of waiting, where I live I have a 10 week batch of holidays coming up, and it would be nice to have a new Comp during that time I don?t want to have to wait much longer.

Oh one last thing, how far can a P4 2.53 overclock on stock cooling? While remaining very stable.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Kowan]

Once they become available, check out the reviews and user feedback for a better idea of where to place your money.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Difficult to tell before they are released but keep this in mind

- Socket A is getting near the end of it's life, Hammer uses a new socket format
- Intel has give no indication that they will be moving away from Socket 478 in the near-to-medium-term future.

So if you just want to slap a new CPU in there you'll probably be better off with Intel. Performance wise, we'll have to see what kind of numbers GB and Nforce2's shipping rev put out before any decision can be made

 

[Xernex]

Yeah good point, Athlon is pretty close to the end of its life, the P4 still has a good while left in her. Like kowan said guess we gotta wait for final reviews, any ideas when Anand's granite bay review/preview will be up?

 

[kgraeme]

Sight unseen, I have to give the nod to the P4/Granite Bay. I'm not really biased, I'm running a P4 as my main rig and just put together a nForce system for someone. While the nForce chipsets are nice, and they're certainly the performance king for integrated, Intel IMHO still makes the most solid product that requires the least amount of fiddling.

If you're worried about which is "future-proof", then forget it. There's absolutely no such thing. BTW, while Epox said they were going to be the first out with nForce2 the last word I've heard from them is volume shipments won't be until mid-late December. ASUS may actually be out sooner.

 

[RanDum72]

Intel has give no indication that they will be moving away from Socket 478 in the near-to-medium-term future.

But if you look at Intel's history, it probably has the most changes in CPU interface history. Socket 5, 7, socket for Pentium Pro, Slot 1 and 2, Socket 370, Socket 370 for Tualatin, Socket 423 and now Socket 478. Pentium 4 Xeon's have different sockets as well. Who knows when they're going to change again. AMD so far has three. Socket 7, Slot A and Socket A (462). Barton, with 166fsb and 512k cache will still use socket A. I would go with whatever gives you more performance/features for the money.

 

[tart666]

I thought granite bay was a replacement for e7500, the server chipset. DCDDR is not coming to desktop platform for another 3-6 months.

 

[bigshooter]

i think granite bay is actually geered more towards workstations, so the mobo's might be more expensive than regular desktop ones. There might also be a server version coming out soon. Won't know for sure probably til the 11th or 14th whenever it comes out.

 

[Xernex]

Nah its a desktop solution.

 

[JeremiahTheGreat]

Granite bay <> prescott don't forget

At least you can upgrade your 2600+ to a Barton later on, but it doesn't appear so with intel solutions.. they keep changing the CPU to require a new motherboard although the pin count is still the same

 

[Xernex]

I cant see them changing it again, before prescott. You don't launch a chipset like Granite Bay and then change the slot 3 months later.

 

[tart666]

Nah its a desktop solution.

There is only ONE ATX board based on e7500. For about $400. So the replacement for e7500 will likely be in the same bracket, no?

But then again, perhaps the gigabytes and the asuses will make it cheap enough for the desktop. No Dell GB's though, eh?

 

[nortexoid]

t-bred's headroom for frequency scaling is near the end of its life, but that doesn't mean socket A is near the end of its life...

barton w/ double the cache will definitely add a nice little performance boost...so will nforce 2 (and i imagine upcoming VIA chipsets), running on a 166mhz DDR bus w/ pc3200 (DDR400) DC memory.

socket A should be around for most of 2003 in case you're worried about future upgrade paths....

i wouldn't even wait aorund for granite bay...grab a current board and run 1066 RIMMS on it...and if u want hyper threading, u'll have to get a 3ghz P4 anyway, so buying a mobo w/ HT and a 2.53ghz cpu is useless (for now...until u upgrade of course)...in other words, i wouldn't wait...get a mobo and CPU now...p4 or athlon - they both performance pretty damn similarly.

also, u have to wonder about the benefits that HT bring to consumer level every-day-joe-shmoe apps....