A few questions

[acebake]

I'm a Technology Product Specialist at Circuit City, and own an independent computer business. Of course, I'm a geek, but there are always those few questions that I wonder about. I've listed some of them below--thank you in advance for your replies!

Aaron Baker


1. I've done some reading about the Athlon 64 socket 939 processor, but could someone tell me the additional changes that are coming with it? I hear there's a new form factor (something like BTX instead of ATX), and new RAM (DDR2?). Anyone know about this stuff?

2. If you have a combination DVD+RW/CD-RW drive, can you use Windows built in CD burning menu to burn a DVD also?

3. What are the different steps of the Athlon 64 processors? I know there's a budget...fx...etc. Also, does anyone know the FSB of them?


I'll post more as I think of them. Thanks again for the help!

 

[MDE]

1) Right now, the only changes with S939 are the socket and enabling dual channel RAM. DDR2 will come later on (once AMD feels it's fast and cheap enough). The motherboard form factors are up to the motherboard makers themselves.

2) You should be able to, but probably only raw data DVDs. I'm not 100% sure though.

3) Budget = Athlon XP
Midrange = Athlon 64 3000-3200
High end = Athlon 64 3400+ or FX series (51 or 53). The 3400+ performs about the same as an FX-51 and is cheaper to boot. There isn't a true FSB on A64s because the memory controller is integrated onto the CPU. Most incorrectly use the speed of the HyperTransport bus as the FSB.

 

[acebake]

MDE,

Thank you for the information!

-For the DDR2, what will be the differences of it over regular DDR RAM?

-I was thinking the same for raw data--it wouldn't work for movies though, right? You'd have to have some sort of software to do it, correct?

-I have this in another post somewhere, but I have a VCR plugged into my computer (with a TV Tuner). If I want to convert my VHS tapes to DVD, I don't have to record the entire VHS tape, and then do it, do I? Is there some sort of software that'll allow me to just pull the video from the tape and transfer it?

 

[MDE]

DDR2's main differences are price, higher latency, and potential to hit some very high speeds down the road.

Again, I'm not too sure on the DVD stuff so I'll let someone else answer those questions.

 

[JSSheridan]

Article on DDR2 at Xbitlabs.com
To sum up the main advantage of DDR2, it will be able to double the data transfer rate over a similarly clocked (internal) DDRI module. I posted a topic in HT about this, but didn't get much of a reply. I believe that Intel will adopt DDR2 this year, but I'm not certain when AMD will pick up support for it, since it would mean a new revision of the core and motherboard support instead of a new memory controller from a chipset maker.

Also, you're missing one of the biggest new things to come out this year, which is PCI Express. You should find and read the threads on it. Peace.

 

[acebake]

Ok, so I have an issue:

I was working on a movie in Windows Movie Maker, and when I saved it, it suddenly had a horrible sounding high pitched noise. It goes constantly through the movie. When I burned it to DVD, I found it was still having the problem. What can I do?

 

[acebake]

How do you password protect a document? It won't let me in Word 2003--says that it's not compatible with Internet Explorer 4.0. Of course, I'm running 6.0, that's what's odd...what's happening?

And it's also not available for folders. How can I do this?