Abit AA8-Duramax

[farscapesg1]

I'm looking at building a new rig since my trusty BE6 motherboard and Celeron 1 Ghz crashed and burned. I'm currenlty relying on an old PII 400 system that I had laying around. Unfortunately, with money always on short supply, I am looking at getting to put the system together probably around Christmas time (too many other expenses at the moment for me to be able to put out the money). I currently have around $600 to start with and I saw that Newegg has the AA8-Duramax board on sale for $102 after rebate Linky. I'm thinking of pairing this with an P4 540.

Granted, I realize that most of the users on this board appear to be Athlon fans. If it wasn't for the multitasking issues of Windows with the Athlons, I would probably go with an Athlon 64. However, I use the system to do several different things (video work, programming, gaming, filesharing, etc.). A common thing for me to do is listen to MP3s, playing a game on one monitor and encoding video on the other, and running filesharing software 24/7 in the background.

Seeing that it will be christmas before I can get enough money to buy everything at once, I've thought about the idea of buying a few parts first. Of course, this means that the parts will probably set in their packaging until I have everything to get the system up and running, which may be several months. So, should I jump on the rebate deal or just wait around and see what is available at Christmas?

 

[imported_Bleh]

Thats probably as cheap as its going to get until next year, I personally dont like the ddr2 thing cause its expensive and is not faster than ddr1 at the moment, sometimes ddr1 is faster.

 

[jkresh]

wait, buying a board 1.5 months before you will use it makes little sense, the rebate is a good deal but it probably means abit has a replacement board on the way. If thats the case once the new board is out the price on the old one will fall anyway. Also if you buy the board now and it is doa and you wait a month and a half to use it you will have to rma it with abit you wont be able to just return it and switch if you dont like it.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Well dont get the prescott, either get an A64 or a Northwood P4 2.8C and some nice RAM and OC it.

-Kevin

 

[tapir]

I think someone is giving you BS about AMD, as far as I know there is no "multitasking issue" with Athlon 64s... HTT doesnt help that much. A64 are generally the better price/performance procs and nothing you have described is uncommon for an enthusiast.

 

[farscapesg1]

Originally posted by: tapir
I think someone is giving you BS about AMD, as far as I know there is no "multitasking issue" with Athlon 64s... HTT doesnt help that much. A64 are generally the better price/performance procs and nothing you have described is uncommon for an enthusiast.

So, your saying that I won't notice any difference using HyperThreading on a P4 compared to an Athlon 64? It seems that several reviews would argue otherwise. Sure, the Athlon64 wins in my mind for pure power and price, but I find it hard to believe that it competes with the P4's when running multiple programs.

 

[jkresh]

Probably for gaming and video encoding at the same time the p4 has the lead at the moment. It depends on what kind of encoding you are doing and how intensive it is, if you are doing multiple things that are very cpu intensive then the p4 will run better, if the encoding is only moderatly intensive then amd is a better bet.