AMD 939 or AM2?

[nageov3t]

I've decided it's time to invest in a new motherboard... I've currently got a 939 mobo that I bought when the 939's first came out, but the 6800GT video card I have is starting to get a bit faded and the motherboard I have only has an AGP video slot, not PCI express.

at this point in time, what's the general consensus on the AM2's? is it worth the extra money (with the AM2, I'd have to buy new ram and a new cpu, whereas with a 939, I could cannibalize parts from my existing rig), or are the 939's still solid in comparison?

 

[cubeless]

u probably only have 1gb of ddr and 2gb of ddr2 costs what 1gb of ddr costs now... go am2... i just got a 3600 to go to 2.85 on a tforce 550 (300 fsb) mobo, 2gb ram, and chip were under $250...

but a sub $100 4300 with a copy of supreme commander is real tempting (and probably faster), even tho a ds3 is more money to oc it on...

clock for clock am2 and 939 are virtually identical...

 

[f4phantom2500]

Yeah, you wouldn't notice a huge difference between AM2 and 939; clock for clock they would be pretty much the same, as cubeless said. Just curious, what 939 board do you have that has an AGP slot but no PCI-e slot? If you were to go with AM2, unless you didn't have a lot of money, it would be a much better option to just go for C2D, or if price is an option you could wait for the Pentium E's to come out in early June. The E2160 will be an E4300 with 1MB L2 cache instead of 2 (early reviews show that the extra cache doesn't help too much anyway) and will have a list price of only $85. However, you could probably sell your 6800GT now for quite a little bit of cash since it's AGP, you'd better do that before R600 comes out. Someone else might have a drastic need for an AGP 939 board, you never know lol.

 

[nageov3t]

Originally posted by: f4phantom2500
Just curious, what 939 board do you have that has an AGP slot but no PCI-e slot?

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1696

bought it back in like Dec '04... I bought the mobo like a month or two after buying a pretty expensive agp video card, which was why I went out of my way to find an agp/939 motherboard at the time. but I guess AM2 is calling me may as well go with the newest I can get if I'm going to be using it for another two years or so.

semi-OT, but will the AM2 socket type require a different type of fan hook up? I'm rather fond of ultra quiet cpu heatsink I've been using.

 

[kmmatney]

It's a pretty tough call. You can buy a dual core S939 cpu from NewEgg for $90 shipped ($80 with promo code), and that might tide you over. Another option is get the Asrock Dual VSTA motherboard that takes Socket 775 CPUs, and has AGP and DDR support. Socket AM2 is not generally much faster than Socket 939, but the processors are less expensive. It would be nice if they made an Asrock Dual VTSA bord for Socket AM2, so people could keep their DDR...

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: kmmatney
It would be nice if they made an Asrock Dual VTSA bord for Socket AM2, so people could keep their DDR...

AM2 boards can't support DDR because the memory controller is on the CPU for Athlon64-based systems. That's why the Asrock 939-DualSATA requires a complete daughter-board upgrade to suppport the change to from 939 to AM2: both CPU socket and DIMM slots are different.

939+DDR or AM2+DDR2, but no cross-matching.

 

[f4phantom2500]

What was that one ASrock board that had a pci-e x16 slot, ddr, and 939? IIRC it had an expansion slot where you could put a card in that would allow you to use an AM2 CPU and DDR2 RAM. If he can get one of those, he could use his current setup and just upgrade each piece at his own pace; get the expansion thing, am2 proc and ddr2 ram (since they're both cheap) and use his agp vid card for now, then upgrade it later, or just however he would want to do it.

 

[coolpurplefan]

I know right now with 939, you can't really upgrade much. The 3.0 GHz models are for AM2. Then there is the idea that when Barcelona comes out, you could install that.

However, when Barcelona does come out, it will not run to its full potential on an AM2 board. Besides, later on I think we're supposed to have DDR3...?

It's really confusing. I've gotten to a point where I now believe only get what you really need now. When the time to upgrade comes, you can do it later. Hell, the same X2s last year were like $400 or more. Now, you can get faster for less.

 

[myocardia]

Here are a few video cards you might be interested in: AGP X1950 Pros, and an AGP X1950XT.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I have same setup as the OP and in the same situation... still deciding to go with intel or am2 route n be ready for barcelona... im sick of my nforce3 939/agp mobo...