AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Retail Box 754 CPU & ECS nFORCE3-A Motherboard $84.99 + S/H @ Fry's.com

[pulverizer]

UPDATE: And back up to $84.99. $49.99 is the lowest price so far. Stay tuned...

On board video and free shipping would have made this a better deal, but not bad for a budget build, especially if you don't live near a Fry's B&M.

AMD A64 3000+ Box CPU & ECS nFORCE3-A Motherboard

Motherboard specs.

CPU Specs. Not sure if it's the 89W or the 51W chip. Assuming it's the same as the chip they're selling for $25 by itself, then it's the 51W chip.

Retail box CPU = 3 year manufacturer warranty + fan & heatsink included.

Recent price history:

$84.99 + S/H - current price
$49.99 + S/H
$69.99 + S/H
$84.99 + S/H
$59.99 + S/H

 

[Nick5324]

Nice find.

 

[DukeFan21]

Hmm...kinda tempted. I've been sitting with this XP 1800+ for quite sometime now, but I don't know if this is really worth it to upgrade

 

[Wheelock]

^ Same boat here, mate. Athlon 1900+. $50? I pulled the trigger. There are certain prices below which I rarely see hardware being sold. The Athlon 64 with the newer mobo should provide a nice boost up. This way I am upgrading while keeping my HDD, RAM, GPU, etc. Just switching around the CPU and motherboard. I'm cheap, so this is perfect for me.

CPU Comparison Chart

 

[Harvey]

Good find. I've had the board for this chip sitting on a shelf, waiting for just such a deal. A $25.00 is just the ticket.

 

[Kato]

Cheap HTPC using all the spare parts and a large HD. Thanks.

 

[gorcorps]

Originally posted by: DukeFan21
Hmm...kinda tempted. I've been sitting with this XP 1800+ for quite sometime now, but I don't know if this is really worth it to upgrade

I made about the same jump (XP2000+) when the A64s first came out, and it's definitely worth the jump. Especially for this price too. The CPU is a little slow for the most recent video cards, but you'll be able to use it for a while before it becoming a problem.

 

[SOSTrooper]

I wish the motherboard is mATX, I would've gotten it for my NSK1300 case.

 

[Kato]

$85 price doesn't make sense. You can get the items separately there for $64 (25 cpu + 39 mb).

 

[Wheelock]

Wow, glad I snagged this at $49 ($55 with S&H).

 

[Harvey]

The egg has an OEM Socket 754 CPU that could be a good alternative deal.

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 2.2GHz Socket 754 OEM - $36

Free shipping will cover some of the price of a HS/Fan.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: Kato
$85 price doesn't make sense. You can get the items separately there for $64 (25 cpu + 39 mb).

You could get the AMD Athlon Venice 2.2 GHz 3200+ at Newegg for $36 shipped and the MSI K8N Neo V2.0 H nForce3 250 Socket 754 ATX Motherboard at Geeks.com ($34.95 + shipping, which for me is around $8). The only difference I see between that ECS mobo and the MSI is that the MSI supports gigabit ethernet. AFAIC see, they are the same in other respects. That Venice processor specs out a lot better than that 3000+.

I got that combo and the Arctic Cooling Alpine64 HS/Fan at Newegg, which cost me about $20 shipped. Or, you could get a cheaper HS/Fan with that mobo at Geeks.com, for less than $8, and no additional shipping if you get it with the mobo.

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: DukeFan21
Hmm...kinda tempted. I've been sitting with this XP 1800+ for quite sometime now, but I don't know if this is really worth it to upgrade

It definitely is. I had an XP 2500+ and upgraded to one of these combos (but it was a Sempron 3100+ processor). Bought one of the heatsinks that AMD bundles with their X2's (ones with the heat pipes) for $15 and overclocked it to 2.3Ghz. You could easily do the same and yours would be even faster (more cache).

It's the perfect speed for everything-- before on the XP Barton stuff felt slow even when I had it overclocked to a 3200+...but the on-core memory controller makes all the difference in the world.

 

[caigido]

This is a very nice combo and a good value for the price. I built two systems with this combo (one with a Sempron 3100 and one with a AMD Athlon 64 3000) and they worked great for almost a year. I purchased both combo from Fry's within 2 months of each others. Both died when they were almost a year old and within a month of each others. I am very certain that it was the MB because all of the peripherals (including the power supplies) are now working just fine in the two "new" systems I just built. Oh, ECS sent me a replacement MB, but I could not get it to work. I don't have a lot of time to mess around, so I went with two new combos (from Fry's). Anyway, I chalked up my experience with a bad batch of MB's -- I have built a few other systems with ECS MB's and they are still up and running after 3 or 4 years. Yeah, I keep telling myself to buy a new PC the next time, but I always ended up building a new system.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: DukeFan21
Hmm...kinda tempted. I've been sitting with this XP 1800+ for quite sometime now, but I don't know if this is really worth it to upgrade

Read some of the 170+ user reviews of the Venice 3200+ at Newegg and I think you will be convinced.