AMD/Pentium and PCI Express

[DeathscytheHELL]

My friend is in desperate need of a new computer but he is Money conscious.

we want the cheaper system for higher end gaming, and I want to make sure that he doesn't HAVE to buy another system for as long as possible, I know it's almost a matter of 1-2 years, but he is running a Pentium 2!!

I want to get a nice System capable of handling DOOM3, and EQ2 at moderate to good rates.

So I was going to send in a Pentium 2.8c 800FSB to get a couple pins fixed, and give him it at the cost for repairs. Saving about 100 bucks on the CPU

But upon seeing what is coming our way.... I am stumped as to what to do.

So with all the new cpu/mb/Video combinations out there...

First Glance sent me after the PCIx Nvidia 6600 GT, and building a system compatable with that.
This is a guy that, like me, will never pay much more than 200 for a Videoo card, So high end AGP is out.

That's easy to figure out on the pentium side, not a bad price for the Pentium 5xx systems
But then I went to check out what I could do with AMD64, because of the benchmarks killing Pentium, and was totally lost.

Which AMD CPU's are compatable with the few AMD PCI Express Boards out there? Is it any 939 AMD? Is it just the 2GHz+ chips? is it only the Expensive ones? Which of the cheapest is the one I should go with?

I think I only have about $700-800 total for MB, CPU, Memory, Video. I might even have to include Case, Power, and Cooling.

Can I suceed in this mission?

Links to other forums would be cool, and links to Products would be nice too
Thanks in advance

 

[hundesau]

ok, listen up:

winchester socket 939 3000+
Abit AV8
6600GT or 6800
160Gb S-ata hdd
dvd&cd burner NEC ND 3520
Case
Tagan, bequiet or Antec PSU


mission accomplished.

 

[hundesau]

erm... ok, u wanted pcie, but i gave u a setup for agp. theres always some collalteral damage...

 

[bradley]

For starters, PCI-e motherboards based on the ATI Express 200 will be cheapest, Via motherboards middle-of-the-road, and NVidia motherboards most expensive. In a month or two from now, you could expect to pay between $90-$100 for an ATI Express motherboard... couple that with a $135-150 Athlon 64 3000+, and you're half way there.

 

[hundesau]

thats true, but when will VIA and ATI bring there CHipsets out, i know they released them already but especially the boards with ATI chipset wont come out in a month or two....anyone knows a roadmap?=

 

[bradley]

Not sure about Via availability, but MSI already has already released an ATI Express 200 based motherboard, and they are selling in limited quantities. Although, these boards are currently out of stock or backordered at most retailers. They're super-fast boards... the only downside being this motherboard presently has absolutely no overclocking features.

ZipZoomFly has the MSI RS480M2-IL, the version with built-in video, selling for $99 with Free 2nd Day shipping. Not bad.
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/...jsp?ProductCode=241160

They are also selling the Athlon 64 3000+ Socket 939 retail for $158, also with free shipping.
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/...sp?ProductCode=80699-2

So for

 

[Relion]

Athlon 64 3000+ ~$140
Gigabyte 6600GT ~$190
Chaintec Vainilla Nforce4 (Or if u can wait...wait for DFI ultra) ~$150
1GB Mushkin Greenline PC3200 ~140

There u are !!!

 

[o1die]

Anandtech recommended a chaintech vnf-250 nforce3 board with athlon 64 2800, about $200 shipped. It will last for at least 2 years. If you go ahead with giving your friend the 2.8c (mine runs at 3726), I would go with an msi or abit 865 board, both around $80. My msi has been solid and a great overclocker.

 

[ahurtt]

I was recently debating the same kind of thing. I think it is proven that AMD Athlon 64 is the undisputed perfomance king right now. And now with the advent of the new Winchester 90nm Athlon 64's you can get into the Socket 939 / AMD 64 arena for about $200 bucks or less.

Athlon 64 3200 (Winchester 90nm 512K L2 cache Sockeet 939) CPU = about $215
AMD plans to end the runs of most of their socket 754 package desktop CPU's by the end of 2005.

Abit is going to release the AX8 socket 939 motherboard featuring the VIA K8T890 chipset in a matter of days now from what I gather. This will support dual channel DDR 400, SATA RAID, PCI Express graphics, Gbit ethernet to name a few of the goodies. This motherboard is expected to go around the $100-$150 range I think. I've always had good experience with Abit boards so I like to stick with them. The only other option currently available for AMD 64 setup is the nVidia nForce 4 / Ultra / SLI. But Abit doesn't offer any motherboard with this chipset. I believe the current flavor of the month for nForce4 boards is the Asus A8N. . .which seems to be the topic of every other post around here lately.

Throw in your PCI-X 6600GT = about $200
RAM $200-250 for 1 GIG good fast gaming DDR 400 RAM, maybe $125 for 512MB.
You save money on your RAM by going with AMD because you only need DDR, not more pricey DDR2. And socket 939 will support Dual Channel configuration. DDR2 doesn't seem to make much difference on AMD processors anyway. You can put some money you save into a nVidia 6800 maybe. . .

So for around $700-800 bucks you got a pretty kick-butt machine. Something comparable based on Intel probably could probably cost you a couple hundred bucks more at least. Yes you can succeed on your mission.