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Athlon64 which one? 3000+, 3200+, 3500+

M

maximo12

Member
I'm most likely going to order today so I would really appreciate links to a helpful article or simply advice on which to buy.

Which would offer me the most bang for buck? I know the cost and all that and I'm order them socket 939 not 754. I'm kind of confused which cpu to get and I'm not sure which mobo to pair it up with. I will choose either the msi k8n neo2 platinum or the MSI K8T NEO2-F. Are the 3200+ and the 3500+ really going to offer me enough extra power to justify the cost over the 3000+?

I most likely will not overclock.
 
The 3500+ I think is almost 90 dollars more so no bang for the buck there for 400mhz more....

No Oc then I would say maybe a newcastle chip and sckt 754 mobo maybe the best. Also the MSI Neo2 mobo maybe a bit high priced if you dont plan on using its main strength....

I would say the 3000+ is the best bang for the buck whether ocing or not...Look at the $ per mhz!!!

 
the 3500+ looks like a nice enthusiast and non-overclocker's choice for the price (which is much lower than similar performance p4's)
i vote for the 3500+

 
I vote for the 3000+ (Winchester 90nm core). Retail version with HSF about $170-180. You can pair it with an ABIT AV8 mobo for about $110-115. Iknow you said you don't plan on overclocking now, but you may decide to in the future and the 3000+ winchester is an overclocking star. At stock it runs at 1.8GHz on the HTT, but can easilly reach 2.4-2.6GHz putting on par with a 4000+ (old FX-53) or even FX-55.

And the ABIT AV8 has a user friendly Windows Utility called UGuru (micro-guru) that makes overclocking very simple, even for someone that has never done it before.


Following is a good review that shows the 3000+'s great overclocking potential:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...ts/showdoc.aspx?i=2242
 
Originally posted by: bigal40
Originally posted by: Duvie
Oh yeah got the money go with the best!!! But not bang for the buck!!
Click to expand...

3500 is probably the best and the best for the buck
Click to expand...


I wouldn't say it's the best bang for the buck. It cost $100 more and the performance increase isn't that great. Besides, you can get the 3000 to 3500 speeds with very little effort.

 
I wouldn't mind overclocking but I just didn't want to spend the extra money for higher quality ram. Lets say I decide to overclock, what memory would you guys recommend to get the 3000+ to at least 3500+ speeds.
 
you don't have to get great ram to overclock, you just turn down the memory ratio, which is difference between the fsb and the memory's speed. For example, if you have a FSB of 200 (standard) your ram will be running at a 1:1 ratio, so it will also be running at 200 mhz, which is pc3200 speed. If you overclock your FSB to 250, you could turn down the ratio to 5:4 so the memory would be running about 200 mhz. The athlon 64's use some weird way of calculating the memory frequency based off of the mem ratio, but i think its very close to what it would be if the frequency was calculated the normal way.
If you have the money to get nice ram though, get the OCZ platinum revision 2 pc3200 ram, which is probably the fastest ram for overclocking there is.

If you are going to run at stock speeds, however, i'd vote for the athlon 3200 if price is a large issue, if not the 3500. The 3500 costs almost 100 more for not a huge gain, so its not worth the speed IMO, but im a very value-concious person (as you should be able to tell from my rig, which i built late last year.)
 
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