Bad to go with AM2 now?

[parsley007]

I currently have a s939 3500+ and was looking to upgrade to dual core.

I had been looking at C2D, but when the 5000+ black combo deals came up Monday, I jumped on it. I've never really oc'ed anything but a celeron 300a, so I don't know much about it . However, it seems running the 5000+ at 3ghz+ is fairly simple.

I paired it with the freezer 64 pro cooler, ASUS M2A-VM board, and 2 gb kingston 667.

I'm having second thoughts though, and it seems AM2 might already be dying. One reason I picked this board though, is tom's hardware says it already supports the phenom, so I should be could for at least AM2+, if not AM3.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[TheNewbie]

What are you using your system for, and what are your other specs?
Anyway, to me it sounds like a good deal for like 95% of the population, that is unless you're a hardcore gamer or doing some weird calculations with it etc.

 

[Markbnj]

It'll be a great system, and most certainly not a "bad" system. But since you used the word "bad" I'll take a leap and assume that you mean "bad" as in "not the most uber technology choice I could have made." If that's close, then yeah, it's bad . AMD is way behind, and I'm not sure from what I have read when they have their next shot at catching up.

 

[parsley007]

I probably shouldn't have used the word bad...my meaning was not a good idea. I don't plan on doing any gaming. Mainly watching HD video, extracting/moving files, burning media, that's probably the most intensive stuff.

I feel better about my choice now. I was mainly concerned about upgrade ability ~2 years down the road and if it was possible the motherboard could still be usable.

 

[Roguestar]

Most people upgrading after >2 years are going to be ditching their motherboard anyway. No point in hanging on to it and feeding a dying factor to save a few $. Don't worry about it now.

 

[JackMDS]

If the system would do what you need to do than you did the right call.

Computers are Not humans they are pieces of Sillicone plastic and metal.

If a computer does the Job that it intended to than it is Good regardless of what the other guys have.

You ever been in a Wall Street Office. They have Huge amount of computers that in our terms are considered Pile of Junk. Yet they generate Billions of $$$ in income.

 

[Jiggz]

I upgraded from AMD San Diego 4500+ to C2D E4300 oc'ed to 3.2GHZ last year and it was like night and day in difference. I'm not really sure how much you would save between 5000+ and a C2D E4500. In the Hot Deals section there is a special at Fry's for E4500 + ECS 945GCT mobo for about $120.00. Of course, the mobo is a not all that great but it'll get you started. When I did my upgrade I just bought a used mobo from the For Sale/Trade section and it's the Gigabyte P965-S3 and it was perfect! E4300 and E4500 can easily oc to 3.0 without any modification in voltage or cooling. Now I don't have system slow downs while doing my work with the anti-virus/spyware running in the background. In fact, I have yet to see the system reach 100% cpu usage doing my normal stuff. Of course, I do not play games!

 

[nerp]

Not to discount the performance of the intel chips, but going from a single to dual core AMD system will result in the same remarkable performance improvment. I just did it myself. For $90, it was hard to argue against.

 

[Zap]

I think that Black 5000+ deal was pretty hot. If you already needed to buy the RAM, then the CPU essentially was the cost of an E2140. Those E2xxx series chips don't have the huge per clock advantage over AMD chips that the higher cache chips have, and reportedly both can clock to around 3GHz.

 

[rasczak]

Originally posted by: nerp
Not to discount the performance of the intel chips, but going from a single to dual core AMD system will result in the same remarkable performance improvment. I just did it myself. For $90, it was hard to argue against.

Really? This was what I was worried about as I still own a winnin 3200+. I jumped on the x2 3800+ manchester core being sold on newegg for $59.99. The rest of my rig is still decent.

DFI Lan Party Ultra (flashed for SLI capability by previous owner)
2x512mb pc 3200 OCZ El Plat Rev2
XFX 7900 GTX 512mb

and some other junk as well.

I mainly game with this rig, CS CSS TF2 COD4. Not lookin to upgrade for another year. ( bought this rig in entirety back in 2005.)

I hope the x2 is worth it.

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: JackMDS
Computers are Not humans they are pieces of Sillicone plastic and metal.

That's a fantastic typo .

Humans can be silicone, computers are silicon .

 

[angry hampster]

Just to let you know, overclocking ability with the BIOS on the M2A-VM is crippled. I initially had that board, then got an M2N-SLI after reading about its feature-packed BIOS, among other things.