Best time to buy X2 (939)?

[techfuzz]

I had been holding off buying an X2, probably a 4400+, until the new AM2 (940) cpu's were released with the thinking that they would drop the prices on existing 939-pin X2's something like ~$40 less than the new AM2 equivalent. However, after reading some of the reviews and press releases from AMD today, *I* get the feeling that the 940 and 939's will be essentially the same price until they EOL the 939's.

I am left with the following quandry. Do I,
1. Buy a 939 in the next 2-3 months, hopefully after the price decreases a bit more.
2. Wait 9-12 months, essentially scrap my existing system and start over with an AM2.
3. Something else I haven't considered?

What would you do?

techfuzz

 

[RallyMaster]

It's going to be a while. Let AM2 settle in and then you'll see 939 chips dropping in prices.

 

[unbot]

i'm in the same boat as you techfuzz. i was hoping the 939s would drop today on am2 release but was probably too optimistic. i hope it doesn't take 2-3 mths before we see the price drop on the x2, since it seems like the prices haven't changed much for a while now.

but if u were going to wait 2+ mths, might as well check out what conroe will look like and decide from there.

 

[413xram]

Originally posted by: unbot
i'm in the same boat as you techfuzz. i was hoping the 939s would drop today on am2 release but was probably too optimistic. i hope it doesn't take 2-3 mths before we see the price drop on the x2, since it seems like the prices haven't changed much for a while now.

but if u were going to wait 2+ mths, might as well check out what conroe will look like and decide from there.

Totally agree....No real performance gains......no real drop in prices......hello intel...

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: techfuzz
I had been holding off buying an X2, probably a 4400+, until the new AM2 (940) cpu's were released with the thinking that they would drop the prices on existing 939-pin X2's something like ~$40 less than the new AM2 equivalent. However, after reading some of the reviews and press releases from AMD today, *I* get the feeling that the 940 and 939's will be essentially the same price until they EOL the 939's.

I am left with the following quandry. Do I,
1. Buy a 939 in the next 2-3 months, hopefully after the price decreases a bit more.
2. Wait 9-12 months, essentially scrap my existing system and start over with an AM2.
3. Something else I haven't considered?

What would you do?

techfuzz

If you were going to wait 9-12 months to scrap your system and go AM2, I'd suggest option #3...wait for Conroe.

If you would like a system now, I'd suggest waiting about 2-3 weeks until we see some motherboard reviews for AM2, so you can get an idea of which are decent boards and which are rushed duds. Then make the jump.

If you're not already 939, there's not much reason to get it over AM2.

 

[EffeX]

Buy am2! im buyin an M2N32 SLi Deluxe and an X2 4000+

 

[F1shF4t]

Wait for conroe, then watch Athlons X2 drop in price

 

[Visual]

the new socket is an improvement to the old one atleast in one way: it has the 4000+ x2 model
on the 939, the cheapest 2mb l2 was the 4400+ that you have picked, or an opteron 165/170. now we finally get the 4000+, essentially equivalent to the 170 opteron but hopefully cheaper than even the 165.
it really seems like the perfect chip to get. unfortunately, that would require new mobo and memory, so it's a hard decision. see if you can sell your current mobo/mem at a reasonable price, i think this is your best option.

if your current mobo and mem are good and fast and allow you significant overclocks at 9x/10x multiplier, you can still go opteron 165/170 instead of the 4400+, saving some significant bucks. there's even the slim chance that those opterons will get cheaper now as demand shifts from them to the new 4000+ AM2, but seeing as AMD have removed them (all 939 opterons infact) from the CPU pricing table on their site (are they no longer selling them at all?!) i expect availability to decrease and so prices will only be getting worse with waiting.

if you choose to wait till Q4 you'll get intel's conroe as an alternative, and if it's as good as they say, prices on the AMD side will be forced down too. there's always something worth waiting for in the PC world though, and if you're tired of waiting and just want a x2 now, you won't go wrong with either 939 or AM2.

 

[akugami]

I'm just going to wait for the S939 Opteron 165 or X2 3800+ to drop in price. Even if Conroe is cheaper and more powerful it would not be cost efficient for me to change to a new motherboard, new RAM and new CPU for a slight bump in performance. So...best thing to do is wait two months, hope S939 dual cores drop in price and cash in. If you're thinking of getting a complete new system in the next few months, I'd wait to see how Conroe does and which is the better bang for the buck between that and socket AM2 Athlons.

 

[techfuzz]

I have a fairly healthy 939 setup with a 3000+ and 2GB right now which is where the dilemna is. Scrapping it would require a 9-12 month wait most likely before I could afford to replace virtually everything. 2-3 months is more what I need to wait to get a simple X2 replacement cpu. I'm not really interested in the overclocking factor, it would be nice, but hardly a requirement. I'm actually more interested in dual cores. Since moving away from a dual processor setup a few years back I've missed how 2 can multitask so much better than 1 greatly.



techfuzz

 

[pkme2]

I'm waiting for a deal on a 4800+. When X2 prices drop, someone might have a price on AT, where I might find a great deal. Well, I will have to wait and see. The prices on AM2 are cheaper than present X2 prices. Good things come to those who wait.

 

[imported_Questar]

I would buy just after the first price drop after Conroe is out.

Waiting longer could let the supply of 939 chips dry up, which will raise the price.

 

[akugami]

Forgot where but I believe it said Socket 939 CPU's will be in production till 2008. There is no chance of Socket 939 chips drying up any time soon. Heck, Socket 754 had a healthy life until this year when things were shifting completely to Socket 939 and AM2. It's just that Socket 754 is "officially" dead with Socket 939 taking it's place on the low end and AM2 in the higher end. Now...if you waited till 2008 and bought a new Socket 939 processor that'd be different.

 

[Bullhonkie]

Originally posted by: akugami
Forgot where but I believe it said Socket 939 CPU's will be in production till 2008. There is no chance of Socket 939 chips drying up any time soon. Heck, Socket 754 had a healthy life until this year when things were shifting completely to Socket 939 and AM2. It's just that Socket 754 is "officially" dead with Socket 939 taking it's place on the low end and AM2 in the higher end. Now...if you waited till 2008 and bought a new Socket 939 processor that'd be different.

I thought S754 was actually going to outlive S939 with AM2 taking the place of S939 for mainstream and S754 continuing along as the budget solution? Thought I remembered reading that somewhere.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: Bullhonkie

Originally posted by: akugami
Forgot where but I believe it said Socket 939 CPU's will be in production till 2008. There is no chance of Socket 939 chips drying up any time soon. Heck, Socket 754 had a healthy life until this year when things were shifting completely to Socket 939 and AM2. It's just that Socket 754 is "officially" dead with Socket 939 taking it's place on the low end and AM2 in the higher end. Now...if you waited till 2008 and bought a new Socket 939 processor that'd be different.

I thought S754 was actually going to outlive S939 with AM2 taking the place of S939 for mainstream and S754 continuing along as the budget solution? Thought I remembered reading that somewhere.

That doesn't make sense as DDR is already getting expensive compared to DDR2. Why would you want to add cost to your budget platform? They will have AM2 semprons out soon and probably just have lower-end boards with less features to pair with them.

 

[Bullhonkie]

Originally posted by: aka1nas

Originally posted by: Bullhonkie

Originally posted by: akugami
Forgot where but I believe it said Socket 939 CPU's will be in production till 2008. There is no chance of Socket 939 chips drying up any time soon. Heck, Socket 754 had a healthy life until this year when things were shifting completely to Socket 939 and AM2. It's just that Socket 754 is "officially" dead with Socket 939 taking it's place on the low end and AM2 in the higher end. Now...if you waited till 2008 and bought a new Socket 939 processor that'd be different.

I thought S754 was actually going to outlive S939 with AM2 taking the place of S939 for mainstream and S754 continuing along as the budget solution? Thought I remembered reading that somewhere.

That doesn't make sense as DDR is already getting expensive compared to DDR2. Why would you want to add cost to your budget platform? They will have AM2 semprons out soon and probably just have lower-end boards with less features to pair with them.

Because there's already a huge established userbase and market penetration of DDR? I found where I read about it: Text

 

[akugami]

Believe it or not they still make small quantities of SDRAM. I don't think prices for DDR RAM and Socket 939 processors to really climb until late 2007. Single core 939's stop shipping in Q4'06 and dual cores (what most upgraders are looking for) won't stop shipping till Q2'07. I'm looking to upgrade to dual cores because these slower video encodes are cutting into my game playing time.

 

[techfuzz]

Originally posted by: Dark Cupcake
Wait for conroe, then watch Athlons X2 drop in price

Looks like DC hit the nail on the head perfectly.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2800

Now the real question is do I get the 3800+, 4200+, or 4600+ on the 25th? I'm also going to get a 7900GT when I get the cpu. Should be a great overall system upgrade

techfuzz

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: Visual
the new socket is an improvement to the old one atleast in one way: it has the 4000+ x2 model
on the 939, the cheapest 2mb l2 was the 4400+ that you have picked, or an opteron 165/170. now we finally get the 4000+, essentially equivalent to the 170 opteron but hopefully cheaper than even the 165.
it really seems like the perfect chip to get. unfortunately, that would require new mobo and memory, so it's a hard decision. see if you can sell your current mobo/mem at a reasonable price, i think this is your best option.

if your current mobo and mem are good and fast and allow you significant overclocks at 9x/10x multiplier, you can still go opteron 165/170 instead of the 4400+, saving some significant bucks. there's even the slim chance that those opterons will get cheaper now as demand shifts from them to the new 4000+ AM2, but seeing as AMD have removed them (all 939 opterons infact) from the CPU pricing table on their site (are they no longer selling them at all?!) i expect availability to decrease and so prices will only be getting worse with waiting.

if you choose to wait till Q4 you'll get intel's conroe as an alternative, and if it's as good as they say, prices on the AMD side will be forced down too. there's always something worth waiting for in the PC world though, and if you're tired of waiting and just want a x2 now, you won't go wrong with either 939 or AM2.

No 2x1MB L2 AM2 chips after all? I don't like this, but I can understand the logic.

 

[GundamSonicZeroX]

Originally posted by: Dark Cupcake
Wait for conroe, then watch Athlons X2 drop in price

Yep July 24, the day after the Conroe the prices on AM2s will drop drastically.

 

[techfuzz]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
No 2x1MB L2 AM2 chips after all? I don't like this, but I can understand the logic.

From what I've read review-wise, there really is no difference between the 2x512 and 2x1MB caches. Most tests put the performance difference at less than 3%. Most real-world applications show exactly the same performance.

techfuzz