CPU that'll last a year

[TourDe]

Well, soon to be HS senior here and will likely take a laptop to college after this upcoming school year. But before I go, I'd like to upgrade my old trusty DESKTOP just for the one year period and the games coming out. Like Doom3 and HL 2. The games aren't out yet of course so it's hard to determine what system specifics I need. I've heard about leaked Alph/Beta for those games, but I know the retail will be quite different in terms of minimum requirement so it's still hard to decide.

The hardest part of upgrading for me turns out to be deciding the CPU. I really have no idea what alot of the specifics mean, except well, higher number means the faster supposely. Looking around at benchmarks, AMD Athlon appears to have Intel beat in many catergories especially in many games. With its lower price and better performance in games, it looked to be a non-brainer to get an AMD Athlon. One dumb question btw, I should have no problem fitting in the AMD Mobo into my case and connecting it with all the powersupply and stuff that all came with the computer, which came with P4 cpu and Intel mobo, right?

So anyways, the Athlon 64 seems very delicious and good for the price, but is it a overkill just for this coming year? I can't spend too much dollar since I also got save up for the laptop that I'll be taking to college.

Please help me decide on the CPU. AMD and Intel alike.

 

[JeffreyY]

How about a budget first. What is too much?

 

[S4M33R]

look at the budget system guide offered by anandtech. your case and power supply could be a problem if they came with a dell or something. find your friendly neighboorhood computer geek, he'll more than likely help you out.

edit: even the budget system plus maybe a radeon 9800 pro will run HL2 and Doom 3 nicely (if doom 3 gets a little more optimized)

 

[byosys]

First off: what is your current system?
Second: your budget kinda plays a big roll in decinding what to get.

 

[TourDe]

1.80 gigahertz Intel Pentium 4
512MB Infineon PC133 SDRAM
40.02 Gigabytes harddrive
ASUS P4B ACPI BIOS Revision 1008
ATI Radeon 9600 PRO 128 MB

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm planning on getting 2 sticks of Mushkin 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-3200 - Retail, a Sapphire 9800 PRO and some 120++ GB harddrive. All that's left are the CPU and its MoBo. The power supply I'll look into it further since I have no idea what it is that I have right now. How do I find that out anyway?

I hope the combo of the CPU and the MoBo can fall between $250~400. Of course the lower the better

 

[Connoisseur]

Errr if you're looking for budget then just get a mobile athlon and NF7-S, overclock to 2.4 ghz and have fun playing Doom 3 when it comes out. It'll cost you about $170 (that's with shipping). Personally, if you only got a year left i'd just save up for a really nice laptop so you can play those games. Chances are Doom 3 and HL2 aren't gonna come out till mid 2005 anyway. Why buy something now?

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Connoisseur
Errr if you're looking for budget then just get a mobile athlon and NF7-S, overclock to 2.4 ghz and have fun playing Doom 3 when it comes out. It'll cost you about $170 (that's with shipping). Personally, if you only got a year left i'd just save up for a really nice laptop so you can play those games. Chances are Doom 3 and HL2 aren't gonna come out till mid 2005 anyway. Why buy something now?

Doom 3 is confirmed by ID for Summer 2004.

 

[Connoisseur]

my mistake. I know HL2 is def being pushed back to 05. In either case, my recommendation still holds up. A 2.4ghz mobile barton will be a very good performer for a very low price. Then you can spring for your lappie when you graduate

 

[Algere]

Originally posted by: Connoisseur
my mistake. I know HL2 is def being pushed back to 05. In either case, my recommendation still holds up. A 2.4ghz mobile barton will be a very good performer for a very low price. Then you can spring for your lappie when you graduate

link?

 

[TourDe]

$170? I said the budget can be between 250~400. I love the idea overclocking and all that but I cant say I'm too big of an expert at it and I dont like doing it in the first place. Especially such huge %. ...I thought HL2 is coming out this winter too

 

[mrwxyz]

considering the fact that u HAVE to upgrade cpu, mobo, AND memory........its gonna be hard to fit in all in $400. the mobile athlon is ur best bet to have enough left for memory and a vid card. ur current vid card wont let u play hl2 or doom3 with eye candy and higher res. ur better off just trying to oc ur current p4, adding a stick of ram, and getting a r9800p (provided that ur cpu goes high enough to not hold it back).

maybe this will work, but seems like a waste for only a year:
Athlon64 2800+ = 185
random good mobo = ~90
512mb pc3200 = ~80
total = 355
here, again, ur 9600 wont let u play the games fully

 

[Zimdesign]

The setup mrwxyz suggests seems like it would fit the bill. Your 9600 Pro should be able to handle new games pretty well, as long as you don't mind turning off some of the eye candy.

 

[tylerhskate]

august 7 or somethin i heard =/

 

[TourDe]

Hmm....not trying to sound ungrateful for your help or anything, but here's the quote from my 1st reply post.

I hope the combo of the CPU and the MoBo can fall between $250~400. Of course the lower the better

If you read, you can see that I'm talking about just the CPU and MoBo. The other stuff I have already decided on and have the money for. Thanks

EDIT: I actually like the AMD 64 2800 CPU. But looking at a few benchmarks, it doesn't seem to have any clear advantage over a Intel P4C Northwood, and the price seems to the same. Can someone clarify that? Also I shouldn't have any problem connecting the AMD MoBo with whatever I have left in my computer right? I always think that the Intel and AMD mobos are completely different in everyway possible. Btw what mobo do you recommand?

 

[Falloutboy]

you might want to get in on neweggs deal of getting a athlon64 2800+ KV8 MB for 200 bucks

 

[TourDe]

Huh? Where ? I can't find it on the site. Also which KV8 we talking about ?

EDIT: Can you link it? Appreciate it thanks

 

[mrwxyz]

ok, didnt know u already had ddr memory

the 2800+ will beat the p42.8C and maybe the p43.0C in gaming. a64 is the way to go if ur really aiming towards gaming. if ur gonna spend <400, maybe u should consider the 3200+ instead. it will own almost any p4 in gaming, even the extreme edition.