Help with New Athlon64FX-51 940 pin and Athlon64FX-53 939 pin technicalities and PCI-E Questions

[FirestormX]

Alright so I orginally was going to build the following system:
Gigabyte GA-K8NNXP-940 Motherboard
Athlon64 FX-51
1024MB of PC3200 Registered DDR OCZ RAM (2X512MB DIMM)
ATI Radeon 9800 XT
Dual 120GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache Special Edition Western Digital Cavairs on Raid-0 (EIDE)
Viewsonic P225f Flat 22" CRT (2048x1536 @ 79Hz)
ATXA2XPW-SL Case
52X CD-RW
24bit DVD-ROM

But some issues came up and I was unable to obtain all the parts from my dumbass inside people who claimed they could get me deals on some of the main parts. So after months of waiting I told them to go f*ck themsleves. However now I have a problem, I did get some parts. I have the motherboard and the RAM. Now, I know the new FX chip will be socket 939 (I know there is a 940 version but I want to go with expandibility since the 940 is dead after that). So I have to sell the motherboard no matter what. But will the Athlon64 FX-53 require registered memory like the 51 socket 940? Should I sell my RAM too? Also, since the FX is dual channel does that mean it only or works best with 2 sticks of ram or could I use all 4 still if my motherboard supported it?

This also made me want to wait for the new ATI r423 with native PCI-E support. And of course the new motherboards with PCI-E, how fast is it anyways? Will the motherboard now have all PCI-E slots or just one like AGP? And also is it backwards compatable with normal PCI?

BTW, both are unopened in orginal retail boxes if anyone is interested in buying, otherwise I'll probably just sell on Ebay unless anyone knows of places I could get as much as my money back as possible. They are new and I never even used them after all, Thanks.

 

[Jojo7]

I might be able to answer one of your questions.

S939 boards will NOT require registered memory, no matter the cpu (FX or regular A64). That's one of the reasons for the move.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: Jojo7
S939 boards will NOT require registered memory, no matter the cpu (FX or regular A64).

Just to further clarify that, it's new S939 CPUs that won't require registered memory; memory support is a function of the CPU and its on-die controller, not the motherboard.

 

[FirestormX]

Bump?

 

[Markfw]

Socket 940 boards will NOT be going away. The 939 and the regular memory may speed things up, but I would just keep what you got for now. The FX-53 will also be socket 940 AFAIK.

 

[Twsmit]

socket 939 will support dual channel unregistered A64 and A64FX. The mobo and ram you have now cannot be used in a socket 939 system. You can probably resell the stuff and get most of your money back since its still top of the line and brand new.

You could keep the stuff and go with a socket 940 system, but you are limited to a FX-53 and after that Opterons.

 

[MrCodeDude]

Socket 939 = Dual Channel Unbuffered PC3200 (DDR400)

Socket 940 = Dual Channel Registered PC3200 (DDR400)

Unbuffered is faster Registered.

Since you already have the mobo and memory, you're in quite a pickle. You're kind of limiting yourself with the 940 though because of the lack of expansion as far the the CPU's go. I'd sell what you have (assuming you got good prices, you should be able to get what you paid for them) and go Socket 939.

 

[Jojo7]

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: Jojo7
S939 boards will NOT require registered memory, no matter the cpu (FX or regular A64).

Just to further clarify that, it's new S939 CPUs that won't require registered memory; memory support is a function of the CPU and its on-die controller, not the motherboard.

Good point. Thanks for clarifying.