In the market for a new CPU

[ConstipatedVigilante]

Here's my system:

A8NE Nforce 4 motherboard
Athlon 3700+ San Diego
2gb RAM
8800 GT
SB Audigy LS
1x200gb internal SATA HDD
1x300gb external USB HDD

I'm thinking of replacing the mobo/RAM/cpu in a month or so. I'm looking at the E2180 now, but is there a new socket coming along? 939 became obsolete faster than I would have liked, and LGA 775 has been around for awhile now, and I'm willing to wait a little while if Intel is coming out with another long-term design.

 

[Denithor]

e2180 is useless now, get the e5200 for the same price & considerably better performance.

LGA775 is about to go the same way as S939...Nehalem is coming later this year on a new socket. That said, you should still be able to get nice C2Q chips well into next year or probably into 2010. Intel will continue to support businesses with that socket, they don't have the fab capacity shortage that forced AMD to quit making S939 chips.

Nehalem is going to be expensive as crap, cheapest chips are like $300 I think and will require new motherboard & DDR3 (which is also quite expensive). And for gaming, it only offers ~20% improvement clock-for-clock versus Penryn from what I've seen.

If I was building a new system today, I'd go for e5200 (around $80) and plan to upgrade to a speedy quad late next year (by then quads should be supported in more applications).

 

[nerp]

Now is a great time to build a system around a 45nm cpu. I'd say go for it, buy cheap DDR2-800 and you're off the ground.

 

[faxon]

Originally posted by: Denithor
e2180 is useless now, get the e5200 for the same price & considerably better performance.

LGA775 is about to go the same way as S939...Nehalem is coming later this year on a new socket. That said, you should still be able to get nice C2Q chips well into next year or probably into 2010. Intel will continue to support businesses with that socket, they don't have the fab capacity shortage that forced AMD to quit making S939 chips.

Nehalem is going to be expensive as crap, cheapest chips are like $300 I think and will require new motherboard & DDR3 (which is also quite expensive). And for gaming, it only offers ~20% improvement clock-for-clock versus Penryn from what I've seen.

If I was building a new system today, I'd go for e5200 (around $80) and plan to upgrade to a speedy quad late next year (by then quads should be supported in more applications).

yea this is what i would do if you're on a budget. i just built a system around an e5200 (3.3GHz OC) with a 680i mobo and 2x1gb of 1066 balisticx i got from a friend. comp is at his house, i just use it for gaming. its soooo much faster than the 3.2ghz pentium 4/7800GS AGP/1GBDDR400 i was playing on . i will probably replace the mobo and the cpu this time next year with a cheap X38 and a Q9650 for like $200 LOL

 

[Concillian]

Another e5200 vote. Wait for the die shrinks of Nehalem. This is what I've done for the last few generations. It's cheaper, lower power, and you let the RAM technologies mature (i.e. get cheap).

You also get quite significant upgrades for low out of pocket expense.

I just went from a S939 Opteron dual core to e5200 and I'm not at all regretting pulling the trigger now instead of waiting.

 

[Dadofamunky]

Here's a vote for getting a C2D after the first Nehalems come out, presuming there's a price drop for the C2Ds when that happens. But even now, I don't think waiting is gonna matter that much. Get a C2D now and use it for a year while they work the bugs out of the Nehalem platform... The E8x00 CPUs are stellar.

But the rig that Faxon referred to is still waaaay faster than the San Diego rig you have now.

Heck, I'd even consider a dual-core S939 chip on eBay or somewhere if the price was right. I love my 4800+.

 

[faxon]

yea really, i have been hunting for an FX-60 for some time now if i can find one for around the price i paid for the e5200 for my A64 4000+ rig. would be nice just to have a fast chip that i dont have to get new ram to OC easily (had trouble with this on my current system), esp considering how hard it is to get DDR500, plus how much it costs. you can get 4GB of DDR2 1066 for the price of a DDR2 550 kit lol. im probably just going to not bother now though, spent all my money on that system, a new headset, and a benchmade folding pocket knife lol. if anyone has an FX-60 CPU they are giving away though i call dibs!

my current home rig (not main gaming rig) A64 4000+, 2x1GB Supertalent DDR400 CAS2, EVGA NF47 SLIx16 mobo, HD2900PRO 1GB, and my system drive is a 500GB SATA2 7200.10 Barracuda