Is it time to step up to PCIe?

[luco]

Well, I'm working on getting warranty service for my AIW 9700 Pro from ATI. The customer support is not all that impressive. I was thinking of upgrading my video card, but then again, I'm not sure I need to since I only play one or two racing games (FIA GTR, Richard Burns Rally). Considering my current system serves me well, are there many benefits of going to PCIe system?

I have A64 3000+ S754, 1GB RAM, Asus K8V mobo, AIW 9700 Pro, Seagate 7200.9 300GB sata, all sitting in a Sonata case. I'd like to make my system even more quiet somehow. So, I'm not sure if spending money on quieting my current setup is worth it or if I should be thinking about building from scratch and carefully choosing new components.
With the world moving to PCIe, S939 architecture, what would I gain if I upgrade besides bragging rights?

Thanks.

 

[Ultralight]

My suggestion is that since it seems your current rig is doing everything you need I'd begin saving up and seriously look into the offerings in the year 2007.

Intel's Conroe and AMD's AM2 will be coming out soon. But, this is new dust being kicked up. Plus, AM3 is supposed be released in 2007. So, I'd really wait until 2007 see what is new - and stable - and then jump in with a nice wad of cash!

 

[Tarrant64]

Couple ways to look at this. You're right that if you do make the move for an upgrade. PCIe is the way to go. Understand though that it's been noted PCIe really isn't that much an improvement over AGP. At least not yet anyways. AGP is still in the game and I thank ATI and Nvidia for keeping their promise not to leave us AGP'ers behind. ^^;

You said you only play a couple games, and that your build now plays them just fine. That's good. If that's the case, then stick with what you have. If you have problems with the noise being made by your current setup, maybe look into spending money on making your case quieter than it is, or getting a case specialized in being quiet. I know there are some cases that are pretty good, but over the past few months school has kept me out of the loop for reading up and knowing what's good out there...Someone here should be able to give answer to your "noise" problem.

Save your cash and skip the upgrade for now. Put some money away and see what the release of M2 will bring. If it's proves worthy, skip skt 939 and be ahead of the game. BTW, I'm still on skt. 754 and a 9600XT with 1GB ram. I know what you're feeling when you think about upgrading video card and moving to 939. Unless you can afford the upgrade and your games demand, don't do anything for right now.

 

[Tarrant64]

Originally posted by: Ultralight
My suggestion is that since it seems your current rig is doing everything you need I'd begin saving up and seriously look into the offerings in the year 2007.

Intel's Conroe and AMD's AM2 will be coming out soon. But, this is new dust being kicked up. Plus, AM3 is supposed be released in 2007. So, I'd really wait until 2007 see what is new - and stable - and then jump in with a nice wad of cash!

And Ultralight seems to be on the same page as i am. I completely forgot about Conroe, and I am shocked at AMD's M2 to M3 move so quickly. Then again, I feel I got screwed when I went to 754 and they immediately went to 939. I was pretty bummed out.

 

[dBTelos]

For being quieter the following are the best things you can do:

1. Get a new intake and exhaust. Get nexus or yate loon fans, the biggest that fits.
2. Buy a Fan controller, turn down fans when not gaming, or down when sleeping.
3. Buy a passive CPU cooler and replace video card fan w/ after market fan on controller.
4. Replace PSU fan if loud.

That should keep you really quiet.

 

[luco]

Thanks everyone. I think I'll wait this out until Christmas or so.

Tarrant, I hear you on the S754. 939 came out weeks after I put my system together. Oh well, can't play the waiting game, or else I'd never buy anything. Now, I'm only debating a jump to AIW X800XL. If I do that, I should be a happy camper for another year or so. If I can find a good deal (perhaps with ATI's trade-in program), I might jump on it, if not, it's not a loss.

dB, I think my video card is the biggest noise contributor right next to the stock AMD CPU fan. The case is pretty good and the Seagate's HDDs seems good as well. I may just invest in CPU and VGA fans.

Thanks.

 

[Ultralight]

You're welcome and I think you are very wise waiting this out because so much change is coming not only in hardware but in software as well, i.e., Windows Vista. The dust will need to settle and maybe that won't happen until Q2 2007.

 

[Googer]

Someone else just aked the same question a few days ago.
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=27&threadid=1849520&forumid=1

 

[pkme2]

It was recommended that I would best utilize the advantages of dual core by going pci-e too. Since several said the move was best for my needs, I've upgraded since.

 

[MDE]

You could grab a Socket 754 PCIe board and upgrade your video card, but if your system does what you need it to do, hang on until it's too slow for you.

 

[Zepper]

Unless there is something you need to do that requires PCI express, fageddaboudit.. At this point it's only for high end vid and RAID cards - likely all it will be needed for.

.bh.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: pkme2
It was recommended that I would best utilize the advantages of dual core by going pci-e too. Since several said the move was best for my needs, I've upgraded since.

What a BS statement. The video bus interface has little to do with the performance or funtion of any dual cpu setup. For many years now systems with AGP have been running 2 to 4 cpus.

When it comes to new bus specfications like sata or pci-e a ton of people (especially beginners) assume more than is actually true.

 

[pkme2]

Originally posted by: Googer

Originally posted by: pkme2
It was recommended that I would best utilize the advantages of dual core by going pci-e too. Since several said the move was best for my needs, I've upgraded since.

What a BS statement. The video bus interface has little to do with the performance or funtion of any dual cpu setup. For many years now systems with AGP have been running 2 to 4 cpus.

When it comes to new bus specfications like sata or pci-e a ton of people (especially beginners) assume more than is actually true.

You're saying that the other ATer's who recommended moving up to one of the better mobos for dual cores as BS?
And you're saying that AGP is better than PCI-e. I'm only following what was recommended to me and what I see on AT. So everything is BS now?

 

[Arcanedeath]

In pratice the only reason PCI-E is better than AGP is because you can get faster cheaper graphics cards for it, the best fairly avaible AGP card is a 7800GS w/ only 16 pipes compare to a 7900GTX or X1900XTX it just doesn't hold up, but unless you need a high end video card a 6800/X800 class video card should still hold you over on AGP untill the big need to upgrade kicks in. the other benifit of PCI-E is SLI/Crossfire but again prolly not something most users need. If I was in your shoes and was happy w/ the AIW9700pro this long an update to an AIWX800 should last awhile.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: pkme2

Originally posted by: Googer

Originally posted by: pkme2
It was recommended that I would best utilize the advantages of dual core by going pci-e too. Since several said the move was best for my needs, I've upgraded since.

What a BS statement. The video bus interface has little to do with the performance or funtion of any dual cpu setup. For many years now systems with AGP have been running 2 to 4 cpus.

When it comes to new bus specfications like sata or pci-e a ton of people (especially beginners) assume more than is actually true.

You're saying that the other ATer's who recommended moving up to one of the better mobos for dual cores as BS?
And you're saying that AGP is better than PCI-e. I'm only following what was recommended to me and what I see on AT. So everything is BS now?

I am not saying AGP is better than PCI-e. The Perepheral and graphical bus has nothing to do with dual core. Your CPU will not know the differance. PCI-e is irrelavant to dual core or multithreaded processing. It reminds me of all those (several hundred) "ATer's" who post things like "I just upgraded from SATA 150 to SATA 300 and my computer is now twice as fast" or getting a gigabit nic because you think it will speed up your internet conection ten fold.

Dual core or even IBM Gigacore will not benefit from PCI-e. Memory bandwith and inter-processor communicaion will help mulit cpu prosssing the most.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: Arcanedeath
In pratice the only reason PCI-E is better than AGP is because you can get faster cheaper graphics cards for it, the best fairly avaible AGP card is a 7800GS w/ only 16 pipes compare to a 7900GTX or X1900XTX it just doesn't hold up, but unless you need a high end video card a 6800/X800 class video card should still hold you over on AGP untill the big need to upgrade kicks in. the other benifit of PCI-E is SLI/Crossfire but again prolly not something most users need. If I was in your shoes and was happy w/ the AIW9700pro this long an update to an AIWX800 should last awhile.

Full Duplex read and write is the only advantage a PCI-e card has over similar AGP card. If you want an 79/7800 or x1900 then you need PCI-e. If you have less to spend then AGP should be considerd. An ASrock based ULi M1695 motherboard is a nice way to bridge the gap should you have an AGP card that you wish to keep.