Is it worth the $100 extra dollars?

[MiranoPoncho]

A plain and frank question if i may: Is it worth the extra 100 dollars to purchase a 90nm a64 3000+ over its socket 754 counterpart, the a64 2800?

 

[imported_JeReMY]

Well, I hear the 3000+ is a good overclocker.

 

[jpeyton]

$100?

Last time I checked, a 2800+ was $130 and a 3000+ Winchester was $140 (at Monarchcomputer).

 

[MiranoPoncho]

Hmm the oc is tempting... and those prises sound about right for the cpu, but i was kinda refering to the newegg combo, a gigiabyte 754 mobo and an athlon 2800. for 183 that tends to be a rather good dea.. but i would have some deficits with that setup although..

 

[BW86]

What jpeyton said.

 

[jpeyton]

Well from a overclocking standpoint, a 2800+ and a VNF3-250 (a good overclocking board), will run you around ~200.

A Winchester 3000+ and a K8N Neo2 will run you around $275.

The Winchester will probably overclock better; and 939 is a faster platform than 754.

I'd say its worth the money.

 

[Thermalrock]

i would say it depends on how much 100$ mean to you. and of course how much the performance difference of those two setups means to you.

 

[tallman45]

There is a lot more to system performance than CPU clock speed. There is a lot of additional memory bandwidth that a .90 proc provides via it's dual channel layout.

Go with a .90 939 proc

 

[Mrvile]

Definately worth the money, because you aren't only getting better performance, you are also proofing yourself for the future with the purchase of 939 socket and Winchester (90nm) core.

 

[AMDbloke]

i agree with Mrvile

but still the 2800+ 64 newcastles are good overclockers. from what ive read on other forums the C0 2800+ 64 can reach past 2400 Mhz speeds.

 

[Thermalrock]

winchester price = newcaste price +/- 5 bucks. whatever you do do NOT buy a newcastle.

 

[AMDbloke]

whats wrong with newcastles?
theyre good chips and overclock nice.

i bought my newcastle a few months ago before the winchester was introduced. I didnt regret getting it one bit. There's hardly any major advantages of getting a winchester, but for buying 939. Dont matter anyway for me, glad i got a dual socket mobo.

 

[Thermalrock]

buying newcastle was fine before winchesters were around, like buying dx/2 66s in 1991. now theres winchester and its available for the same price needs less power and stays cooler. there not one reason to get a newcastle unless you wanna buy one second hand and get a good deal.

 

[Thermalrock]

buying asrock however has always been a very umm questionable choice.

 

[CaiNaM]

harder to say when comparing different clockspeeds, but at similar clockspeeds, the s939 in only a few % faster than an s754. is that worth $100 to you?

basically the differences are:

Dual Channel Memory (s939) vs Single Channel Memory (s754)
Four DIMM's avail (s939) vs 3 DIMM'S (s754)
1000Mhz Hyper Transport Bus Speed (s939) vs 800Mhz (s754)
consumes slightly less power than s754's
939 claimed to run cooler than s754 ( tho my s939 runs the same temp as my s754)

performance differences have not been noticeable to me, tho benchmarks may show a slight advantage to s939. there may be an advantage in future upgrade paths, but not postive on that.