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Pro's and Con's with these two setups? (Trying to decide which one to get)

T

troligt

Member
Hey everyone,

First post, but longtime reader and computer user/builder.

Background: It's time to upgrade my P4 2.4 and my Geforce 5900 128mb into something else. Granted, I've been an Intel system user for a long time, but I'm open-minded and I am, like most of us I would assume, wanting the "best bang for my bucks". Having said all this, I'm a huge fan of Asus products and I am likewise very very hesistant to ever touch an ATI product ever again (early version of 9800 pro card kept me up many nights), so keep that in mind when you see my future configuration specs or give recomendations.

So, what do I use my computer for? Games (online and offline), DVD/CD burning, and then various office applications (Word/Excel/HTML Editing) along with the usual mail/browsing/downloading/chatting. So, nothing out of the ordinary there. Overclocking is not a concern for me as I won't do much, if any, of it.

The only thing I'm going to upgrade is memory/motherboard/cpu/graphics card. My DVD burner (NEC 3520), drives (2xMaxtor Maxline III 300GB 16MB SATA), soundcard (Creative Audigy 2 THX Ex.), PSU (Antec 540/550 watt (forgot exact number, at work now)) inside my Lian Li case are things I'm perfectly happy with.

My dilemma now is nothing out of the ordinary either, AMD or Intel? - I've written down two different configurations for you to view and give input on. Basically they come out about the same in price, give or take $100 or so, and I would like to know which of the two systems you would get, and why? Strengths and weakness, along with thoughts on other choice of hardware are the things I'm looking for from you (should you want and find the time to help me). Also, if there is something "coming-out-very-soon-that-makes-a-major-impact-and-you-should-wait-on-that" I would be pleased to hear that, as I'm not as much in the loop on hardware as I used to be, altho I'm trying to read up on it now.

Here are the two system configurations I'm currently pondering about, AGP is simply not an option for me at this point due to the fact that I want future upgradability without having to make another major system overhaul again within the year or so:

Intel
------
Asus P5AD2-E Premium (Intel 925XE)
Intel Pentium 4 540 Prescott 3.2GHz HT 1MB 800Mhz
Corsair 2x512Mb Dual DDR2 PC4200 CAS4 533MHz Unbuffered
Asus Extreme Geforce 6800 256MB PCI-E

AMD:
------
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe (AMD 939 Nforce 4)
AMD Athlon64 Winchester 90nm 3200+ 2000mhz/2.0GHz 512kb
Corsair 2x512Mb Dual DDR PC3200 400MHz 184pin Unbuffered CL2.5
2x (SLI) Asus Extreme Geforce 6600GT 128MB PCI-E

Any thoughts or input are greatly appreciated, even tho I expect the subject not to be exactly thrilling to most to answer.

 
Interesting, you both have a very good point. The problem then would be to actually find anyone with 6800 GT's in stock, I've only seen 6800's, not any GT's or Ultras for sale here as PCI-E, and I'd have to go with another brand other than Asus, since they haven't (per their webpage) released any GT's or Ultras as 6800 w. PCI-E yet.

 
I live in Sweden, so only companies that ship internationally are companies I can use, aside from the local ones obviously :/
 
DDR2 is very expensive with no performance benefit right now, so don't consider an Intel setup if it uses that.

Go with an AGP board and AGP 6800GT if you need to right now; that card should last you quite a while, and AGP support should still be around at least another year. Good AGP boards include the Epox EP-9NDA3+ and MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum; the Asus S939 board uses the somewhat inferior VIA K8T800 Pro chipset (the others are NF3). Get 2x512MB value RAM from Corsair/Crucial/Mushkin to go along with this.

The 3200+ S939 is a very good CPU choice. It is a Winchester-core processor, which means that it will almost always easily overclock to 2.6-2.7GHz. You can often make these speeds on the stock cooler (a Zalman 7000/7700 AlCu may be in order if you need something quieter, though), and even get to 2.2 or 2.4 without increasing CPU voltage. Even if you decide not to do this, you still have a very good chip.



 
I can wait a month or so without any problems. I can use my current setup for a little while longer and later turn that into a smoothwall and hide away in my hall. I really don't wanna go with AGP because that would mean I would be forced to grab a new motherboard (and possibly memory/cpu) the next time I want to make a minor upgrade - such as replacing the video card alone. If I go PCI-E, even tho the increased benefits today is almost non-existant, at least I feel that I am a tad more "future-proof", albeit in terms of computer hardware and being future proof I may just be kidding myself.

As it stands right now, I think I'm gonna wait a month or so, and then grab a Nforce 4 ultra or sli mobo, along with a PCI-E 6800GT or Ultra as soon as they become readily available and then place a "good bang for the buck" AMD winchester on it.

The thing I am a bit worried about is how much of a "sacrifice" going AMD is in terms of multitasking? I'm well aware of AMD's power in terms of bang for the buck, OC'ing and gaming performance, but I hear time and time again that it is seriously behind in terms of multitasking. And since I'm often down-/uploading stuff, listening to music and at the same time play some online games, I want to make sure that going AMD is not something I'd regret.

Anyone have any comparisons/stories between the two in terms of multitasking?

 
Realistically....how often do you do those 3 tasks at once????

Downloading/uploading is more likely to harm your gaming by eating up your bandwidth.....

i.e...I have a 2 Mbit cable connection with only 256kb upload..(am in UK..) I can download at around 220-230Kb/s without any impact on gaming....(ping rises by a couple of ms).....but if I start uploading at all(I know I upload when I download...overheads and communication etc) my gaming is severely disrupted

With the power of the system that you are building I don't see there being too much of a problem with listening to music while u play CS: Source or something else....

ffs I can play CS:Source with winamp in the background quite happily on the machine in my sig....you have nothing to worry about...

Edit::::typo!!
 
I'm sitting on a 12/9 mbit half duplex vdsl+ connection now that is gonna be upgraded (got fiber into apartment now) into a 100/100 mbit full duplex fiber within a couple of weeks, so bandwith isn't much of a problem in and of itself.

Being that I have never had an AMD system before myself I'm just (perhaps overly much so) afraid of making a mistake in terms of not being able to multitask without any major glitches.

From what I understand tho, since what I do ain't overly taxing on my system, I should be fine going the AMD route. Was just wanting feedback from users of both ends of the spectrum how they felt about it, that's all.

Thanks for the input and thoughts so far, greatly appreciated.

 
Athlon 64s multitask just fine. Anyone who tells you otherwise is an idiot. The fact that Pentium 4s multitask a tad bit better does not mean the Athlon 64s suck at it.
 
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