Recommendation for a Socket 939 motherboard??

[imported_jondoe]

Just building my dream PC, hopefully to last me a while

Thinking of a A64 3800 (does anyone think the 4200 is really worth it at current prices, or I am just being naive? Will the 3800 be obsolete before I know it?)

Does anyone have any recommendations for the best 939 motherboard?

And while I'm on it, is PCIe really worth it? (I apologise if I'm not hot on the recent product info, it's been a while)

 

[Schadenfroh]

And while I'm on it, is PCIe really worth it? (I apologise if I'm not hot on the recent product info, it's been a while)

It does not provide a speed improvement unless you are running sli, but it is the future. If you did not drop $400 on an AGP card shortly before PCI-E came out like i did, then go PCI-E. I went for the Socket 939 nforce 3 ultra because of my video card. But if i needed a new video card, i would have surely went Nforce4 SLI / PCI-E

 

[suszterpatt]

There's a great thread over in the Motherboards subforum that will help you with your decision. Personally, I'd say get a DFI board and OC the hell out of it.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

Welcome to AT!

There are many versions of the AMD chips, often using the same names (3500, 3800 etc.) Generally, the "performance rating" will accurately describe the chip's capabilities, within AMD's products. Comparing it to Intel's stuff is not so easy. I suggest buying only the latest versions of the A64: Venice, San Diego, or X2 if you can swing it.

If you are building a new system, PCI-E is the only way to go. It would be a mistake to build an AGP box from scratch, as you won't likely be able to upgrade for very long, if at all. PCI-E is usually a little cheaper, too.

SLI is stictly for suckers. Example: A year ago, you could buy a 6800 Ultra for about $600, and plan on adding a second one later. The 6800 Ultra is like $500 today. 2 6800 Ultras will get spanked by this years best card, the $500 7800GTX.

Look for a motherboard that uses the nvidia nforce4 chipset. They are consistantly the best.

 

[suicidalpigeon]

x2 3800+ can overclock to 4200+'s and even higher with the right steps taken. a good all around board is the epox 9npa, high end overclocking would be the dfi ultra-d, budget is the msi k8n neo4. a very good board that recently came out is the asrock 939 dual sata2, incredibly cheap, but performs phenomenally well. anandtech has reviews on this board.

 

[imported_jondoe]

Right, I'm getting there now.

I'm *think* I'm doing the right thing with the 3800+ X2 CPU. Gaming performance may not be up to some of the Venice chips but overall I think I should get some reasonable performance and it should last me a while (although I've kidded myself into that one before). Someone tell me now if they really think I should back away from the X2....

So:

3800+ X2
Epox 9NPA+ Ultra
2GB DDR400

Any recommendation on the PCIe card that is going to go into my beast?

 

[Gadzookie]

7800 gt if you can afford it

 

[firewolfsm]

buy only 1GB of ram now (upgrade later) and use the extra money to get better core components like your CPU and GPU.

dula-core is very good for encoding media and stuff like that, but there is not one game that is multi-threaded yet. for the price of a 2.0GHz 3800+ you can get a 2.4GHz 4000+ which will be much better now, and maybe better later too since it's more overclockable.

i would recomend either the X800XL or the 7800GT depending on your budget.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: Gadzookie
7800 gt if you can afford it

There are some pretty darn affordable ones out there relatively speaking :thumbsup:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=321958

 

[imported_jondoe]

You see I think I have a problem with being indecisive. I have a number of friends on one side saying go for the San Diego, theres no point in getting the Dual Core, nothing uses Dual Core yet... I still have this nagging feeling that buying the X2 would be the best longer-term strategy and the techreport.com review I read had almost had me convinced (http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2005q3/athlon64-x2-3800/index.x?pg=1)

So what do I do? I'll be using for gaming when/if I have the time (spot of Doom, Splinter Cell every couple of weeks) but this will be my day-to-day beast for all things office based and the occasional spot of burning DVDs.

Someone pull the trigger and make the decision for me.

 

[1Dark1Sharigan1]

Originally posted by: jondoe
You see I think I have a problem with being indecisive. I have a number of friends on one side saying go for the San Diego, theres no point in getting the Dual Core, nothing uses Dual Core yet... I still have this nagging feeling that buying the X2 would be the best longer-term strategy and the techreport.com review I read had almost had me convinced (http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2005q3/athlon64-x2-3800/index.x?pg=1)

So what do I do? I'll be using for gaming when/if I have the time (spot of Doom, Splinter Cell every couple of weeks) but this will be my day-to-day beast for all things office based and the occasional spot of burning DVDs.

Someone pull the trigger and make the decision for me.

The only reason anyone would pick SD over X2 is if they are a HARDCORE gamer who spends 90% if his time on the comp gaming. But we all know that even such gamers would like to have some stuff running in the background while gaming (IM, DVD burning, encoding, running virus scans, etc. comes to mind) Just try to burn a DVD at 16x, running a virus scan while playing Doom 3 on a 3700+ SD even o'c to 2.8-3.0ghz. Not gonna happen. So go for X2 and laugh at just how fast programs such as Photoshop run, how much smoother movies play (especially with H.264 since true H.264 video will be sluggish on any current processor except dual cores), and multitask like crazy because we all know we love to multitask.

An X2 3800+ can OC to anywhere from 2.4-2.6Ghz+ at which point it isn't really much worse for gaming than a SD @ 2.8 Ghz especially consider newer VGA drivers that take advantage of Dual Core . . . Also remember that even 7800 isn't really CPU limited at the higher res/quality settings unless you plan on SLI . . . (which if you could afford 2 7800GTs, you could probably afford an X2 4400+)

 

[Kenazo]

My system:

DFI Lanparty NF4 Ultra-D
s939-3000
PCIe 6600GT (the Gigabyte one w/ passive cooling)
2x1GB OCZ EL ram

It flies and I'm not even overclocking yet.

 

[LarryK]

EPoX EP-9NPA+Ultra Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra

 

[alimoalem]

go to the motherboard forum. The Pentium Guy wrote a motherboard thread on what are the pros/cons/prices of certain motherboards. it should help a lot
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=29&threadid=1639727&enterthread=y

posting your budget would help members help you, too. cause hell, if you want, get the x2 4800. we don't know if your budget is $600 or $3000.
a good card would be the x800gto or x800gto2. 7800gt is good too. for lower budgets, the 6600gt or x700pro

 

[imported_jondoe]

Thanks for the advice - esp 1Dark1Sharigan1 - after much thought I'm going to go for the 3800 X2. The problem with budgets is sticking to them... so I'm kind of making it up as I feel necessary.

 

[Diasper]

Better yet - get the Operton 144 S939 and OC the snot out of it - it's got 1MB L2 cache and is cheaper than a San Diego or FX.

Then you could wait for dual-core to get cheaper or get a dual-core with 2 x 1MB cache or even if you waited 1.5 years the possibility of dual-core on 65nm. Also more things would take advantage of it/more problems ironed out.

Otherwise, just go 3800+ now and be happy.

 

[imported_jondoe]

Does

Gainward PowerPack! Ultra/3400PCX XP VIVO-DVI-DVI - graphics adapter - GF 7800 GT - 256 MB

sound reasonable for $447? And who are Gainward? And is there a pretty decent Graphics card available for around $350 (or even sub?)