Should I switch over to the A64 just yet?

[50]

What do you guys think with my current specs (see sig)? Basically I would sell the mobo, processor, heatsink, PSU(?), and do I need new RAM(The stuff I have right now isn't dual channel)? What would be the average cost to upgrade?

 

[EeyoreX]

Something wrong with your current rig? It looks good to me. There is no need for 64-bit desktops at this time. There is no 64-bit software. Admitedly there is some speed to be gained when running 32-bit applications on a 64-bit machine, but really, what person notices this for the most part. Unless all they do is watch benchmark numbers...

In short, wait until it's cheaper or you actually need it. That's my opinion.

\Dan

 

[lobadobadingdong]

if you have the money, the a64 3000+ rig is a good upgrade path from that, the memory is fine, unless you need ultra fast memory, personally, I prefure to have the larger quanities.

 

[50]

Alright then, I guess I'll wait at least until there is a windows 64 bit OS. Thanks guys

 

[mrgoblin]

Wait for pci express socket 939 newcastle cpus. gg

 

[Jeff7181]

I'm so sick of hearing the "there's no use for 64-bit processing in home" and "there's no 64-bit software out yet" arguments against the Athlon-64. Maybe you haven't noticed, but the Athlon-64 is backward compatible with ALL 32-bit software and it performs VERY well running 32-bit software. Damn... look at the benchmarks... people act as if the Athlon-64 is like the Itanium and if you buy it you MUST be buying it for it's 64-bit capabilities. Gawd!!!

 

[Sid59]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I'm so sick of hearing the "there's no use for 64-bit processing in home" and "there's no 64-bit software out yet" arguments against the Athlon-64. Maybe you haven't noticed, but the Athlon-64 is backward compatible with ALL 32-bit software and it performs VERY well running 32-bit software. Damn... look at the benchmarks... people act as if the Athlon-64 is like the Itanium and if you buy it you MUST be buying it for it's 64-bit capabilities. Gawd!!!

indeed. i have to agree.

"most people" don't need a bunch of clock speed either. the ones that need the clock speed performance are the ENTHUSIASTS. Right now, the AMD 64 in all forms are for the ENTHUSIASTS.

people just need something to hate.

 

[Jeff7181]

MOST PEOPLE don't NEED a computer period. There are very few people who's computer is their livelihood.

 

[Shockwave]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I'm so sick of hearing the "there's no use for 64-bit processing in home" and "there's no 64-bit software out yet" arguments against the Athlon-64. Maybe you haven't noticed, but the Athlon-64 is backward compatible with ALL 32-bit software and it performs VERY well running 32-bit software. Damn... look at the benchmarks... people act as if the Athlon-64 is like the Itanium and if you buy it you MUST be buying it for it's 64-bit capabilities. Gawd!!!

There IS no need for 64 bit in the home. You think someone playin UT or whatever the game of the month is is really gonna see leaps and bounds difference between his 32 bit and 64 bit CPU?? And considering MOST people run a decently clocked CPU to begin with, why waste the money just to have the latest and greatest unless ALL you care about are benchmarks.
Quit lookin at benchmark numbers and just enjoy your PC, cause if its over a gig its plenty for todays apps.

 

[magomago]

there is no such thing as dual channel RAM

Just make sure its matching sticks and you are fine

 

[NFS4]

Originally posted by: Shockwave

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I'm so sick of hearing the "there's no use for 64-bit processing in home" and "there's no 64-bit software out yet" arguments against the Athlon-64. Maybe you haven't noticed, but the Athlon-64 is backward compatible with ALL 32-bit software and it performs VERY well running 32-bit software. Damn... look at the benchmarks... people act as if the Athlon-64 is like the Itanium and if you buy it you MUST be buying it for it's 64-bit capabilities. Gawd!!!

There IS no need for 64 bit in the home. You think someone playin UT or whatever the game of the month is is really gonna see leaps and bounds difference between his 32 bit and 64 bit CPU?? And considering MOST people run a decently clocked CPU to begin with, why waste the money just to have the latest and greatest unless ALL you care about are benchmarks.
Quit lookin at benchmark numbers and just enjoy your PC, cause if its over a gig its plenty for todays apps.

WTH dude??? You can get an Athlon 64 3000+ for ~$210-215 and it's one of the fastest things out there. It runs cool (a hell of a lot cooler than a P4), it performs well, and you can get a decent motherboard for it for $80 shipped. You also shouldn't discount its "Quiet N Cool" technology which allows the Socket 754 Athlon 64 processors to dynamically underclock/undervolt the CPU from 800MHz to 2000MHz and 1.3v to 1.5v on demand depending on application load. It's all seemsless to the user as it does this all on its own. With this technology, the CPU fan on my 3200+ oftens stops completely while doing normal stuff on my PC.

Damn playa hatas!!!!!

 

[lobadobadingdong]

Originally posted by: NFS4

Originally posted by: Shockwave

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I'm so sick of hearing the "there's no use for 64-bit processing in home" and "there's no 64-bit software out yet" arguments against the Athlon-64. Maybe you haven't noticed, but the Athlon-64 is backward compatible with ALL 32-bit software and it performs VERY well running 32-bit software. Damn... look at the benchmarks... people act as if the Athlon-64 is like the Itanium and if you buy it you MUST be buying it for it's 64-bit capabilities. Gawd!!!

There IS no need for 64 bit in the home. You think someone playin UT or whatever the game of the month is is really gonna see leaps and bounds difference between his 32 bit and 64 bit CPU?? And considering MOST people run a decently clocked CPU to begin with, why waste the money just to have the latest and greatest unless ALL you care about are benchmarks.
Quit lookin at benchmark numbers and just enjoy your PC, cause if its over a gig its plenty for todays apps.

WTH dude??? You can get an Athlon 64 3000+ for ~$210-215 and it's one of the fastest things out there. It runs cool (a hell of a lot cooler than a P4), it performs well, and you can get a decent motherboard for it for $80 shipped. You also shouldn't discount its "Quiet N Cool" technology which allows the Socket 754 Athlon 64 processors to dynamically underclock/undervolt the CPU from 800MHz to 2000MHz and 1.3v to 1.5v on demand depending on application load. It's all seemsless to the user as it does this all on its own. With this technology, the CPU fan on my 3200+ oftens stops completely while doing normal stuff on my PC.

Damn playa hatas!!!!!

quick question on the quiet n' cool thing, will it ramp down if you have a DC project running like seti@home? if so I may have to pass, even though it wails on video games.

 

[Megatomic]

I'd wait for the new motherboard chipsets to come out in force:

1. SiS 755FX built into a highend motherboard from a Tier 1 manufacturer (Abit, ASUS, MSI)
2. NForce3 250
3. K8T800 Pro built into a highend motherboard from a Tier 1 manufacturer (/broken record)

I'd also wait for Socket939 before jumping.

These are the things preventing me from getting an A64 system at this time.

 

[NFS4]

Originally posted by: lobadobadingdong

Originally posted by: NFS4

Originally posted by: Shockwave

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I'm so sick of hearing the "there's no use for 64-bit processing in home" and "there's no 64-bit software out yet" arguments against the Athlon-64. Maybe you haven't noticed, but the Athlon-64 is backward compatible with ALL 32-bit software and it performs VERY well running 32-bit software. Damn... look at the benchmarks... people act as if the Athlon-64 is like the Itanium and if you buy it you MUST be buying it for it's 64-bit capabilities. Gawd!!!

There IS no need for 64 bit in the home. You think someone playin UT or whatever the game of the month is is really gonna see leaps and bounds difference between his 32 bit and 64 bit CPU?? And considering MOST people run a decently clocked CPU to begin with, why waste the money just to have the latest and greatest unless ALL you care about are benchmarks.
Quit lookin at benchmark numbers and just enjoy your PC, cause if its over a gig its plenty for todays apps.

WTH dude??? You can get an Athlon 64 3000+ for ~$210-215 and it's one of the fastest things out there. It runs cool (a hell of a lot cooler than a P4), it performs well, and you can get a decent motherboard for it for $80 shipped. You also shouldn't discount its "Quiet N Cool" technology which allows the Socket 754 Athlon 64 processors to dynamically underclock/undervolt the CPU from 800MHz to 2000MHz and 1.3v to 1.5v on demand depending on application load. It's all seemsless to the user as it does this all on its own. With this technology, the CPU fan on my 3200+ oftens stops completely while doing normal stuff on my PC.

Damn playa hatas!!!!!

quick question on the quiet n' cool thing, will it ramp down if you have a DC project running like seti@home? if so I may have to pass, even though it wails on video games.

(1) The CPU will run at full speed if the application demands it. So yes, it should run at 100% while running SETI
(2) You can disable Quiet N Cool altogether. In fact, it's disabled by default. Your motherboard BIOS must support the feature and you must set your power scheme to "Minimal Power Management" in Windows.

 

[drag]

Bah. I still am going to wait for the price to go down. I wouldn't mind the 64bit stuff and since I am a linux user I can actually USE the 64bit-ness of the platform right now instead of waiting for it like you windows guys.

But I am going to go SMP and I am not made of $$. But I am looking forward to it. With the very fast busses and stuff that we are going to be using the extra proccessing power will actually be usefull and not be choked to death on a shared cpu buss like current Pentium/Athlon-based stuff.

 

[Mem]

I think the Athlon 64 is a great CPU but right now with the different board chipsets coming out, let alone variation in Athon 64 socket type and PCI Express etc,I think it`s best to wait.

You don`t need an Athlon 64 right now, that`s the bottom line,by all means if you have the cash to burn and want one go for it.
Personally I`m going to wait awhile.

 

[NFS4]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
I'd wait for the new motherboard chipsets to come out in force:

1. SiS 755FX built into a highend motherboard from a Tier 1 manufacturer (Abit, ASUS, MSI)
2. NForce3 250
3. K8T800 Pro built into a highend motherboard from a Tier 1 manufacturer (/broken record)

I'd also wait for Socket939 before jumping.

These are the things preventing me from getting an A64 system at this time.

WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT. Why do I hear that so many times on these boards? If you wait, you'll be waiting forever.

For the HERE AND NOW, the 3000+ is a value that is hard to beat coupled with the low motherboard prices. Besides, AMD has plans to support Socket 754 thoughout 2004 so what's the problem?

 

[Megatomic]

NFS4:

Patience is a virtue. Look before you leap. The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.



Moral of the story? Good things come to those who wait.

/Aesop

 

[Mem]

Knowing when to buy is better then jumping in and hoping you`ve the best buy .

 

[drag]

Because I spent 70 dollars on my current CPU a few months ago. It's still plenty fast for what I use it for. Why should I go out and spend 200+ dollars on a new CPU and another 100+ dollars on a new motherboard for it, when I have other bottlenecks on my system.

There are plenty of reasons to upgrade right now, but nothing to compeling.

My personal preferance is to wait untill Doom 3 comes out actually, and since I am not going to pre-order it it's going to be a couple of months until I actually get around to get it.

So, since I am not going to buy a new computer every 3 months, I might as well wait for mine to get mostly obsolete untill I abandon it for 64bit. And pentiums aren't even going to be in my future, too. Since I want my computer to last as long as possible, I know in 3-4 years when my new PC (6 months into the future) will end up being religated to the task of a file/media server I want to be able to run several gigs of RAM which the pentium4/5 won't be able to handle and perform well.

After all, unless he is a huge gamer, what is a AMD64 going to be able to for him that a 2.4Pentium can't, right now?

(current set up. Ancient k7s5a that I bought when they were new with the 1.13ghz Thunderbird and Gforce2 GTS-v. I choose this motherboard with the expressed intrest in long livety and cost performance. It did very well for me. Since it was new, I upgraded the ram to 768Megs, upgraded to a OC 1700+, upgraded the harddive to 80gig 7200 with 8meg cache and bought a Audigy sound card and CD burner for it. It's a nice machine and saved me lots of money. 32-bit x86 has been very good to me. 64bit within a few months will offer me a nice new upgrade path for the next couple years. But not just yet. I want THOSE FASTER BUSS SPEEDS)

 

[NFS4]

Originally posted by: Mem
Knowing when to buy is better then jumping in and hoping you`ve the best buy .

Well, continue to wait then

If someone is looking to build a fast system system NOW, they are in no position to wait and wait and wait for the next best thing to come around.

But different strokes for different folks. You buy what you want No one has tabs on my wallet so it's all good

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: NFS4
If someone is looking to build a fast system system NOW, they are in no position to wait and wait and wait for the next best thing to come around.

But who needs a new ultra fast computer in such a bad way that they can't wait a month or more? You make it sound like someone waiting for a liver/kidney/heart transplant.

But different strokes for different folks. You buy what you want No one has tabs on my wallet so it's all good

You are absolutely right here. :beer:

 

[jdogg707]

The issue is, that in a month or so their will be something new "possibly" worth waiting another month or two, etc. When upgrading your computer, it's all about the here and now...Aesop never had to make a decision about which processor to purchase...When technology moves so quickly, it is hard to wait around for the "right time", because the right time is now or never. I say go for it, enjoy it, and stop waiting around for the next big thing, just to be dissapointed by the bigger thing coming around the corner next...

 

[txxxx]

If your having to ask - i really doubt you need.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: jdogg707
The issue is, that in a month or so their will be something new "possibly" worth waiting another month or two, etc. When upgrading your computer, it's all about the here and now...Aesop never had to make a decision about which processor to purchase...When technology moves so quickly, it is hard to wait around for the "right time", because the right time is now or never. I say go for it, enjoy it, and stop waiting around for the next big thing, just to be dissapointed by the bigger thing coming around the corner next...

Well, each of those chipsets (755FX excepted) correct major deficiencies in each of their predecessors. IMHO it's less than intelligent to go out and buy product X today knowing it has problems when you know full well that the new product X Rev. 2.0 is coming out in a month or two and it is much improved.

NForce 3 250 is coming. K8T800 Pro is coming.